Search results for: pilot point

Authors: Umar Yusuf Batsari

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Let E be a uniformly smooth and uniformly convex real Banach space and C be a nonempty, closed and convex subset of E. Let $V= \{S_i : C\to C, ~i=1, 2, 3\cdots N\}$ be a convex set of relatively nonexpansive mappings containing identity. In this paper, an iterative sequence obtained from CQ algorithm was shown to have strongly converge to a point $\hat{x}$ which is a common fixed point of relatively nonexpansive mappings in V and also solve the system of equilibrium problems in E. The result improve some existing results in the literature.

Keywords: relatively nonexpansive mappings, strong convergence, equilibrium problems, uniformly smooth space, uniformly convex space, convex set, kadec klee property

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Authors: Jae Moon Lee

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In general, algorithms to find continuous k-nearest neighbors have been researched on the location based services, monitoring periodically the moving objects such as vehicles and mobile phone. Those researches assume the environment that the number of query points is much less than that of moving objects and the query points are not moved but fixed. In gaming environments, this problem is when computing the next movement considering the neighbors such as flocking, crowd and robot simulations. In this case, every moving object becomes a query point so that the number of query point is same to that of moving objects and the query points are also moving. In this paper, we analyze the performance of the existing algorithms focused on location based services how they operate under gaming environments.

Keywords: flocking behavior, heterogeneous agents, similarity, simulation

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Authors: Ojinime E. Ojiakor, Allen N. Adum

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We report on bed scenes allurement as entertainment and selling point in Nigeria’s Nollywood movie industry. In recent times, there has been an increase in the portrayal of bed scenes in Nollywood movies. Before now, Nigerian film producers have been very conservative when it comes to showing sex and nudity. This appears to have changed in line with global trends. Movie industries all over the world appear a haven for delectable women who glamorize our screens, not only with their beauty but also their acting skills. At Hollywood, Bollywood, Ghollywood and the like, pretty actresses with sensuous endowments engage in bed scenes which allure the minds of viewers. The idea that, a ravishing beauty on cast is as good as a box office hit apparently drives Nigerian film producers to incorporate bed scenes in their movies. In this era of sex crusade where what sells is sex and maybe a little bit of violence, there is the suggestion that producers believe that if the talent of an actress doesn’t do the trick, the sexiness she exudes is bound to get attention. Against this backdrop, our study examined bed scenes depiction by Nollywood films, in an attempt to establish if their allurement influences the choice of movie and purchase decisions of target markets. We assessed Nollywood films and viewer preference using the mixed method approach. Our findings reveal that bed scenes, as portrayed in Nigerian movies are a significant determinant of which films to watch and which films to purchase among the respondents studied.

Keywords: allurement, bed scenes, nollywood, selling point

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Authors: Michelle W. T. Cheng, Yau Y.

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Hong Kong continues to be ranked as the least affordable housing market in the world, making co-living a feasible alternative in this high-density city. Although the number of co-living residences has increased in Hong Kong, co-living as a housing typology is still a new concept for many. Little research has been conducted on this new housing typology, let alone the co-living experience. To address this gap, this study targeted student residents in university residential halls as it is a more controlled environment (e.g., with established rules and guidelines regarding the use of communal facilitates and housing management) for studying co-living experiences in Hong Kong. To date, no research study has systematically identified anti-social behavior (ASB) in co-living spaces. Since ASB can be influenced by factors such as social norms and individual interpretation, it has an elastic definition that results in different levels of acceptance. Unlike other types of housing, co-living spaces can be potentially more influenced by the neighborhood as residents share more time and space. As a pilot study, this research targeted one university residential hall to examine student co-living experiences. To clarify, the research question is focused on identifying the social factors that impact the residential satisfaction of those who co-living in residential halls. Quantitative data (n=100) were collected via a structured questionnaire to measure the residential environment, including ASB, social neighboring, community attachment, and perceived hall management efficacy. The survey was distributed at the end of the academic year to ensure that respondents had at least one year of first-hand experience living in a co-living space. To gather qualitative data, follow-up focus group interviews were conducted with 16 participants who completed the survey. The semi-structured interviews aimed to elicit the participants' perspectives on their co-living experience. Through analyzing their co-living experiences, the researcher identified factors that affected their residential satisfaction and provided recommendations to enhance their co-living experience.

Keywords: co-living, university residential hall, anti-social behabiour, neighbour relationship, community attachement

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Authors: Ebuwa Osagie, Chet Biliyok, Yeung Hoi

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Regeneration energy requirement and ways to reduce it is the main aim of most CO2 capture researches currently being performed and thus, post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) option is identified to be the most suitable for the natural gas-fired power plants. From current research and development (R&D) activities worldwide, two main areas are being examined in order to reduce the regeneration energy requirement of amine-based PCC, namely: (a) development of new solvents with better overall performance than 30wt% monoethanolamine (MEA) aqueous solution, which is considered as the base-line solvent for solvent-based PCC, (b) Integration of the PCC Plant to the power plant. In scaling-up a PCC pilot plant to the size required for a commercial-scale natural gas-fired power plant, process modelling and simulation is very essential. In this work, an integrated process made up of a 482MWe natural gas-fired power plant, an MEA-based PCC plant which is developed and validated has been modelled and simulated. The PCC plant has four absorber columns and a single stripper column, the modelling and simulation was performed with Aspen Plus® V8.4. The gas turbine, the heat recovery steam generator and the steam cycle were modelled based on a 2010 US DOE report, while the MEA-based PCC plant was modelled as a rate-based process. The scaling of the amine plant was performed using a rate based calculation in preference to the equilibrium based approach for 90% CO2 capture. The power plant was integrated to the PCC plant in three ways: (i) flue gas stream from the power plant which is divided equally into four stream and each stream is fed into one of the four absorbers in the PCC plant. (ii) Steam draw-off from the IP/LP cross-over pipe in the steam cycle of the power plant used to regenerate solvent in the reboiler. (iii) Condensate returns from the reboiler to the power plant. The integration of a PCC plant to the NGCC plant resulted in a reduction of the power plant output by 73.56 MWe and the net efficiency of the integrated system is reduced by 7.3 % point efficiency. A secondary aim of this study is the parametric studies which have been performed to assess the impacts of natural gas on the overall performance of the integrated process and this is achieved through investigation of the capture efficiencies.

Keywords: natural gas-fired, power plant, MEA, CO2 capture, modelling, simulation

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Authors: Sifat Rahman Ahona, Rifat Tasnim, Naima Hassan

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Data aggregation is a helpful technique for reducing the data communication overhead in wireless sensor network. One of the important tasks of data aggregation is positioning of the aggregator points. There are a lot of works done on data aggregation. But, efficient positioning of the aggregators points is not focused so much. In this paper, authors are focusing on the positioning or the placement of the aggregation points in wireless sensor network. Authors proposed an algorithm to select the aggregators positions for a scenario where aggregator nodes are more powerful than sensor nodes.

Keywords: aggregation point, data communication, data aggregation, wireless sensor network

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Authors: Y. C. Ching, K. H. Chong

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The increasing of environmental awareness has led to grow interest in the expansion of materials with eco-friendly attributes. In this study, a 3 ply sandwich layer of kenaf fiber reinforced unsaturated polyester with various fiber orientations was developed. The effect of the fiber orientation on mechanical and thermal stability properties of polyester was studied. Unsaturated polyester as a face sheets and kenaf fibers as a core was fabricated with combination of hand lay-up process and cold compression method. Tested result parameters like tensile, flexural, impact strength, melting point, and crystallization point were compared and recorded based on different fiber orientation. The failure mechanism and property changes associated with directional change of fiber to polyester composite were discussed.

Keywords: kenaf fiber, polyester, tensile, thermal stability

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Authors: Zhifu Li, Lei Li, Wanting Zhou, Yuanhang He

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This paper proposed a lightweight certificate-less authentication and key exchange protocol (Light-CL-PKC) based on elliptic curve cryptography and the Chinese Remainder Theorem for smart home scenarios. Light-CL-PKC can efficiently reduce the computational cost of both sides of authentication by forgoing time-consuming bilinear pair operations and making full use of point-addition and point-multiplication operations on elliptic curves. The authentication and key exchange processes in this system are also completed in a a single round of communication between the two parties. The analysis result demonstrates that it can significantly minimize the communication overhead of more than 32.14% compared with the referenced protocols, while the runtime for both authentication and key exchange have also been significantly reduced.

Keywords: authentication, key exchange, certificateless public key cryptography, elliptic curve cryptography

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Authors: M. Rahou, A. J. Andrews, G. Rosengarten

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One of the main challenges in high-temperature solar thermal applications transfer concentrated solar radiation to the load with minimum energy loss and maximum overall efficiency. The use of a solar concentrator in conjunction with bundled optical fibres has potential advantages in terms of transmission energy efficiency, technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness compared to a conventional heat transfer system employing heat exchangers and a heat transfer fluid. In this paper, a theoretical and computer simulation method is described to estimate the net solar radiation transmission from a solar concentrator into and through optical fibres to a thermal application at the end of the fibres over distances of up to 100 m. A key input to the simulation is the angular distribution of radiation intensity at each point across the aperture plane of the optical fibre. This distribution depends on the optical properties of the solar concentrator, in this case, a parabolic mirror with a small secondary mirror with a common focal point and a point-focus Fresnel lens to give a collimated beam that pass into the optical fibre bundle. Since solar radiation comprises a broad band of wavelengths with very limited spatial coherence over the full range of spectrum only ray tracing models absorption within the fibre and reflections at the interface between core and cladding is employed, assuming no interference between rays. The intensity of the radiation across the exit plane of the fibre is found by integrating across all directions and wavelengths. Results of applying the simulation model to a parabolic concentrator and point-focus Fresnel lens with typical optical fibre bundle will be reported, to show how the energy transmission varies with the length of fibre.

Keywords: concentrated radiation, fibre bundle, parabolic dish, fresnel lens, transmission

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Authors: Samaneh Yavari, Christiane Pferrer, Elisabeth Engelke, Alexander Starke, Juergen Rehage

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Background: Three nociceptive thresholds of thermal, electrical, and mechanical thresholds commonly use to evaluate the local anesthesia in many species, for instance, cow, horse, cat, dog, rabbit, and so on. Due to the lack of investigations to evaluate and/or validate such those nociceptive thresholds, our plan was the comparison of two-foot local anesthesia methods of Intravenous Regional Anesthesia (IVRA) and our modified four-point Nerve Block Anesthesia (NBA). Materials and Methods: Eight healthy nonpregnant nondairy Holstein Frisian cows in a cross-over study design were selected for this study. All cows divided into two different groups to receive two local anesthesia techniques of IVRA and our modified four-point NBA. Three thermal, electrical, and mechanical force and pinpricks were applied to evaluate the quality of local anesthesia methods before and after local anesthesia application. Results: The statistical evaluation demonstrated that our four-point NBA has a qualification to select as a standard foot local anesthesia. However, the recorded results of our study revealed no significant difference between two groups of local anesthesia techniques of IVRA and modified four-point NBA related to quality and duration of anesthesia stimulated by electrical, mechanical and thermal nociceptive stimuli. Conclusion and discussion: All three nociceptive threshold stimuli of electrical, mechanical and heat nociceptive thresholds can be applied to measure and evaluate the efficacy of foot local anesthesia of dairy cows. However, our study revealed no superiority of those three nociceptive methods to evaluate the duration and quality of bovine foot local anesthesia methods. Veterinarians to investigate the duration and quality of their selected anesthesia method can use any of those heat, mechanical, and electrical methods.

Keywords: mechanical, thermal, electrical threshold, IVRA, NBA, hind limb, dairy cow

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Authors: Amin Noor, Roslinda Nazar, Norihan Md. Arifin

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In this paper, a numerical and theoretical study has been performed for the stagnation-point boundary layer flow and heat transfer towards a shrinking sheet in a nanofluid. The mathematical nanofluid model in which the effect of the nanoparticle volume fraction is taken into account is considered. The governing nonlinear partial differential equations are transformed into a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using a similarity transformation which is then solved numerically using the function bvp4c from Matlab. Numerical results are obtained for the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number as well as the velocity and temperature profiles for some values of the governing parameters, namely the nanoparticle volume fraction Φ, the shrinking parameter λ and the Prandtl number Pr. Three different types of nanoparticles are considered, namely Cu, Al2O3 and TiO2. It is found that solutions do not exist for larger shrinking rates and dual (upper and lower branch) solutions exist when λ < -1.0. A stability analysis has been performed to show which branch solutions are stable and physically realizable. It is also found that the upper branch solutions are stable while the lower branch solutions are unstable.

Keywords: heat transfer, nanofluid, shrinking sheet, stability analysis, stagnation-point flow

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Authors: Carly Nesvat, Dominic Jarrett, Colin Thomson, Wilma Coltart, Thelma Bowers, Jan Thomson

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Introduction: Within Scotland, the Same As You strategy committed to moving people with learning disabilities out of long-stay hospital accommodation into homes in the community. Much of the focus of this movement was on the placement of people within individual homes. In order to achieve this, potentially excessive supports were put in place which created dependence, and carried significant ongoing cost primarily for local authorities. The greater focus on empowerment and community participation which has been evident in more recent learning disability strategy, along with the financial pressures being experienced across the public sector, created an imperative to re-examine that provision, particularly in relation to the use of expensive sleepover supports to individuals, and the potential for this to be appropriately scaled back through the use of telecare. Method: As part of a broader programme of redesigning overnight supports within North Ayrshire, a cluster of individuals living in close proximity were identified, who were in receipt of overnight supports, but who were identified as having the capacity to potentially benefit from their removal. In their place, a responder service was established (an individual staying overnight in a nearby service user’s home), and a variety of telecare solutions were placed within individual’s homes. Active and passive technology was connected to an Alarm Receiving Centre, which would alert the local responder service when necessary. Individuals and their families were prepared for the change, and continued to be informed about progress with the pilot. Results: 4 individuals, 2 of whom shared a tenancy, had their sleepover supports removed as part of the pilot. Extensive data collection in relation to alarm activation was combined with feedback from the 4 individuals, their families, and staff involved in their support. Varying perspectives emerged within the feedback. 3 of the individuals were clearly described as benefitting from the change, and the greater sense of independence it brought, while more concerns were evident in relation to the fourth. Some family members expressed a need for greater preparation in relation to the change and ongoing information provision. Some support staff also expressed a need for more information, to help them understand the new support arrangements for an individual, as well as noting concerns in relation to the outcomes for one participant. Conclusion: Developing a telecare response in relation to a cluster of individuals was facilitated by them all being supported by the same care provider. The number of similar clusters of individuals being identified within North Ayrshire is limited. Developing other solutions such as a response service for redesign will potentially require greater collaboration between different providers of home support, as well as continuing to explore the full range of telecare, including digital options. The pilot has highlighted the need for effective preparatory and ongoing engagement with staff and families, as well as the challenges which can accompany making changes to long-standing packages of support.

Keywords: challenges, change, engagement, telecare

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Authors: Leszek Szpakowski, Daniel Celiński, Sławomir Pilip, Grzegorz Michalak

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The aim of the study was to analyse the usefulness of the 'E-rescuer' pilot project planned to be implemented in a chosen area of Eastern Poland in the cases of suspected sudden cardiac arrests in the extra-urban areas. Inventing an application allowing to dispatch simultaneously both Medical Emergency Teams and the E-rescuer to the place of the accident is the crucial assumption of the mentioned pilot project. The E-rescuer is defined to be the trained person able to take effective basic life support and to use automated external defibrillator. Having logged in using a smartphone, the E-rescuer's readiness is reported online to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation exactly at the given location. Due to the accurately defined location of the E-rescuer, his arrival time is possible to be precisely fixed, and the substantive support through the displayed algorithms is capable of being provided as well. Having analysed the medical records in the years 2015-2016, cardiopulmonary resuscitation was considered to be effective when an early indication of circulation was provided, and the patient was taken to hospital. In the mentioned term, there were 2.291 cases of a sudden cardiac arrest. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was taken in 621 patients in total including 205 people in the urban area and 416 in the extra-urban areas. The effectiveness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the extra-urban areas was much lower (33,8%) than in the urban (50,7%). The average ambulance arrival time was respectively longer in the extra-urban areas, and it was 12,3 minutes while in the urban area 3,3 minutes. There was no significant difference in the average age of studied patients - 62,5 and 64,8 years old. However, the average ambulance arrival time was 7,6 minutes for effective resuscitations and 10,5 minutes for ineffective ones. Hence, the ambulance arrival time is a crucial factor influencing on the effectiveness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, especially in the extra-urban areas where it is much longer than in the urban. The key role of trained E-rescuers being nearby taking basic life support before the ambulance arrival can effectively support Emergency Medical Services System in Poland.

Keywords: basic life support, bystander, effectiveness, resuscitation

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Authors: Choki, Supatchai Boonpratham, Suwannee Luppanapornlarp

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The objective of this study was to find a correlation between cephalometric measurements and visual perception of facial profile in skeletal type II patients. In this study, 250 lateral cephalograms of female patients from age, 20 to 22 years were analyzed. The profile outlines of all the samples were hand traced and transformed into silhouettes by the principal investigator. Profile ratings were done by 9 orthodontists on Visual Analogue Scale from score one to ten (increasing level of convexity). 37 hard issue and soft tissue cephalometric measurements were analyzed by the principal investigator. All the measurements were repeated after 2 weeks interval for error assessment. At last, the rankings of visual perceptions were correlated with cephalometric measurements using Spearman correlation coefficient (P < 0.05). The results show that the increase in facial convexity was correlated with higher values of ANB (A point, nasion and B point), AF-BF (distance from A point to B point in mm), L1-NB (distance from lower incisor to NB line in mm), anterior maxillary alveolar height, posterior maxillary alveolar height, overjet, H angle hard tissue, H angle soft tissue and lower lip to E plane (absolute correlation values from 0.277 to 0.711). In contrast, the increase in facial convexity was correlated with lower values of Pg. to N perpendicular and Pg. to NB (mm) (absolute correlation value -0.302 and -0.294 respectively). From the soft tissue measurements, H angles had a higher correlation with visual perception than facial contour angle, nasolabial angle, and lower lip to E plane. In conclusion, the findings of this study indicated that the correlation of cephalometric measurements with visual perception was less than expected. Only 29% of cephalometric measurements had a significant correlation with visual perception. Therefore, diagnosis based solely on cephalometric analysis can result in failure to meet the patient’s esthetic expectation.

Keywords: cephalometric measurements, facial profile, skeletal type II, visual perception

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Authors: Xavier Lorang, Ahmadali Tahmasebimoradi, Chetra Mang, Sylvain Girard

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The additive manufacturing processes (e.g. selective laser melting) allow us to produce lattice structures which have less weight, higher impact absorption capacity, and better thermal exchange property compared to the classical structures. Unfortunately, geometric imperfections (defects) in the lattice structures are by-products results of the manufacturing process. These imperfections decrease the lifetime and the strength of the lattice structures and alternate their mechanical responses. The objective of the paper is to present a simulation strategy which allows us to take into account the effect of the geometric imperfections on the mechanical response of the lattice structure. In the first part, an identification method of geometric imperfection parameters of the lattice structure based on point clouds is presented. These point clouds are based on tomography measurements. The point clouds are fed into the platform LATANA (LATtice ANAlysis) developed by IRT-SystemX to characterize the geometric imperfections. This is done by projecting the point clouds of each microbeam along the beam axis onto a 2D surface. Then, by fitting an ellipse to the 2D projections of the points, the geometric imperfections are characterized by introducing three parameters of an ellipse; semi-major/minor axes and angle of rotation. With regard to the calculated parameters of the microbeam geometric imperfections, a statistical analysis is carried out to determine a probability density law based on a statistical hypothesis. The microbeam samples are randomly drawn from the density law and are used to generate lattice structures. In the second part, a finite element model for the lattice structure with the simplified geometric imperfections (ellipse parameters) is presented. This numerical model is used to simulate the generated lattice structures. The propagation of the uncertainties of geometric imperfections is shown through the distribution of the computed mechanical responses of the lattice structures.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, finite element model, geometric imperfections, lattice structures, propagation of uncertainty

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Authors: Elvin Karaaslan Klose

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In the field of Visual Culture, Art Education students are given the opportunity to discuss topics of interest that are closer to their own social life and media consumption habits. In contrast to the established corpus of literature and sources about Art History, educators are challenged to find topics and examples from Popular Culture and Contemporary Art that provide familiarity, depth and inspiration for students’ future practice, both as educators as well as artists. In order to establish a welcoming and fruitful discussion environment at the beginning of an introductory Visual Culture Education course with fourth year Art Education students, the class watched and subsequently discussed the movie “Vantage Point”. Using the descriptive method and content analysis; video recordings, discussion transcripts and learning diaries were summarized to highlight students’ critical points of view towards commonly experienced but rarely reflected on topics of Popular and Visual Culture. As an introduction into more theory-based forms of discussion, watching and intensely discussing a movie has proven useful by proving a combination of a familiar media type with an unfamiliar educational context. Resulting areas of interest have served as a starting point for later research, discussion and artistic production in the scope of an introductory Visual Culture Education course.

Keywords: visual culture, critical pedagogy, media literacy, art education

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Authors: Suneet Jagdev, Siddharth Singhal, Dhrubajyoti Bordoloi, Peesari Vamshidhar Reddy

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There is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a Smart City. It means different things to different people. The definition varies from place to place depending on the level of development and the willingness of people to change and reform. It tries to improve the quality of resource management and service provisions for the people living in the cities. Smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage the assets of a city. But most of these projects are misinterpreted as being technology projects only. Due to urbanization, a lot of informal as well government funded settlements have come up during the last few decades, thus increasing the consumption of the limited resources available. The people of each city have their own definition of Smart City. In the imagination of any city dweller in India is the picture of a Smart City which contains a wish list of infrastructure and services that describe his or her level of aspiration. The research involved a comparative study of the Smart City models in India and in China. Behavioral changes experienced by the people living in the pilot/first ever smart cities have been identified and compared. This paper discussed what is the target of the quality of life for the people in India and in China and how well could that be realized with the facilities being included in these Smart City projects. Logical and comparative analyses of important data have been done, collected from government sources, government papers and research papers by various experts on the topic. Existing cities with historically grown infrastructure and administration systems will require a more moderate step-by-step approach to modernization. The models were compared using many different motivators and the data is collected from past journals, interacting with the people involved, videos and past submissions. In conclusion, we have identified how these projects could be combined with the ongoing small scale initiatives by the local people/ small group of individuals and what might be the outcome if these existing practices were implemented on a bigger scale.

Keywords: behavior change, mission monitoring, pilot smart cities, social capital

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Authors: Muslim Malik, Avadhesh Kumar

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A stronger concept of exact controllability which is called Total Controllability is introduced in this manuscript. Sufficient conditions have been established for the total controllability of a control problem, governed by second order nonlinear differential equation with delay and non-instantaneous impulses in a Banach space X. The results are obtained using the strongly continuous cosine family and Banach fixed point theorem. Also, the total controllability of an integrodifferential problem is investigated. At the end, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the analytical findings.

Keywords: Banach fixed point theorem, non-instantaneous impulses, strongly continuous cosine family, total controllability

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Authors: Mustafa Engin Başoğlu, Bekir Çakır

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The most important component affecting the efficiency of photovoltaic power systems are solar panels. Efficiency of these systems are significantly affected because of being low efficiency of solar panel. Therefore, solar panels should be operated under maximum power point conditions through a power converter. In this study, design boost converter with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) operation has been designed and performed with Incremental Conductance (Inc-Cond) algorithm by using direct duty control. Furthermore, it is shown that performance of boost converter with MPPT operation fails under low load resistance connection.

Keywords: boost converter, incremental conductance (Inc-Cond), MPPT, solar panel

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Authors: Dharminder Singh, Sanjeev Yadav, Pravakar Mohanty

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In this work, study of temperature profile in a pilot scale air bubbling fluidized bed (ABFB) gasifier for rice husk gasification was carried out. Effects of different factors such as multiple cyclones, gas cooling system, ventilate gas pipe length, and catalyst on temperature profile was examined. ABFB gasifier used in this study had two sections, one is bed section and the other is freeboard section. River sand was used as bed material with air as gasification agent, and conventional charcoal as start-up heating medium in this gasifier. Temperature of different point in both sections of ABFB gasifier was recorded at different ER value and ER value was changed by changing the feed rate of biomass (rice husk) and by keeping the air flow rate constant for long durational of gasifier operation. ABFB with double cyclone with gas coolant system and with short length ventilate gas pipe was found out to be optimal gasifier design to give temperature profile required for high gasification performance in long duration operation. This optimal design was tested with different ER values and it was found that ER of 0.33 was most favourable for long duration operation (8 hr continuous operation), giving highest carbon conversion efficiency. At optimal ER of 0.33, bed temperature was found to be stable at 700 °C, above bed temperature was found to be at 628.63 °C, bottom of freeboard temperature was found to be at 600 °C, top of freeboard temperature was found to be at 517.5 °C, gas temperature was found to be at 195 °C, and flame temperature was found to be 676 °C. Temperature at all the points showed fluctuations of 10 – 20 °C. Effect of catalyst i.e. dolomite (20% with sand bed) was also examined on temperature profile, and it was found that at optimal ER of 0.33, the bed temperature got increased to 795 °C, above bed temperature got decreased to 523 °C, bottom of freeboard temperature got decreased to 548 °C, top of freeboard got decreased to 475 °C, gas temperature got decreased to 220 °C, and flame temperature got increased to 703 °C. Increase in bed temperature leads to higher flame temperature due to presence of more hydrocarbons generated from more tar cracking at higher temperature. It was also found that the use of dolomite with sand bed eliminated the agglomeration in the reactor at such high bed temperature (795 °C).

Keywords: air bubbling fluidized bed gasifier, bed temperature, charcoal heating, dolomite, flame temperature, rice husk

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Authors: Yacine Arioua

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In this paper, we investigate the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a coupled system of nonlinear Caputo-type Katugampola fractional differential equations with integral boundary conditions. Based upon a contraction mapping principle, Schauders fixed point theorems, some new existence and uniqueness results of solutions for the given problems are obtained. For application, some examples are given to illustrate the usefulness of our main results.

Keywords: fractional differential equations, coupled system, Caputo-Katugampola derivative, fixed point theorems, existence, uniqueness

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Authors: J. Yang, M. Monnot, T. Eljaddi, L. Simonian, L. Ercolei, P. Moulin

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The application of membrane technology to wastewater treatment has expanded rapidly under increasing stringent legislation and environmental protection requirements. At the same time, the water resource is becoming precious, and water reuse has gained popularity. Particularly, ultrafiltration (UF) is a very promising technology for water reuse as it can retain organic matters, suspended solids, colloids, and microorganisms. Nevertheless, few studies dealing with operating optimization of UF as a tertiary treatment for water reuse on a semi-industrial scale appear in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to explore the permeate water quality and to optimize operating parameters (maximizing productivity and minimizing irreversible fouling) through the operation of a UF pilot plant under real conditions. The fully automatic semi-industrial UF pilot plant with periodic classic backwashes (CB) and air backwashes (AB) was set up to filtrate the secondary effluent of an urban wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in France. In this plant, the secondary treatment consists of a conventional activated sludge process followed by a sedimentation tank. The UF process was thus defined as a tertiary treatment and was operated under constant flux. It is important to note that a combination of CB and chlorinated AB was used for better fouling management. The 200 kDa hollow fiber membrane was used in the UF module, with an initial permeability (for WWTP outlet water) of 600 L·m-2·h⁻¹·bar⁻¹ and a total filtration surface of 9 m². Fifteen filtration conditions with different fluxes, filtration times, and air backwash frequencies were operated for more than 40 hours of each to observe their hydraulic filtration performances. Through comparison, the best sustainable condition was flux at 60 L·h⁻¹·m⁻², filtration time at 60 min, and backwash frequency of 1 AB every 3 CBs. The optimized condition stands out from the others with > 92% water recovery rates, better irreversible fouling control, stable permeability variation, efficient backwash reversibility (80% for CB and 150% for AB), and no chemical washing occurrence in 40h’s filtration. For all tested conditions, the permeate water quality met the water reuse guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), French standards, and the regulation of the European Parliament adopted in May 2020, setting minimum requirements for water reuse in agriculture. In permeate: the total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand, and turbidity were decreased to < 2 mg·L-1, ≤ 10 mg·L⁻¹, < 0.5 NTU respectively; the Escherichia coli and Enterococci were > 5 log removal reduction, the other required microorganisms’ analysis were below the detection limits. Additionally, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was measured in raw wastewater of WWTP, UF feed, and UF permeate in November 2020. As a result, the raw wastewater was tested positive above the detection limit but below the quantification limit. Interestingly, the UF feed and UF permeate were tested negative to SARS-CoV-2 by these PCR assays. In summary, this work confirms the great interest in UF as intensified tertiary treatment for water reuse and gives operational indications for future industrial-scale production of reclaimed water.

Keywords: semi-industrial UF pilot plant, water reuse, fouling management, coronavirus

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Authors: Natasha Yasmin Felles, Gerard Riley

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Background and Aims: Relationship breakdown is typical when one partner lives with an acquired brain injury caused by issues like a stroke. Research has found that the perception of relationship satisfaction decreases following such an injury among non-injured partners. Non-injured partners also are found to experience caregiver stress/burden as they immediately have to take the role of a caregiver along with being a partner of the injured. Research has also found that the perception of a continuous relationship, i.e. the perception of the relationship to be essentially the same as it was before the injury, also changes among those caregiving partners. However, there is a lack of available intervention strategies that can help those partners with both individual and relationship difficulties. The aim of this case study was to conduct a pilot test of an intervention aimed to explore whether it is possible to support a partner to experience greater continuity within the relationship poststroke, and what benefits such a change might have. Method: A couple, where one partner experienced an acquired brain injury poststroke were provided with Integrated Behavioural Couples Therapy for 3-months. The intervention addressed goals identified as necessary by the couple and by the formulation of their individual and relationship difficulties, alongside the goal of promoting relationship continuity. Before and after measures were taken using a battery of six questionnaires to evaluate changes in perceptions of continuity, stress, and other aspects of the relationship. Results: Both quantitative and qualitative data showed that relationship continuity was improved after the therapy, as were the measures of stress and other aspects of the relationship. The stress felt by the person with the acquired brain injury also showed some evidence of improvement. Conclusion: The study found that perceptions of relationship continuity can be improved by therapy and that improving these might have a beneficial impact on the stress felt by the carer, their satisfaction with the relationship and overall levels of conflict and closeness within the relationship. The study suggested the value of further research on enhancing perceptions of continuity in the relationship after an acquired brain injury. Currently, the findings of the study have been used to develop a pilot feasibility study to collect substantive evidence on the impact of the intervention on the couples and assess its feasibility and acceptability, which will help in further developing a specific generalized relationship continuity intervention, that will be beneficial in preventing relationship breakdown in the future.

Keywords: acquired brain injury, couples therapy, relationship continuity, stroke

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Authors: S. Padmapriya, V. Lakshmi Prabha

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In this paper, an efficient reconfigurable fixed-point Least Mean Square Adaptive FIR filter is proposed. The proposed architecture has two methods of operation: one is area efficient design and the other is optimized power. Pipelining of the adder blocks and partial product generator are used to achieve low area and reversible logic is used to obtain low power design. Depending upon the input samples and filter coefficients, one of the techniques is chosen. Least-Mean-Square adaptation is performed to update the weights. The architecture is coded using Verilog and synthesized in cadence encounter 0.18μm technology. The synthesized results show that the area reduction ratio of the proposed when compared with conventional technique is about 1.2%.

Keywords: adaptive filter, carry select adder, least mean square algorithm, reversible logic

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Authors: Phill-Seung Jung, Dae-Yeon Kim

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Objectives: In young, especially nulliparous women, it is not easy to decide on excisional therapy for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). We aimed to evaluate how effective topical imiquimod is in the treatment of high-grade CIN so that excisional therapy can be avoided in young women. Methods: Patients with CIN were allocated to this pilot study. They did not want excisional therapy and agreed with topical imiquimod therapy, which required once-a-week hospital visit for 8 weeks for the application of imiquimod to the cervix by a gynecologic oncologist. If the lesion got worse during treatment, it was decided to convert imiquimod therapy to excisional therapy. Results: A total of 36 patients with a median age of 29 years (range, 22–41 years) agreed to receive topical imiquimod therapy. Of these, 32 patients (88.9%) were positive for high-risk human papillomavirus (HR HPV). Twenty-five patients (69.4%) had low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL), and 11 (30.6%) had high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) on their initial LBC. Twenty-eight patients underwent punch biopsy, which showed CIN 1 in 7 (19.4%), CIN 2 in 11 (30.6%), and CIN 3 in 10 (27.8%) patients. Twenty patients finished the 8-week imiquimod therapy. Among them, 14 patients had CIN 2 or 3, and 6 patients had CIN 1. HR HPV was positive in 12 patients. On the last examination, 14 patients (70.0%) had negative intraepithelial lesions, 3 (15.0%) had atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance, and 1 (5.0%) had LSIL. Two patients had persistent HSIL: 1 patient underwent loop electrosurgical excision procedure, resulting in CIN 3 with positive resection margin, and the other patient underwent punch biopsy, resulting in intermediate cells and restarted imiquimod therapy. Only 7 patients were negative for HR HPV. Conclusions: This study showed that topical imiquimod therapy was effective for the treatment of high-grade CIN, with a histologic regression rate of 85.7% (14/20) and HPV eradication rate of 25.0% (8/32). Based on our findings, topical imiquimod therapy might have a successful therapeutic effect in young women with CIN 2-3 so that they can avoid excisional therapy. In addition, it could be a more reassuring treatment option for CIN 1 than just follow-up after few months. To confirm its efficacy, a phase II study with larger cohort would be needed.

Keywords: Imiquimod, Cervical Intraepthelial Neoplasia, Cervical Dysplasia, Human Papillomavirus

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Authors: Md, MCS, MPH Munyangi Wa Nkola Jerome

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The pandemic of COVID-19, a recently discovered contagious respiratory disease called SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 Majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2: Asymptomatic or mildly ill 14% of patients will develop severe illness requiring hospitalization and oxygen support, and 5% of these will be transferred to an intensive care unit, Urgent need for new treatments that can be used quickly to avoid transfer of patients to intensive care and death. Objective: To evaluate the clinical activity (efficacy) of ArtiCovid Hypothesis: Administration of 3 times a teaspoon per day by COVID patients (symptomatic, mild, or moderate forms) results in the disappearance of symptoms and improvement of biological parameters (including viral suppression). Clinical efficacy: the disappearance of clinical signs after seven days of treatment; reduction in the rate of patients transferred to intensive care units for mechanical ventilation and a decrease in mortality related to this infection Paraclinical efficacy: improvement of biological parameters (mainly d-dimer, CRP) Virological efficacy: suppression of the viral load after seven days of treatment (control test on the seventh day is negative) Pilot study using a standardized solution based on Artemisia annua (ARTICOVID) Obtaining authorization from the health authorities of the province of Central Kongo Recruitment of volunteer patients, mainly in the Kinkanda HospitalCarrying out tests before and after treatment as well as analyses before and after treatment. The protocol obtained the approval of the ethics committee 50 patients who completed the treatment were aged between 2 and 70 years, with an average age of 36 yearsMore half were male (56%). One in four patients was a health professional (25%) Of the 12 health professionals, 4 were physicians. For those who reported the date of onset of the disease, the average duration between the appearance of the first symptoms and the medical consultation was 5 days. The 50 patients put on ARTICOVID were discharged alive with CRP levels substantially normalizedAfter seven to eight days, the control test came back negative. This pilot study suggests that ARTICOVID may be effective against COVID-19 infection.

Keywords: artiCovid, DRC, Covid-19, SARS_COV_2

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Authors: M. Abdelmalek

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In this work, we study the hypersurfaces of constant weighted mean curvature embedded in weighted manifolds. We give a condition about these hypersurfaces to be minimal. This condition is given by the ellipticity of the weighted Newton transformations. We especially prove that two compact hypersurfaces of constant weighted mean curvature embedded in space forms and with the intersection in at least a point of the boundary must be transverse. The method is based on the calculus of the matrix of the second fundamental form in a boundary point and then the matrix associated with the Newton transformations. By equality, we find the weighted elementary symmetric function on the boundary of the hypersurface. We give in the end some examples and applications. Especially in Euclidean space, we use the above result to prove the Alexandrov spherical caps conjecture for the weighted case.

Keywords: weighted mean curvature, weighted manifolds, ellipticity, Newton transformations

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Authors: Hakan Erol, Altan Elibol, Ömer Eryılmaz, Mehmet Şimşek

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Organizations aim to manage information in a most possible effective way for sustainment and development. In doing so, they apply various procedures and methods. The very same situation is valid for each service of Armed Forces. During long-lasting endeavors such as shaping and maintaining security environment, supporting and securing peace, knowledge management is a crucial asset. Optimum Balance Model aims to promote the system from a decisive point to a higher decisive point. In this context, this paper analyses the application of optimum balance model to knowledge management in Armed Forces and tries to find answer to the question how Optimum Balance Model is integrated in knowledge management.

Keywords: optimum balance model, knowledge management, security environment, supporting peace

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Authors: Savvas Rogotis, Nikolaos Kalatzis, Stergios Dimou-Sakellariou, Nikolaos Marianos

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As precision holds the key for the introduction of distinct benefits in agriculture (e.g., energy savings, reduced labor costs, optimal application of inputs, improved products, and yields), it steadily becomes evident that new initiatives should focus on rendering Precision Agriculture (PA) more accessible to the average farmer. PA leverages on technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), earth observation, robotics and positioning systems (e.g., the Global Navigation Satellite System – GNSS - as well as individual positioning systems like GPS, Glonass, Galileo) that allow: from simple data georeferencing to optimal navigation of agricultural machinery to even more complex tasks like Variable Rate Applications. An identified customer pain point is that, from one hand, typical triangulation-based positioning systems are not accurate enough (with errors up to several meters), while on the other hand, high precision positioning systems reaching centimeter-level accuracy, are very costly (up to thousands of euros). Within this paper, a Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) is introduced, that can be adapted to any existing IoT field-sensing station infrastructure. The latter should cover a minimum set of requirements, and in particular, each station should operate as a fixed, obstruction-free towards the sky, energy supplying unit. Station augmentation will allow them to function in pairs with GNSS rovers following the differential GNSS base-rover paradigm. This constitutes a key innovation element for the proposed solution that encompasses differential GNSS capabilities into an IoT field-sensing infrastructure. Integrating this kind of information supports the provision of several additional PA beneficial services such as spatial mapping, route planning, and automatic field navigation of unmanned vehicles (UVs). Right at the heart of the designed system, there is a high-end GNSS toolkit with base-rover variants and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) capabilities. The GNSS toolkit had to tackle all availability, performance, interfacing, and energy-related challenges that are faced for a real-time, low-power, and reliable in the field operation. Specifically, in terms of performance, preliminary findings exhibit a high rover positioning precision that can even reach less than 10-centimeters. As this precision is propagated to the full dataset collection, it enables tractors, UVs, Android-powered devices, and measuring units to deal with challenging real-world scenarios. The system is validated with the help of Gaiatrons, a mature network of agro-climatic telemetry stations with presence all over Greece and beyond ( > 60.000ha of agricultural land covered) that constitutes part of “gaiasense” (www.gaiasense.gr) smart farming (SF) solution. Gaiatrons constantly monitor atmospheric and soil parameters, thus, providing exact fit to operational requirements asked from modern SF infrastructures. Gaiatrons are ultra-low-cost, compact, and energy-autonomous stations with a modular design that enables the integration of advanced GNSS base station capabilities on top of them. A set of demanding pilot demonstrations has been initiated in Stimagka, Greece, an area with a diverse geomorphological landscape where grape cultivation is particularly popular. Pilot demonstrations are in the course of validating the preliminary system findings in its intended environment, tackle all technical challenges, and effectively highlight the added-value offered by the system in action.

Keywords: GNSS, GBAS, precision agriculture, RTK, smart farming

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Authors: Abilio Avila, Orestis Terzidis

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A fundamental principle of Grounded Theory (GT) is to prevent the formation of preconceived theories. This implies the need to start a research study with an open mind and to avoid being absorbed by the existing literature. However, to start a new study without an understanding of the research domain and its context can be extremely challenging. This paper presents a research approach that simultaneously supports a researcher to identify and to focus on critical areas of a research project and prevent the formation of prejudiced concepts by the current body of literature. This approach comprises of four stages: Selection of secondary case studies, analysis of secondary case studies, development of an initial conceptual framework, development of an initial interview guide. The analysis of secondary case studies as a starting point for a research project allows a researcher to create a first understanding of a research area based on real-world cases without being influenced by the existing body of theory. It enables a researcher to develop through a structured course of actions a firm guide that establishes a solid starting point for further investigations. Thus, the described approach may have significant implications for GT researchers who aim to start a study within a given research area.

Keywords: grounded theory, interview guide, qualitative research, secondary case studies, secondary data analysis

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