Search results for: identification problems

Authors: Salah Al-Din I. Badran, Samad Ahmadi, Ismail Shahin

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A blind source separation method is proposed; in this method we use a non-uniform filter bank and a novel normalisation. This method provides a reduced computational complexity and increased convergence speed comparing to the full-band algorithm. Recently, adaptive sub-band scheme has been recommended to solve two problems: reduction of computational complexity and increase the convergence speed of the adaptive algorithm for correlated input signals. In this work the reduction in computational complexity is achieved with the use of adaptive filters of orders less than the full-band adaptive filters, which operate at a sampling rate lower than the sampling rate of the input signal. The decomposed signals by analysis bank filter are less correlated in each sub-band than the input signal at full bandwidth, and can promote better rates of convergence.

Keywords: blind source separation, computational complexity, subband, convergence speed, mixture

Procedia PDF Downloads 541

Authors: Ozlem Durna Aydin, Gultekin Yildiz

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Antibiotics are microbial metabolites with low molecular weight produced by fungi and algae, inhibiting the development of other microorganisms even in low growth. Antibiotics have been used as growth factors in animal feeds for many years. They prohibited; because of increased residue problem and increased resistance to antibiotics in bacteria due to prolonged use. Aromatic plants and extracts have attracted the attention of scientists nowadays due to positive reasons such as confidence of the community to the products those are coming from nature, desire to consume, and no residue problems. Plant extracts are obtained from aromatic plants, and they come forward with antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant and antilipidemic properties. It has been stated that intestinal histomorphology and microbiosis are positively affected by the use of plant extract in feeds. In the present day, aromatic plants and extracts are a remarkable research field with intriguing unknowns in the field of animal nutrition, and they continue to exist in the journal in vitro and in vivo studies.

Keywords: aromatic plant, broilers, extract mechanism of action, intestinal health

Procedia PDF Downloads 155

Authors: A. Veeresh Babu, M. Vijay Kumar, P. Ravi Kumar, Katam Ganesh Babu

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Biodiesel can be considered as a potential alternative fuel for compression ignition engines. These can be obtained from various resources. However, the usage of biodiesel in high percentage in compression ignition may cause some technical problems because of their higher viscosity, high pour point, and low volatility. Ethanol can be used as a fuel extender to enable use of higher percentage of biodiesel in CI engine. Blends of ethanol-animal fat oil biodiesel-diesel have been prepared and experimental study has been carried out. We have found that B40E20 fuel blend (40% biodiesel and 20 % ethanol in diesel) reduces the specific fuel consumption and improves brake thermal efficiency of engine compared to B40 fuel blend. We observed that fuel characteristics improved considerably with addition of ethanol to biodiesel. Emissions of CO, HC and smoke were reduced while CO2 emissions were increased because of more complete combustion of the blend.

Keywords: diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, CI engine, engine performance, exhaust emission

Procedia PDF Downloads 703

Authors: Abobaker Mohammed Qasem Farhan, Olof M. A. Saif

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The demand for parking spaces in urban areas, particularly in developing countries, has led to a significant issue in the absence of sufficient parking spaces in crowded areas, which results in daily traffic congestion as drivers search for parking. This not only affects the appearance of the city but also has indirect impacts on the economy, society, and environment. In response to these challenges, researchers from various countries have sought technical and intelligent solutions to mitigate the problem through the development of smart parking systems. This paper aims to analyze and design three models of parking lots, with a focus on parking time and security. The study used computer software and Uppaal tools to simulate the models and determine the best among them. The results and suggestions provided in the paper aim to reduce the parking problems and improve the overall efficiency and safety of the parking process. The conclusion of the study highlights the importance of utilizing advanced technology to address the pressing issue of insufficient parking spaces in urban areas.

Keywords: preliminaries, system requirements, timed Au- tomata, Uppaal

Procedia PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Mihaela Alina Stanciu, Daniel Toma

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With a touristic and economic potential among the highest in our country, Neamț County has a large number of impressive storage lakes (Izvoru Muntelui – Bicaz, Bâtca Doamnei, Vaduri, Pângărați), with high hydrographic capacities, but also a diversity of biotopes and habitats. Being an area with frequent exceedances of environmental quality indicators, we analyzed in this work their impact on the water quality parameters in three of the most visited lakes of Neamț County: Bâtca Doamnei, Vaduri, and Pângărați. An additional reason is the risk of the water eutrophication process in these lakes, representing one of the first six most important pollution problems worldwide. During the research carried out over a period of four years (2020 – 2024), we identified the major sources of water pollution for the mentioned reservoirs. We analyzed the type of impact produced by each source separately, and we proposed preventiong and control measures detailed according to their action on water quality parameters.

Keywords: ecosystem, environment, eutrophication, lakes, nutrients, pollution, water quality

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Authors: R. G. Ariyawansa, M. A. N. R. M. Perera

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“House” is a powerful symbol of socio-economic background of individuals and families. In fact, housing provides all types of needs/wants from basic needs to self-actualization needs. This phenomenon can be realized only having analyzed hidden motives of buyers and sellers of the housing market. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the socio-economic insight of the secondary housing market in Colombo suburbs. This broader aim was achieved via analyzing the general pattern of the secondary housing market, identifying socio-economic motives of sellers of the secondary housing market, and reviewing sellers’ experience of buyer behavior. A purposive sample of 50 sellers from popular residential areas in Colombo such as Maharagama, Kottawa, Piliyandala, Punnipitiya, and Nugegoda was used to collect primary data instead of relevant secondary data from published and unpublished reports. The sample was limited to selling price ranging from Rs15 million to Rs25 million, which apparently falls into middle and upper-middle income houses in the context. Participatory observation and semi-structured interviews were adopted as key data collection tools. Data were descriptively analyzed. This study found that the market is mainly handled by informal agents who are unqualified and unorganized. People such as taxi/tree-wheel drivers, boutique venders, security personals etc. are engaged in housing brokerage as a part time career. Few fulltime and formally organized agents were found but they were also not professionally qualified. As far as housing quality is concerned, it was observed that 90% of houses was poorly maintained and illegally modified. They are situated in poorly maintained neighborhoods as well. Among the observed houses, 2% was moderately maintained and 8% was well maintained and modified. Major socio-economic motives of sellers were “migrating foreign countries for education and employment” (80% and 10% respectively), “family problems” (4%), and “social status” (3%). Other motives were “health” and “environmental/neighborhood problems” (3%). This study further noted that the secondary middle income housing market in the area directly related with the migrants who motivated for education in foreign countries, mainly Australia, UK and USA. As per the literature, families motivated for education tend to migrate Colombo suburbs from remote areas of the country. They are seeking temporary accommodation in lower middle income housing. However, the secondary middle income housing market relates with the migration from Colombo to major global cities. Therefore, final transaction price of this market may depend on migration related dates such as university deadlines, visa and other agreements. Hence, it creates a buyers’ market lowering the selling price. Also it was revealed that the buyers tend to trust more on this market as far as the quality of construction of houses is concerned than brand new houses which are built for selling purpose.

Keywords: informal housing market, hidden motives of buyers and sellers, secondary housing market, socio-economic insight

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Authors: Aparajita Mukherjee, D. P. Mukherjee

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This paper critically assessed pollution problems in small and medium enterprises with unique references to foundries and sponge iron industries to survey the adverse impact on human societies and the environment. The objective of this paper was to show how cleaner production concept was implemented in one foundry through improvisation of existing technology in India. Incremental advancement of existing technology minimized environmental issues and resource utilization. This study depicted that poor fiscal help, poor enforcement of government regulations, owners’ attitude and lacking specialized technical workers were the significant hindrances towards cleaner production. The paper explored the possible ways to overcome these hindrances for cleaner production. On a more general level, findings raise important questions regarding the need for a new paradigm for the implementation of cleaner production. Improvisation of existing technology in these enterprises would be cost effective towards sustainable development.

Keywords: SME pollution, ecological crisis, sustainable development, cleaner production, training

Procedia PDF Downloads 359

Authors: Yohannes Yirga, Daniel Tesfay

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The convective heat and mass transfer in nanofluid flow through a porous media due to a permeable stretching sheet with magnetic field, viscous dissipation, and chemical reaction and Soret effects are numerically investigated. Two types of nanofluids, namely Cu-water and Ag-water were studied. The governing boundary layer equations are formulated and reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations and then solved numerically using the Keller box method. Numerical results are obtained for the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number as well as for the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles for selected values of the governing parameters. Excellent validation of the present numerical results has been achieved with the earlier linearly stretching sheet problems in the literature.

Keywords: heat and mass transfer, magnetohydrodynamics, nanofluid, fluid dynamics

Procedia PDF Downloads 281

Authors: Ahd Aljarf, Saad Amin

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Images are important source of information used as evidence during any investigation process. Their clarity and accuracy is essential and of the utmost importance for any investigation. Images are vulnerable to losing blocks and having noise added to them either after alteration or when the image was taken initially, therefore, having a high performance image processing system and it is implementation is very important in a forensic point of view. This paper focuses on improving the quality of the forensic images. For different reasons packets that store data can be affected, harmed or even lost because of noise. For example, sending the image through a wireless channel can cause loss of bits. These types of errors might give difficulties generally for the visual display quality of the forensic images. Two of the images problems: noise and losing blocks are covered. However, information which gets transmitted through any way of communication may suffer alteration from its original state or even lose important data due to the channel noise. Therefore, a developed system is introduced to improve the quality and clarity of the forensic images.

Keywords: image filtering, image reconstruction, image processing, forensic images

Procedia PDF Downloads 356

Authors: Zahra Akbari, Farzin Zokaee, Talat Ghomashchi

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Whey is a by-product of the dairy industry whose major components are lactose (44–52 g/L), proteins (6–8 g/L) and mineral salts (4–9 g/L). Approximately 50% of 121 million tons of whey produced in the world in 1993 were disposed into rivers, lakes or other water bodies, treated in wastewater treatment plants or loaded onto land. This represents a significant loss of resources and causes serious pollution problems since whey is a heavy organic pollutant with high COD and BOD values, 40–60 g/L and 50–80 g/L, respectively. The removal of cheese whey proteins and minerals represent an important task both in environmental and in food sciences. The most important treatments which are considered in this study, have been done by using lime, Al2O3, FeCl3 and AlCl3 along with heating and also acidic-alkaline method. Results show that the best way for removal of protein is accomplished with adding HCl to decrease pH from 6 to 4, boiling for 20 min, and filtering protein aggregates. Also partial demineralization in whey solution for reducing ash is accomplished by adding NaOH to increase pH to 7.2 and heating solution for 20 min.

Keywords: whey treatment, dairy industry, precipitation, protein, mineral

Procedia PDF Downloads 406

Authors: Alaa A. Ghanem, S. E. M. Desouky

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Natural gas (NG) is considered one of the most essential global energy sources. NG fields are often far away from the market, and a long-distance transporting pipeline usually is required. Production of NG with high content of CO₂ leads to severe problems such as equipment corrosion along with the production line until refinery.in addition to a high level of toxicity and decreasing in calorific value of the NG. So it is recommended to remove or decrease the CO₂ percent to meet transport specifications. This can be reached using different removal techniques such as physical and chemical absorption, pressure swing adsorption, membrane separation, or low-temperature separation. Many solvents and chemicals are being used to capture carbon dioxide on a large scale; among them, Ionic liquids have great potential due to their tunable properties; low vapour pressure, low melting point, and sensible thermal stability. In this research, three modifiedimidazolium ionic liquids will be synthesized and characterized using different tools of analysis such as FT-IR, 1H NMR. Thermal stability and surface activity will be studied. The synthesized compounds will be evaluated as selective solvents for CO₂ removal from natural gas using PVT cell.

Keywords: natural gas, CO₂ capture, imidazolium ionic liquid, PVT cell

Procedia PDF Downloads 164

Authors: Supriady R. P. Siregar, Rizki Barkah Aulia, Dhiya Fadilla Dewi

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Polybag is a plastic that is used to seed plants. The common type that used for polybag is a synthetic that made from petroleum such as polyethylene. Beside the character of the raw material that are non-renewable and limited, synthetic polybag ability to disintegrate in the environment is very low. According to that situation, we need a solution to overcome these problems by creating an environmentally friendly polybag. In this research, using the water hyacinth plant fibers (Eichornia crassipes) as a major component in manufacturing the environmentally friendly polybag, the water hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes) contains approximately 60% cellulose. The research method used is an experiment by testing the mechanical characters and biodegradability bio-polybag water hyacinth fibers (Eichornia crassipes) on three medium that is dissolved in water, river water and buried in soil. The research shows bio-polybag of hyacinth fibers can rapidly degraded. This study is expected to be the beginning of the creation bio-polybag of water hyacinth fiber (Eichornia crassipes) and can be applied in agriculture.

Keywords: revolution, biopolybag, renewable, environment

Procedia PDF Downloads 233

Authors: Abdelhafid Zenati, Mohamed Tadjine

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The mathematical formulation of biomedical problems is an important phase to understand and predict the dynamic of the controlled population. In this paper we perform a stability analysis of a coupled model for healthy and cancerous cells dynamics in Acute Myeloid Leukemia, this represents our first aim. Second, we illustrate the effect of the interconnection between healthy and cancer cells. The PDE-based model is transformed to a nonlinear distributed state space model (delay system). For an equilibrium point of interest, necessary and sufficient conditions of global asymptotic stability are given. Thus, we came up to give necessary and sufficient conditions of global asymptotic stability of the origin and the healthy situation and control of the dynamics of normal hematopoietic stem cells and cancerous during myelode Acute leukemia. Simulation studies are given to illustrate the developed results.

Keywords: distributed delay, global stability, modelling, nonlinear models, PDE, state space

Procedia PDF Downloads 247

Authors: Godwin Makaudze

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The majority of women in contemporary Zimbabwe continue to hold marginalised and insignificant positions in society and to be accorded negative and stereotyped images in literature. In light of this, government and civic organisations and even writers channel many resources, time, and efforts towards the emancipation of the female gender. Using the Africana womanist and socio-historical literary theories and focussing on two post-colonial novels, this paper re-engages the dis-empowerment of women in contemporary Zimbabwe, examining the believed causes and suggested solutions. The paper observes that the writers whip the already whipped by blaming patriarchy, African men and cultural practices as the underlying causes of such a sorry state of affairs while at the same time celebrating war against all these, as well as education, unity among women, Christianity and single motherhood as panaceas to the problem. The paper concludes that the writers’ anger is misdirected as they have fallen trap to the very popular yet mythical victim-blame motif espoused by many writers who focus on Shona people’s problems.

Keywords: cultural practices, female dis-empowerment, patriarchy, Shona novel, solutions, Zimbabwe

Procedia PDF Downloads 324

Authors: O. Ikpotokin

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In any production process, every product is aimed to attain a certain standard, but the presence of assignable cause of variability affects our process, thereby leading to low quality of product. The ability to identify and remove this type of variability reduces its overall effect, thereby improving the quality of the product. In case of a univariate control chart signal, it is easy to detect the problem and give a solution since it is related to a single quality characteristic. However, the problems involved in the use of multivariate control chart are the violation of multivariate normal assumption and the difficulty in identifying the quality characteristic(s) that resulted in the out of control signals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of non-parametric control chart (the bootstrap approach) for obtaining control limit to overcome the problem of multivariate distributional assumption and the p-value method for detecting out of control signals. Results from a performance study show that the proposed bootstrap method enables the setting of control limit that can enhance the detection of out of control signals when compared, while the p-value method also enhanced in identifying out of control variables.

Keywords: bootstrap control limit, p-value method, out-of-control signals, p-value, quality characteristics

Procedia PDF Downloads 339

Authors: Adya Uluwita, Fernando Pedrosa, Georgi Georgiev, Christian Bernard, Raoul Masterson

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CERN is an international organisation founded by 23 countries that provide the particle physics community with excellence in particle accelerators and other related facilities. Founded in 1954, CERN has a wide range of accelerators that allow groundbreaking science to be conducted. Accelerators bring particles to high levels of energy and make them collide with each other or with fixed targets, creating specific conditions that are of high interest to physicists. A chain of accelerators is used to ramp up the energy of particles and eventually inject them into the largest and most recent one: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Among this chain of machines is, for instance the Proton Synchrotron, which was started in 1959 and is still in operation. These machines, called "injectors”, keep evolving over time, as well as the related infrastructure. Massive decommissioning of obsolete cables started in 2015 at CERN in the frame of the so-called "injectors de-cabling project phase 1". Its goal was to replace aging cables and remove unused ones, freeing space for new cables necessary for upgrades and consolidation campaigns. To proceed with the de-cabling, a project co-ordination team was assembled. The start of this project led to the investigation of legacy cables throughout the organisation. The identification of cables stacked over half a century proved to be arduous. Phase 1 of the injectors de-cabling was implemented for 3 years with success after overcoming some difficulties. Phase 2, started 3 years later, focused on improving safety and structure with the introduction of a quality assurance procedure. This paper discusses the implementation of this quality assurance procedure throughout phase 2 of the project and the transition between the two phases. Over hundreds of kilometres of cable were removed in the injectors complex at CERN from 2015 to 2023.

Keywords: CERN, de-cabling, injectors, quality assurance procedure

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Authors: Y. Galerkin, E. Popova, K. Soldatova

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There is an evident trend to elevate pressure ratio of a single stage of a turbo compressors - axial compressors in particular. Whilst there was an opinion recently that a pressure ratio 1,9 was a reasonable limit, later appeared information on successful modeling tested of stages with pressure ratio up to 2,8. The Authors recon that lack of information on high pressure stages makes actual a study of rational choice of design parameters before high supersonic flow problems solving. The computer program of an engineering type was developed. Below is presented a sample of its application to study possible parameters of the impeller of the stage with pressure ratio π*=3,0. Influence of two main design parameters on expected efficiency, periphery blade speed and flow structure is demonstrated. The results had lead to choose a variant for further analysis and improvement by CFD methods.

Keywords: supersonic stage, impeller, efficiency, flow rate coefficient, work coefficient, loss coefficient, oblique shock, direct shock

Procedia PDF Downloads 454

Authors: Manoj Reghu, Prabhu Rajagopal, C. V. Krishnamurthy, Krishnan Balasubramaniam

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A thorough understanding of guided ultrasonic wave behavior in structures is essential for the application of existing Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE) technologies, as well as for the development of new methods. However, the analysis of guided wave phenomena is challenging because of their complex dispersive and multimodal nature. Although numerical solution procedures have proven to be very useful in this regard, the increasing complexity of features and defects to be considered, as well as the desire to improve the accuracy of inspection often imposes a large computational cost. Hybrid models that combine numerical solutions for wave scattering with faster alternative methods for wave propagation have long been considered as a solution to this problem. However usually such models require modification of the base code of the solution procedure. Here we aim to develop Generic Hybrid models that can be directly applied to any two different solution procedures. With this goal in mind, a Numerical Hybrid model and an Analytical-Numerical Hybrid model has been developed. The concept and implementation of these Hybrid models are discussed in this paper.

Keywords: guided ultrasonic waves, Finite Element Method (FEM), Hybrid model

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Authors: Ashish James, Anusha James

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The impressive predictive performance of deep learning techniques on a wide range of tasks has led to its widespread use. Estimating the confidence of these predictions is paramount for improving the safety and reliability of such systems. However, the uncertainty estimates provided by neural networks (NNs) tend to be overconfident and unreasonable. Ensemble of NNs typically produce good predictions but uncertainty estimates tend to be inconsistent. Inspired by these, this paper presents a framework that can quantitatively estimate the uncertainties by leveraging the advances in transfer learning through slight modification to the existing training pipelines. This promising algorithm is developed with an intention of deployment in real world problems which already boast a good predictive performance by reusing those pretrained models. The idea is to capture the behavior of the trained NNs for the base task by augmenting it with the uncertainty estimates from a supplementary network. A series of experiments with known and unknown distributions show that the proposed approach produces well calibrated uncertainty estimates with high quality predictions.

Keywords: uncertainty estimation, neural networks, transfer learning, regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 122

Authors: Esmaeil Khodadad

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The environment is one of the hotbeds of global politics. It is only necessary to emphasize the human being on this word, and to take it as a serious political-social debate, so as to prevent the collapse of the harmony of the system of nature governing the earth, the landlord and its creatures. Earth, water and humans are three interconnected arms that should be kept in balance and harmony. The collapse of one of these arms disrupts the entire framework of the philosophy of life on earth. Environmental issues were found worldwide in the late 20th century and were given serious attention by experts. At the same time, international environmental issues have brought to the forefront the challenges of international relations. These ideas have introduced environmental issues and some of the main features of the causes and consequences of global environmental change, as well as ways to deal with this change Has been discussed. The objectives of this study are environmental issues in the world and in Iran, and it shows what factors contribute to the formation of spatial systems and its supporting systems, and finally what the goals should be about the ideal state of the future of the global environment and its issues. The information required for this research is a combination of documentary, descriptive-analytical and library methods.

Keywords: environment, environmental issues, flower, oeacen

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Authors: Nivedha Rajaram

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Hybrid Quantum solvers have been given prime focus in recent days by computation problem-solving domain industrial applications. D’Wave Quantum Computers are one such paragon of systems built using quantum annealing mechanism. Discrete Quadratic Models is a hybrid quantum computing model class supplied by D’Wave Ocean SDK - a real-time software platform for hybrid quantum solvers. These hybrid quantum computing modellers can be employed to solve classic problems. One such problem that we consider in this paper is finding a network connectivity knowledge hub in a huge network of systems. Using this quantum solver, we try to find out the prime system hub, which acts as a supreme connection point for the set of connected computers in a large network. This paper establishes an innovative problem approach to generate a connectivity system hub plot for a set of systems using DWave ocean SDK hybrid quantum solvers.

Keywords: quantum computing, hybrid quantum solver, DWave annealing, network knowledge graph

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Authors: Ndarusanze Berchmans

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This research work focused on the analysis of the observations of tuberculous meningitis in HIV-positive patients who were treated by the Prince Regent Charles Hospital in Bujumbura. A number of 246 seropositive patients were examined by the laboratory of Prince Regent Charles in the period between 2010 and 2015. We did a retrospective study; we used data from the registers of the laboratories mentioned above; the objective was to approach the epidemiological, biological, clinical, and therapeutic characteristics of tuberculosis meningitis infection: 124 women (50.40% of AIDS patients) and 122 men (49.59% of AIDS patients) were subject to the diagnosis by identification of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The average age of the patients was 30 years for this period. The population at risk has an average age of between 34 and 42 years for the years between 2010-2015. From 2010 to 2012, cases of opportunistic diseases (e.g., tuberculous meningitis and Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis), often found in immunocompromised, were observed at a high rate; in this period, there was a disturbance of the rhythm providing antiretroviral drugs to people with AIDS. The rate of the two meningitis (tuberculous meningitis and Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis) remained above 10% to gradually decrease until 2015, with the gradual return of antiretrovirals. This period records an overall average of 25 cases of tuberculous meningitis, or a percentage of 10.16%. For the year 2015, there were 4 cases of tuberculous meningitis out of a total of 35 seropositive examined (11.42%). This year's percentage shows that the number of tuberculous meningitis cases has fallen from the rate in previous years. This is the result of the care given by associations against HIV/AIDS to HIV-positive people. This decrease in cases of tuberculous meningitis is due to the acquisition of antiretrovirals by all HIV-positive people treated by hospitals. For the moment, these hospitals are taking care of many AIDS patients by providing them permanently with antiretrovirals; Besides that, there are many patients who are supported by associations whose activities are directed against HIV/AIDS.

Keywords: Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis, tuberculosis meningitis, neurological complications, epidemiology of meningitis

Procedia PDF Downloads 206

Authors: Devinder Kaur Sugga, Ekamdeep Kaur, Jaspreet Kaur, C. Rajesh, Preeti Rajesh, Harsimran Kaur

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Withanolides are steroidal lactones and are highly oxygenated phytoconstituents that can be developed as potential anti-carcinogenic agents. The two main withanolides, namely Withaferin A and Withanolides D, have been extensively studied for their pharmacological activities. Both these withanolides are present in the Withania somnifera (WS) leaves belonging to the family Solanaceae, also known as “Indian ginseng .”In this study effects of WS leaf extract on the MCF7 breast cancer cell line were investigated by performing a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay to evaluate the cytotoxic effects and in vitro wound-healing assay to study the effect on cancer cell migration. Our data suggest WS extracts have cytotoxic effects and are effective anti-migrating agents and thus can be a source of potential candidates for the development of potential agents against metastasis. Thus, it can be a source of potential candidates for the development of potential agents against metastasis. Insight into these results, the in-silico approach to identify the possible protein targets interacting with withanolides was taken. Protein kinase C alpha (PKCα) was among the selected 5 top-ranked target proteins identified by the Swiss Target Prediction tool. PKCα is known to promote the growth and invasion of cancer cells and is being evaluated as a prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in clinically aggressive tumors. Molecular docking of Withaferin A and Withanolides D was performed using AutoDock Vina. Both the bioactive compounds interacted with PKCα. The targets predicted using this approach will serve as leads for the possible therapeutic potential of withanolides, the bioactive ingredients of WS extracts, as anti-cancer drugs.

Keywords: withania somnifera, withaferin A, withanolides D, PKCα

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: Kunpeng Wang, Hongchun, Wu, Liangzhi Cao, Chuanqi Zhao

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The distributions of homogeneous neutron flux within a node were expanded into a set of analytic basis functions which satisfy the diffusion equation at any point in a triangular-z node for each energy group, and nodes were coupled with each other with both the zero- and first-order partial neutron current moments across all the interfaces of the triangular prism at the same time. Based this method, a code TABFEN has been developed and applied to solve the neutron diffusion equation in a complicated geometry. In addition, after a series of numerical derivation, one can get the neutron adjoint diffusion equations in matrix form which is the same with the neutron diffusion equation; therefore, it can be solved by TABFEN, and the low-high scan strategy is adopted to improve the efficiency. Four benchmark problems are tested by this method to verify its feasibility, the results show good agreement with the references which demonstrates the efficiency and feasibility of this method.

Keywords: analytic basis function expansion method, arbitrary triangular-z node, adjoint neutron flux, complicated geometry

Procedia PDF Downloads 438

Authors: Shayli Varasteh Moradi, Wayne A. Johnston, Dejan Gagoski, Kirill Alexandrov

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The demand for a rapid and more efficient technique to identify protein-protein interaction particularly in the areas of therapeutics and diagnostics development is growing. The method described here is a rapid in vitro protein-protein interaction analysis approach based on AlphaLISA technology combined with Leishmania tarentolae cell-free protein production (LTE) system. Cell-free protein synthesis allows the rapid production of recombinant proteins in a multiplexed format. Among available in vitro expression systems, LTE offers several advantages over other eukaryotic cell-free systems. It is based on a fast growing fermentable organism that is inexpensive in cultivation and lysate production. High integrity of proteins produced in this system and the ability to co-express multiple proteins makes it a desirable method for screening protein interactions. Following the translation of protein pairs in LTE system, the physical interaction between proteins of interests is analysed by AlphaLISA assay. The assay is performed using unpurified in vitro translation reaction and therefore can be readily multiplexed. This approach can be used in various research applications such as epitope mapping, antigen-antibody analysis and protein interaction network mapping. The intra-viral protein interaction network of Zika virus was studied using the developed technique. The viral proteins were co-expressed pair-wise in LTE and all possible interactions among viral proteins were tested using AlphaLISA. The assay resulted to the identification of 54 intra-viral protein-protein interactions from which 19 binary interactions were found to be novel. The presented technique provides a powerful tool for rapid analysis of protein-protein interaction with high sensitivity and throughput.

Keywords: AlphaLISA technology, cell-free protein expression, epitope mapping, Leishmania tarentolae, protein-protein interaction

Procedia PDF Downloads 228

Authors: Liane Marcia Freitas Silva, Fernando Augusto Silva Marins, Maria Silene Alexandre Leite

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The adoption of a network structure, like in the supply chains, favors the increase of dependence between companies and, by consequence, their vulnerability. Environment disasters, sociopolitical and economical events, and the dynamics of supply chains elevate the uncertainty of their operation, favoring the occurrence of events that can generate break up in the operations and other undesired consequences. Thus, supply chains are exposed to various risks that can influence the profitability of companies involved, and there are several previous studies that have proposed risk classification models in order to categorize the risks and to manage them. The objective of this paper is to analyze and discuss thirty of these risk classification models by means a theoretical survey. The research method adopted for analyzing and discussion includes three phases: The identification of the types of risks proposed in each one of the thirty models, the grouping of them considering equivalent concepts associated to their definitions, and, the analysis of these risks groups, evaluating their similarities and differences. After these analyses, it was possible to conclude that, in fact, there is more than thirty risks types identified in the literature of Supply Chains, but some of them are identical despite of be used distinct terms to characterize them, because different criteria for risk classification are adopted by researchers. In short, it is observed that some types of risks are identified as risk source for supply chains, such as, demand risk, environmental risk and safety risk. On the other hand, other types of risks are identified by the consequences that they can generate for the supply chains, such as, the reputation risk, the asset depreciation risk and the competitive risk. These results are consequence of the disagreements between researchers on risk classification, mainly about what is risk event and about what is the consequence of risk occurrence. An additional study is in developing in order to clarify how the risks can be generated, and which are the characteristics of the components in a Supply Chain that leads to occurrence of risk.

Keywords: sisks classification, survey, supply chain management, theoretical discussion

Procedia PDF Downloads 622

Authors: Zarah M. Bello, Nathan Baddoo, Mariana Lilley, Paul Wernick

Abstract:

In this paper, we present findings from a multi-part study to evaluate candidate elements reflecting the level of digital capability maturity (DCM) in higher education and the relationship between these elements. We will use these findings to propose a model of DCM for educational institutions. We suggest that the success of learning in higher education is dependent in part on the level of maturity of digital capabilities of institutions as well as the abilities of learners and those who support the learning process. It is therefore important to have a good understanding of the elements that underpin this maturity as well as their impact and interactions in order to better exploit the benefits that technology presents to the modern learning environment and support its continued improvement. Having identified ten candidate elements of digital capability that we believe support the level of a University’s maturity in this area as well as a number of relevant stakeholder roles, we conducted two studies utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the first of these studies, 85 electronic questionnaires were completed by various stakeholders in a UK university, with a 100% response rate. We also undertook five in-depth interviews with management stakeholders in the same university. We then utilized statistical analysis to process the survey data and conducted a textual analysis of the interview transcripts. Our findings support our initial identification of candidate elements and support our contention that these elements interact in a multidimensional manner. This multidimensional dynamic suggests that any proposal for improvement in digital capability must reflect the interdependency and cross-sectional relationship of the elements that contribute to DCM. Our results also indicate that the notion of DCM is strongly data-centric and that any proposed maturity model must reflect the role of data in driving maturity and improvement. We present these findings as a key step towards the design of an operationalisable DCM maturity model for universities.

Keywords: digital capability, elements, maturity, maturity framework, university

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Adolfo Cangas, Noelia Navarro

Abstract:

The current study shows the assessment made by university students of a video game entitled Stigma-Stop where the characters present different mental disorders. The objective is that players have more real information about mental disorders and empathize with them and thus reduce stigma. The sample consisted of 169 university students studying degrees related to education, social care and welfare (i.e., Social Education, Psychology, Early Childhood Education, Special Education, and Social Work). The participants valued the video game positively, especially in relation to utility, being somewhat lower the score awarded to the degree of entertainment. They detect the disorders and point out that in many occasions they felt the same (particularly in the case of depression, being lower in agoraphobia and bipolar disorder, and even lower in the case of schizophrenia), most students recommend the use of the video game. They emphasize that Stigma-Stop offers intervention strategies, information regarding the symptomatology and sensitizes against stigma.

Keywords: schizophrenia, social stigma, students, mental health

Procedia PDF Downloads 274

Authors: Seung-Ho Yoo, Jong-Ryeul Sohn

Abstract:

An environmental friendly or efficient heating & cooling systems attract a great attention, due to the energy or environmental problems. Especially the heat balance of human body is about 50% influenced by radiation exchange in built environment. Therefore, a thermal comfort characteristics in a radiant built environment need to be accessed through the development of an efficient evaluation method. Almost of Korean housings use traditionally the radiant floor heating system. A radiant cooling system attracts also many attention nowadays in the viewpoint of energy conservation and comfort. Thermal comfort characteristics in an enclosure with a radiant heating and cooling system are investigated by experiment, thermal sensation vote analysis and mean radiant temperature simulation. Asymmetric radiation between radiant heating ceiling and air heating system in 9 points of room is compared with each other.

Keywords: radiant heating and cooling ceiling, asymmetric radiation, thermal comfort, thermal sensation vote

Procedia PDF Downloads 505

Authors: Sarra Arbaoui, Taoufik Bettaieb

Abstract:

Contaminated soils and problems related to them have increasingly become a matter of concern. The most common the contaminants generated by industrial urban emissions and agricultural practices are trace metals). Remediation of trace metals which pollute soils can be carried out using physico-chemical processes. Nevertheless, these techniques damage the soil’s biological activity and require expensive equipment. Phytoremediation is a relatively low-cost technology based on the use of selected plants to remove, degrades or contains pollutants. The potential of kenaf for phytoremediation on Cd-contaminated soil was investigated. kenaf plants have been grown in pots containing different concentrations of cadmium. The observations made were for biomass production and cadmium content in different organs determinate by atomic emission spectrometry. Cadmium transfer from a contaminated soil to plants and into plant tissues are discussed in terms of the Bioconcentration Factor (BCF) and the Transfer Factor (TF). Results showed that Cd was found in kenaf plants at different levels. Tolerance and accumulation potential and biomass productivity indicated that kenaf could be used in phytoremediation.

Keywords: kenaf, cadmium, phytoremediation, contaminated soil

Procedia PDF Downloads 512