Search results for: heart rate

Authors: Daniel Osorio, Janneth Gonzalez, Andres Pinzon

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In this work, proteins and metabolic pathways associated with the neuroprotective response mediated by the synthetic neurosteroid tibolone under a palmitate-induced inflammatory model were identified by flux balance analysis (FBA). Three different metabolic scenarios (‘healthy’, ‘inflamed’ and ‘medicated’) were modeled over a gene expression data-driven constructed tissue-specific metabolic reconstruction of mature astrocytes. Astrocyte reconstruction was built, validated and constrained using three open source software packages (‘minval’, ‘g2f’ and ‘exp2flux’) released through the Comprehensive R Archive Network repositories during the development of this work. From our analysis, we predict that tibolone executes their neuroprotective effects through a reduction of neurotoxicity mediated by L-glutamate in astrocytes, inducing the activation several metabolic pathways with neuroprotective actions associated such as taurine metabolism, gluconeogenesis, calcium and the Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor signaling pathways. Also, we found a tibolone associated increase in growth rate probably in concordance with previously reported side effects of steroid compounds in other human cell types.

Keywords: astrocytes, flux balance analysis, genome scale metabolic reconstruction, inflammation, neuroprotection, tibolone

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Authors: Ashish Dhamaniya, Vineet Jain, Rajesh Chouhan

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Traffic management is one of the gigantic issue in most of the urban roads in al-most all metropolitan cities in India. Speed is one of the critical traffic parameters for effective Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) implementation as it decides the arrival rate of vehicles on an intersection which are majorly the point of con-gestions. The study aimed to leverage Machine Learning (ML) models to produce precise predictions of speed on urban roadway links. The research objective was to assess how categorized traffic volume and road width, serving as variables, in-fluence speed prediction. Four tree-based regression models namely: Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), Extra Tree (ET), and Extreme Gradient Boost (XGB)are employed for this purpose. The models' performances were validated using test data, and the results demonstrate that Random Forest surpasses other machine learning techniques and a conventional utility theory-based model in speed prediction. The study is useful for managing the urban roadway network performance under mixed traffic conditions and effective implementation of ITS.

Keywords: stream speed, urban roads, machine learning, traffic flow

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Authors: Sahar Heidary, Ramin Ghasemi Shayan

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By the development of new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) pneumonia, chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) has been one of the main investigative implements. To realize timely and truthful diagnostics, defining the radiological features of the infection is of excessive value. The purpose of this impression was to consider the imaging demonstrations of early-stage coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and to run an imaging base for a primary finding of supposed cases and stratified interference. The right prophetic rate of HRCT was 85%, sensitivity was 73% for all patients. Total accuracy was 68%. There was no important change in these values for symptomatic and asymptomatic persons. These consequences were besides free of the period of X-ray from the beginning of signs or interaction. Therefore, we suggest that HRCT is a brilliant attachment for early identification of COVID-19 pneumonia in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals in adding to the role of predictive gauge for COVID-19 pneumonia. Patients experienced non-contrast HRCT chest checkups and images were restored in a thin 1.25 mm lung window. Images were estimated for the existence of lung scratches & a CT severity notch was allocated separately for each patient based on the number of lung lobes convoluted.

Keywords: COVID-19, radiology, respiratory diseases, HRCT

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Authors: Tomyslav Sledevič, Artūras Serackis, Gintautas Tamulevičius, Dalius Navakauskas

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This paper presents a comparative evaluation of features extraction algorithm for a real-time isolated word recognition system based on FPGA. The Mel-frequency cepstral, linear frequency cepstral, linear predictive and their cepstral coefficients were implemented in hardware/software design. The proposed system was investigated in the speaker-dependent mode for 100 different Lithuanian words. The robustness of features extraction algorithms was tested recognizing the speech records at different signals to noise rates. The experiments on clean records show highest accuracy for Mel-frequency cepstral and linear frequency cepstral coefficients. For records with 15 dB signal to noise rate the linear predictive cepstral coefficients give best result. The hard and soft part of the system is clocked on 50 MHz and 100 MHz accordingly. For the classification purpose, the pipelined dynamic time warping core was implemented. The proposed word recognition system satisfies the real-time requirements and is suitable for applications in embedded systems.

Keywords: isolated word recognition, features extraction, MFCC, LFCC, LPCC, LPC, FPGA, DTW

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Authors: Ahmad Amiri, Hamed K. Arzani, S. N. Kazi, B. T. Chew

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Since graphene nanoplatelet (GNP) is a promising material due to desirable thermal properties, this paper is related to the thermophysical and heat transfer performance of covalently functionalized GNP-based water/ethylene glycol nanofluid through an annular channel. After experimentally measuring thermophysical properties of prepared samples, a computational fluid dynamics study has been carried out to examine the heat transfer and pressure drop of well-dispersed and stabilized nanofluids. The effect of concentration of GNP and Reynolds number at constant wall temperature boundary condition under turbulent flow regime on convective heat transfer coefficient has been investigated. Based on the results, for different Reynolds numbers, the convective heat transfer coefficient of the prepared nanofluid is higher than that of the base fluid. Also, the enhancement of convective heat transfer coefficient and thermal conductivity increase with the increase of GNP concentration in base-fluid. Based on the results of this investigation, there is a significant enhancement on the heat transfer rate associated with loading well-dispersed GNP in base-fluid.

Keywords: nanofluid, turbulent flow, forced convection flow, graphene, annular, annulus

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Authors: Pear-Rarin Leelakunakorn, Patompong Satapornpong

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Introduction: Dapsone is an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic drug that was widely used for the treatment of leprosy, acne fulminans, and dermatitis herpetiformis (DH). However, dapsone is the main cause that triggers severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs), with a possibility of 0.4 to 3.6% of patients after initiating treatment. In fact, the mortality rate of dapsone-induced SCARs is approximately 9.9%. In previous studies, HLA-B*13:01 was strongly associated with dapsone-induced SCARs in Han Chinese, Thais, and Koreans. Nevertheless, the distribution of HLA-B*13:01 marker in each population might differ. Moreover, there were found that the association between HLA-C*03:04 and dapsone hypersensitivity syndrome in Han Chinese leprosy patients by OR = 9.00 and p-value = 2.23×10⁻¹⁹. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of HLA-C* 03:04 in Thailand's healthy population. Method: A total of 350 participants were HLA-C genotyping used sequence-specific oligonucleotides (PCR-SSOs). This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Rangsit University Result : The most frequency of HLA -C alleles in Thais, consist of HLA -C* 01:02 (17.00 %), -C*08:01 (11.00%) , -C*07:02 (10.70%) , -C* 03:04 ( 9.10%) , -C* 03:02 (8.00%) , -C* 07:01 (6.30%), -C* 07:04 (4.60%), -C* 04:01 (4.40%) ,-C* 12:02 ( 4.30% ) ,and -C* 04:03(3.90%). Interestingly, HLA -C* 03:04 allele was similar to the distribution among Thais and other populations such as Eastern Europe (6.09%), Vietnam (7.42% ), East Croatia (2.25%), and Han Chinese (11.70%). Conclusion: Consequently, HLA-C*03:04 might serve as a pharmacogenetic marker for screening prior to initiation therapy with dapsone for prevention of dapsone-induced SCARs in Thai population.

Keywords: HLA-C*03:04, SCARs, thai population, allele frequency

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Authors: Liang Wang, Beste F. Yuksel, David Guy Brizan

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A computational model of affect that can distinguish between spontaneous and posed smiles with no errors on a large, popular data set using deep learning techniques is presented in this paper. A Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) classifier, a type of Recurrent Neural Network, is utilized and compared to human classification. Results showed that while human classification (mean of 0.7133) was above chance, the LSTM model was more accurate than human classification and other comparable state-of-the-art systems. Additionally, a high accuracy rate was maintained with small amounts of training videos (70 instances). The derivation of important features to further understand the success of our computational model were analyzed, and it was inferred that thousands of pairs of points within the eyes and mouth are important throughout all time segments in a smile. This suggests that distinguishing between a posed and spontaneous smile is a complex task, one which may account for the difficulty and lower accuracy of human classification compared to machine learning models.

Keywords: affective computing, affect detection, computer vision, deep learning, human-computer interaction, machine learning, posed smile detection, spontaneous smile detection

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Authors: Jin A Ryu, Hee Sun Kim

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As the number of fire accidents is gradually raising, many studies have been reported on evacuation. Previous studies have mostly focused on evaluating the safety of evacuation and the risk of fire in particular buildings. However, studies on effects of various parameters on evacuation have not been nearly done. Therefore, this paper aims at observing evacuation time under the effect of fire initiated location. In this study, evacuation simulations are performed on a 5-floor building located in Seoul, South Korea using the commercial program, Fire Dynamics Simulator with Evacuation (FDS+EVAC). Only the fourth and fifth floors are modeled with an assumption that fire starts in a room located on the fourth floor. The parameter for evacuation simulations is location of fire initiation to observe the evacuation time and safety. Results show that the location of fire initiation is closer to exit, the more time is taken to evacuate. The case having the nearest location of fire initiation to exit has the lowest ratio of successful occupants to the total occupants. In addition, for safety evaluation, the evacuation time calculated from computer simulation model is compared with the tolerable evacuation time according to code in Japan. As a result, all cases are completed within the tolerable evacuation time. This study allows predicting evacuation time under various conditions of fire and can be used to evaluate evacuation appropriateness and fire safety of building.

Keywords: fire simulation, evacuation simulation, temperature, evacuation safety

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Authors: I. Parkova, A. Vališevskis, A. Viļumsone

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Nocturnal enuresis or bed-wetting is intermittent incontinence during sleep of children after age 5 that may precipitate wide range of behavioural and developmental problems. One of the non-pharmacological treatment methods is the use of a bed-wetting alarm system. In order to improve comfort conditions of nocturnal enuresis alarm system, modular moisture sensor should be replaced by a textile sensor. In this study behaviour and moisture detection speed of woven and sewn sensors were compared by analysing change in electrical resistance after solution (salt water) was dripped on sensor samples. Material of samples has different structure and yarn location, which affects solution detection rate. Sensor system circuit was designed and two sensor tests were performed: system activation test and false alarm test to determine the sensitivity of the system and activation threshold. Sewn sensor had better result in system’s activation test – faster reaction, but woven sensor had better result in system’s false alarm test – it was less sensitive to perspiration simulation. After experiments it was found that the optimum switching threshold is 3V in case of 5V input voltage, which provides protection against false alarms, for example – during intensive sweating.

Keywords: conductive yarns, moisture textile sensor, industry, material

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Authors: Marwa Qaraqe, Muhammad Ismail, Erchin Serpedin

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This paper presents a novel architecture for a patient-specific epileptic seizure onset detector using scalp electroencephalography (EEG). The proposed architecture is based on the decision fusion calculated from energy and neural synchronization related features. Specifically, one level of the detector calculates the condition number (CN) of an EEG matrix to evaluate the amount of neural synchronization present within the EEG channels. On a parallel level, the detector evaluates the energy contained in four EEG frequency subbands. The information is then fed into two independent (parallel) classification units based on support vector machines to determine the onset of a seizure event. The decisions from the two classifiers are then combined together according to two fusion techniques to determine a global decision. Experimental results demonstrate that the detector based on the AND fusion technique outperforms existing detectors with a sensitivity of 100%, detection latency of 3 seconds, while it achieves a 2:76 false alarm rate per hour. The OR fusion technique achieves a sensitivity of 100%, and significantly improves delay latency (0:17 seconds), yet it achieves 12 false alarms per hour.

Keywords: epilepsy, EEG, seizure onset, electroencephalography, neuron, detection

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Authors: Manjari Rai

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Urbanization is an inevitable process of development of human society and an outcome of economic development and scientific and technological progress. While urbanization process in promoting the development of human civilization, also no doubt, urban landscape has been a corresponding impact. Urban environment has suffered unprecedented damage majorly due to the increase in urban population density and heavy migration rate, traffic congestion, and environmental pollution. All this have however led to a major ecological degradation and imbalance. As lands are used for the rapid and unplanned urbanization, the green lands are diminished, and severe pollution is created by waste products. Plastic, the most alarming waste at landfill sites, is yet uncontrolled. Therefore, initiatives must be taken to reduce plastic mediated pollution and increase green application. However, increasing green land is not possible due to the landfill by urban structures. In order to create a harmonious environment, sustainable development in the urban landscape becomes a matter of prime focus. This paper thus discusses the concept of ecological design combined with the urban landscape design, green landscape design on urban structures and sustainable development through the use of recyclable waste materials which is also a low costing approach of urban landscape design.

Keywords: ecological, degradation sustainable, landscape, urban

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Authors: Robert Jacobsen

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Flood inundation maps (FIMs) are an essential tool in communicating flood threat scenarios to the public as well as in floodplain governance. With an increasing demand for online raster FIMs, the FIM State-of-the-Practice (SOP) is rapidly advancing to meet the dual requirements for high-resolution and high-accuracy—or High-Definition. Importantly, today’s technology also enables the resolution of problems of local—neighborhood-scale—bias errors that often occur in FIMs, even with the use of SOP two-dimensional flood modeling. To facilitate the development of HD-FIMs, a new GIS method--Raster Adjustment with Scenario Profiles, RASPTM—is described for adjusting kernel raster FIMs to match refined scenario profiles. With RASPTM, flood professionals can prepare HD-FIMs for a wide range of scenarios with available kernel rasters, including kernel rasters prepared from vector FIMs. The paper provides detailed procedures for RASPTM, along with an example of applying RASPTM to prepare an HD-FIM for the August 2016 Flood in Louisiana using both an SOP kernel raster and a kernel raster derived from an older vector-based flood insurance rate map. The accuracy of the HD-FIMs achieved with the application of RASPTM to the two kernel rasters is evaluated.

Keywords: hydrology, mapping, high-definition, inundation

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Authors: Nacim Khelil, Amar Kahil, Said Boukais

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The aim of the present study is to investigate the changes in the mechanical properties of mortars including additions of Condensed Silica Fume (CSF), Hydrated Lime (CH) or both at various amounts (5% to 15% of cement replacement) and high water ratios (w/b) (0.4 to 0.7). The physical and mechanical changes in the mixes were evaluated using non-destructive tests (Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV)) and destructive tests (crushing tests) on 28 day-long specimens consecutively, in order to assess CSF and CH replacement rate influence on the mechanical and physical properties of the mortars, as well as CSF-CH pre-mixing on the improvement of these properties. A significant improvement of the mechanical properties of the CSF, CSF-CH mortars, has been noted. CSF-CH mixes showed the best improvements exceeding 50% improvement, showing the sizable pozzolanic reaction contribution to the specimen strength development. UPV tests have shown increased velocities for CSF and CSH mixes, however no proportional evolution with compressive strengths could be noted. The results of the study show that CSF-CH addition could represent a suitable solution to significantly increase the mechanical properties of mortars.

Keywords: compressive strength, condensed silica fume, hydrated lime, pozzolanic reaction, UPV testing

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Authors: Chunying Fang, Haifeng Li, Lin Ma, Mancai Zhang

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Speech intelligibility assessment is an important measure to evaluate the functional outcomes of surgical and non-surgical treatment, speech therapy and rehabilitation. The assessment of pathological speech plays an important role in assisting the experts. Pathological speech usually is non-stationary and mutational, in this paper, we describe a multi-granularity combined feature schemes, and which is optimized by hierarchical visual method. First of all, the difference granularity level pathological features are extracted which are BAFS (Basic acoustics feature set), local spectral characteristics MSCC (Mel s-transform cepstrum coefficients) and nonlinear dynamic characteristics based on chaotic analysis. Latterly, radar chart and F-score are proposed to optimize the features by the hierarchical visual fusion. The feature set could be optimized from 526 to 96-dimensions.The experimental results denote that new features by support vector machine (SVM) has the best performance, with a recognition rate of 84.4% on NKI-CCRT corpus. The proposed method is thus approved to be effective and reliable for pathological speech intelligibility evaluation.

Keywords: pathological speech, multi-granularity feature, MSCC (Mel s-transform cepstrum coefficients), F-score, radar chart

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Authors: A. Anandha Selvan, B. Malarvizhi

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In recent year the problem of space debris have become very serious. The mass of the artificial objects in orbit increased quite steadily at the rate of about 145 metric tons annually, leading to a total tally of approximately 7000 metric tons. Now most of space debris object orbiting in LEO region about 97%. The catastrophic collision can be mostly occurred in LEO region, where this collision generate the new debris. Thus, we propose a concept for cleaning the space debris in the region of thermosphere by passing the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) radiation to in front of space debris object from the re-orbiter. So in our concept the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) radiation will create the thermosphere expansion by reacting with atmospheric gas particles. So the drag is produced in front of the space debris object by thermosphere expansion. This drag force is high enough to slow down the space debris object’s relative velocity. Therefore the space debris object gradually reducing the altitude and finally enter into the earth’s atmosphere. After the first target is removed, the re-orbiter can be goes into next target. This method remove the space debris object without catching debris object. Thus it can be applied to a wide range of debris object without regard to their shapes or rotation. This paper discusses the operation of re-orbiter for removing the space debris in thermosphere region.

Keywords: active space debris removal, space debris, LEO, extreme ultraviolet, re-orbiter, thermosphere

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Authors: Mabtho Moreroa-Monyelo, Grace Ijoma, Rosina Nkuna, Tonderayi Matambo

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A moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) was used for the bioremediation of high strength chemical oxygen demand (COD) Fisher-Tropsch (FT) wastewater. The aerobic MBBR system was operated over 60 days. For metagenomics profile assessment of the targeted 16S sequence of bacteria involved in the bioremediation of the chemical compounds, sludge samples were collected every second day of operation. Parameters such as pH and COD were measured daily to compare the system efficiency as the changedin microbial diversity progressed. The study revealed that pH was a contributing factor to microbial diversity, which further affected the efficiency of the MBBR system. The highest COD removal rate of 86.4% was achieved at pH 8.3. It was observed that when there was more, A higher bacterial diversity led to an improvement in the reduction of COD. Furthermore, an OTUof 4530 was obtained, which were divided into 12 phyla, 27 classes, 44 orders, 74 families, and 138 genera across all sludge samples from the MBBR. A determination of the relative abundance of microorganisms at phyla level indicates that the most abundant phylum on day it was Firmicutes (50%); thereafter, the most abundant phylum changed toProteobacteria.

Keywords: biodegradation, fischer-tropsch wastewater, metagenomics, moving bed biofilm reactor

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Authors: Ajay Ivan

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This paper focuses on the cultural politics of health-promotional and disease-preventive pedagogic practices in the context of the national tobacco control programme in India. Tobacco consumption is typically problematised as a paradox: tobacco poses objective health risks such as cancer and heart disease, but its production, sale and export contribute significantly to state revenue. A blanket ban on tobacco products, therefore, is infeasible though desirable. Instead, initiatives against tobacco use have prioritised awareness creation and behaviour change to reduce its demand. This paper argues that public health communication is not, as commonly assumed, an apolitical and neutral transmission of disease-preventive information. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, it examines such campaigns as techniques of disciplining people rather than coercing them to give up tobacco use, which would be both impractical and counter-productive. At the level of the population, these programmes constitute a security mechanism that reduces risks without eliminating them, so as to ensure an optimal level of public health without hampering the economy. Anti-tobacco pedagogy thus aligns with a contemporary paradigm of health that emphasises risk-assessment and lifestyle management as tools of governance, using pedagogic techniques to teach people how to be healthy. The paper analyses the pictorial health warnings on tobacco packets and anti-tobacco advertisements in movie theatres mandated by the state, along with awareness-creation messages circulated by anti-tobacco advocacy groups in India, to show how they discursively construct tobacco and its consumption as a health risk. Smoking is resignified from a pleasurable and sociable practice to a deadly addiction that jeopardises the health of those who smoke and those who passively inhale the smoke. While disseminating information about the health risks of tobacco, these initiatives employ emotional and affective techniques of persuasion to discipline tobacco users. They incite fear of death and of social ostracism to motivate behaviour change, complementing their appeals to reason. Tobacco is portrayed as a grave moral danger to the family and a detriment to the vitality of the nation, such that using it contradicts one’s duties as a parent or citizen. Awareness programmes reproduce prevailing societal assumptions about health and disease, normalcy and deviance, and proper and improper conduct. Pedagogy thus functions as an apparatus of public health governance, recruiting subjects as volunteers in their own regulation and aligning their personal goals and aspirations to the objectives of tobacco control. The paper links this calculated management of subjectivity and the self-responsibilisation of the pedagogic subject to a distinct mode of neoliberal civic governance in contemporary India. Health features prominently in this mode of governance that serves the biopolitical obligation of the state as laid down in Article 39 of the Constitution, which includes a duty to ensure the health of its citizens. Insofar as the health of individuals is concerned, the problem is how to balance this duty of the state with the fundamental right of the citizen to choose how to live. Public health pedagogy, by directing the citizen’s ‘free’ choice without unduly infringing upon it, offers a tactical solution.

Keywords: public health communication, pedagogic power, tobacco control, neoliberal governance

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Authors: Aysun Pınarbaşı, Béla Vizvári

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The countries are the units that procure the vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The delivered quantities are huge. The countries must bear the inventory holding cost according to the variation of stock quantities. This cost depends on the speed of the vaccination in the country. This speed is time-dependent. The vaccinated portion of the population can be approximated by the cumulative distribution function of the Cauchy distribution. A model is provided for determining the minimal-cost inventory policy, and its optimality conditions are provided. The model is solved for 20 countries for different numbers of procurements. The results reveal the individual behavior of each country. We provide an inventory policy for the pandemic period for the countries. This paper presents a deterministic model for vaccines with a demand rate variable over time for the countries. It is aimed to provide an analytical model to deal with the minimization of holding cost and develop inventory policies regarding this aim to be used for a variety of perishable products such as vaccines. The saturation process is introduced, and an approximation of the vaccination curve of the countries has been discussed. According to this aspect, a deterministic model for inventory policy has been developed.

Keywords: covid-19, vaccination, inventory policy, bounded total demand, inventory holding cost, cauchy distribution, sigmoid function

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Authors: Umar Farouk Abbas, Danjuma Mustapha, Hamisu Idi

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It is now a known fact that quality is an important issue in manufacturing industries. A control chart is an integrated and powerful tool in statistical process control (SPC). The mean µ and standard deviation σ parameters are estimated. In general, the multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (MEWMA) and multivariate cumulative sum (MCUSUM) are used in the detection of small shifts in joint monitoring of several correlated variables; the charts used information from past data which makes them sensitive to small shifts. The aim of the paper is to compare the performance of Shewhart xbar, MEWMA, and MCUSUM control charts in terms of their false rates when parameters are estimated with autocorrelation. A simulation was conducted in R software to generate the average run length (ARL) values of each of the charts. After the analysis, the results show that a comparison of the false alarm rates of the charts shows that MEWMA chart has lower false alarm rates than the MCUSUM chart at various levels of parameter estimated to the number of ARL0 (in control) values. Also noticed was that the sample size has an advert effect on the false alarm of the control charts.

Keywords: average run length, MCUSUM chart, MEWMA chart, false alarm rate, parameter estimation, simulation

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Authors: Marina Nosik, Irina Rymanova, Konstantin Ryzhov, Joan Yarovaya, Alexander Sobkin

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Tuberculosis (TB) associated with HIV is one of the top causes of death worldwide. However, early detection and treatment of TB in HIV-infected individuals significantly reduces the risk of developing severe forms of TB and mortality. The goal of the study was to analyze the peculiarities of TB associated with HIV infection. Over the period of 2015-2016 a retrospective cohort study was conducted among 377 patients with TB/HIV co-infection who attended the Moscow Tuberculosis Clinic. The majority of the patients was male (64,5%). The median age was: men 37,9 (24÷62) and women 35,4 (22÷72) years. The most prevalent age group was 30-39 years both for men and women (73,3% and 54,7%, respectively). The ratio of patients in age group 50-59 and senior was 3,9%. Socioeconomic status of patients was rather low: only 2.3% of patients had a university degree; 76,1% was unemployed (of whom 21,7% were disabled). Most patients had disseminated pulmonary tuberculosis in the phase of infiltration/ decay (41,5%). The infiltrative TB was detected in 18,9% of patients; 20,1% patients had tuberculosis of intrathoracic lymph nodes. The occurrence of MDR-TB was 16,8% and XDR-TB – 17,9%. The number of HIV-positive patients with newly diagnosed TB was n=261(69,2%). The active TB-form (MbT+) among new TB/HIV cases was 44,7 %. The severe clinical forms of TB and a high TB incidence rate among HIV-infected individuals alongside with a large number of cases of newly diagnosed tuberculosis, indicate the need for more intense interaction with TB services for timely diagnosis of TB which will optimize treatment outcomes.

Keywords: HIV, tuberculosis (TB), TB associated with HIV, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB)

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Authors: Olufemi Oyedele

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Building collapse (BC) in Nigeria is becoming a regular occurrence, each recording great casualties in the number of lives and materials lost. Building collapse is a situation where building which has been completed and occupied, completed but not occupied or under construction, collapses on its own due to action or inaction of man or due to natural event like earthquake, storm, flooding, tsunami or wildfire. It is different from building demolition. There are various causes of building collapse and each case requires expert judgment to decide the cause of its collapse. Rate of building collapse is a reflection of the level of organization and control of building activities and degree of sophistication of the construction professionals in a country. This study explored the use of case study by examining the causes of six (6) collapsed buildings (CB) across Nigeria. Samples of materials from the sites of the collapsed buildings were taken for testing and analysis, while critical observations were made at the sites to note the conditions of the ground (building base). The study found out that majority of the building collapses in Nigeria were due to poor workmanship, sub-standard building materials, followed by bad building base and poor design. The National Building Code 2006 is not effective due to lack of enforcement and the Physical Development Departments of states and Federal Capital Territory are just mere agents of corruption allowing all types of construction without building approvals.

Keywords: building collapse, concrete tests, differential settlement, integrity test, quality control

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Authors: A. Shahsavari, M. Nili-Ahmadabadi

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This paper presents an innovative one-dimensional optimization of a transonic compressor based on the radial equilibrium theory by means of increasing blade loading. Firstly, the rotor blade of the transonic compressor is redesigned based on the constant span-wise deHaller number and diffusion. The code is applied to extract compressor meridional plane and blade to blade geometry containing rotor and stator in order to design blade three-dimensional view. A structured grid is generated for the numerical domain of fluid. Finer grids are used for regions near walls to capture boundary layer effects and behavior. RANS equations are solved by finite volume method for rotating zones (rotor) and stationary zones (stator). The experimental data, available for the performance map of NASA Rotor67, is used to validate the results of simulations. Then, the capability of the design method is validated by CFD that is capable of predicting the performance map. The numerical results of new geometry show about 19% increase in pressure ratio and 11% improvement in overall efficiency of the transonic stage; however, the design point mass flow rate of the new compressor is 5.7% less than that of the original compressor.

Keywords: deHaller number, one dimensional design, radial equilibrium, transonic compressor

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Authors: Voss Harrigan, Korey Carter, Mohammad Reza Shaeri

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Detrimental effects of lunar dust on space hardware, spacesuits, and astronauts’ health have been already identified during Apollo missions. Developing effective dust mitigation technologies is critically important for successful space exploration and related missions in NASA applications. In this study, an electrostatic cleaning system (ECS) integrated with a negatively ionized Thunderon brush was developed to mitigate small-sized lunar dust particles with diameters ranging from 0.04 µm to 35 µm, and the mean and median size of 7 µm and 5 µm, respectively. It was found that the frequency pulses of the negative ion generator caused particles to stick to the Thunderon bristles and repel between the pulses. The brush was used manually to ensure that particles were removed from areas where the ECS failed to mitigate the lunar simulant. The acquired data demonstrated that the developed system removed over 91-96% of the lunar dust particles. The present study was performed as a proof-of-concept to enhance the cleaning performance of ECSs by integrating a brushing process. Suggestions were made to further improve the performance of the developed technology through future research.

Keywords: lunar dust mitigation, electrostatic cleaning system, Brushing, Thunderon brush, cleaning rate

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Authors: Jehad Dumireih, Malak Dmirieh, Michael Wink

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The present work is aimed to use plant cell suspension cultures of Crataegus monogyna for biosynthesis of valuable natural products by using quercetin as an inexpensive precursor. Suspension cell cultures of C. monogyna were established by using Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) supplemented with 1 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 1 mg/L kinetin. Cells were harvested from the cultures and extracted by using methanol and ethyl acetate; then the extracts were used for the identification of isoquercetin by HPLC and by mass spectrometry. The incubation of the cells with 0.24 mM quercetin for one week resulted in an 16 fold increase of isoquercetin biosynthesis; the growth rate of the cells increased by 20%. Moreover, the biosynthesis of isoquercetin was enhanced by 40% when we divided the added quercetin into three portions each one with concentration 0.12 mM supplied at 3 days intervals. In addition, we didn’t find any positive effects of adding different concentrations the precursors phenylalanine (0.2 mM) and galactose to the cell cultures. In conclusion, the efficiency of the biotransformation of quercetin into isoquercetin depended on the concentration quercetin, its incubation time and the way of its administration. The results of the present work suggest that the biotechnological methods such as cell suspension cultures could be successfully used to obtain highly valuable natural product starting from inexpensive compound.

Keywords: biosynthesis, biotransformation, Crataegus, isoquercetin

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Authors: Benseghir Omar, Bahmed Mohamed

Abstract:

In this work, we presented a numerical study of the phenomenon of heat transfer through the laminar, incompressible and steady mixed convection in a closed square cavity with the left vertical wall of the cavity is subjected to a warm temperature, while the right wall is considered to be cold. The horizontal walls are assumed adiabatic. The governing equations were discretized by finite volume method on a staggered mesh and the SIMPLER algorithm was used for the treatment of velocity-pressure coupling. The numerical simulations were performed for a wide range of Reynolds numbers 1, 10, 100, and 1000 numbers are equal to 0.01,0.1 Richardson, 0.5,1 and 10.The analysis of the results shows a flow bicellular (two cells), one is created by the speed of the fan placed in the inner cavity, one on the left is due to the difference between the temperatures right wall and the left wall. Knowledge of the intensity of each of these cells allowed us to get an original result. And the values obtained from each of Nuselt convection which allow to know the rate of heat transfer in the cavity.Finally we find that there is a significant influence on the position of the fan on the heat transfer (Nusselt evolution) for values of Reynolds studied and for low values of Richardson handed this influence is negligible for high values of the latter.

Keywords: thermal transfer, mixed convection, square cavity, finite volume method

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Authors: Mingjun Xu, Man Pun Wan

Abstract:

This study proposed an effective smoke control strategy for the large flat space with a low ceiling to achieve the requirement of perpetual tenability. For the large flat space with a low ceiling, the depth of the smoke reservoir is very shallow, and it is difficult to perpetually constrain the smoke within a limited space. A series of numerical tests were conducted to determine the smoke strategy. A zonal design i.e., the fire zone and two adjacent zones was proposed and validated to be effective in controlling smoke. Once a fire happens in a compartment space, the Engineered Smoke Control (ESC) system will be activated in three zones i.e., the fire zone, in which the fire happened, and two adjacent zones. The smoke can be perpetually constrained within the three smoke zones. To further improve the extraction efficiency, sequential activation of the ESC system within the 3 zones turned out to be more efficient than simultaneous activation. Additionally, the proposed zonal and sequential extraction design can reduce the mechanical extraction flow rate by up to 40.7 % as compared to the conventional method, which is much more economical than that of the conventional method.

Keywords: performance-based design, perpetual tenability, smoke control, fire plume

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Authors: Jian Zheng

Abstract:

Three-dimensional (3D) network structure has been recognized as an effective approach to enhance the mechanical and thermal conductive properties of polymeric composites. However, it has not been applied in energetic materials. In this work, a fluoropolymer based composite with vertically oriented and interconnected 3D graphite network was fabricated for polymer bonded explosives (PBXs). Here, the graphite and graphene oxide platelets were mixed, and self-assembled via rapid freezing and using crystallized ice as the template. The 3D structure was finally obtained by freezing-dry and infiltrating with the polymer. With the increasing of filler fraction and cooling rate, the thermal conductivity of the polymer composite was significantly improved to 2.15 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ by 1094% than that of pure polymer. Moreover, the mechanical properties, such as tensile strength and elastic modulus, were enhanced by 82% and 310%, respectively, when the highly ordered structure was embedded in the polymer. We attribute the increased thermal and mechanical properties to this 3D network, which is beneficial to the effective heat conduction and force transfer. This study supports a desirable way to fabricate the strong and thermal conductive fluoropolymer composites used for the high-performance polymer bonded explosives (PBXs).

Keywords: mechanical properties, oriented network, graphite polymer composite, thermal conductivity

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Authors: Ringisai Abigail Mawondo-Dhliwayo, Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu

Abstract:

Due to financial challenges which governments in general face, it is becoming more difficult for many to continually use their limited resources to undertake infrastructural development. Governments increasingly now need other delivery approaches, in particular, the Public-Private Partnerships which make it possible for the public sector to achieve infrastructural development without incurring any/minimum cost. The literature reviewed outlined that benefits of PPPs include timely delivery of quality projects with cost limits. The methodology utilized for the empirical study comprised six interviews and sixty questionnaires which were undertaken and administered by construction consultants and government officials involved in PPPs projects. The results obtained showed that PPPs are not widely used in Zimbabwe although the need for their use exists. The study also found some challenges which prevent or derail the rate at which PPPs are utilized, of which the primary one was a political influence. It is concluded that despite limitations, PPPs remain the most effective and viable option for the delivery of government projects. The study recommends that policy and framework for the implementation of PPPs be developed. More useful information could have been obtained if final users of PPPs projects were included in the sample for data collection.

Keywords: construction projects, procurement, public private partnerships, public sector

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Authors: Bambang Piscesa, Mario M. Attard, Dwi Presetya, Ali K. Samani

Abstract:

A numerical strategy formulated using a plasticity approach is presented to model spalling of the concrete cover in reinforced concrete columns. The stage at which the concrete cover within reinforced concrete column spalls has a direct bearing on the load capacity. The concrete cover can prematurely spall before the full cross-section can be utilized if the concrete is very brittle under compression such as for very high strength concretes. If the confinement to the core is high enough, the column can achieve a higher peak load by utilizing the core. A numerical strategy is presented to model spalling of the concrete cover. Various numerical strategies are employed to model the behavior of reinforced concrete columns which include: (1) adjusting the material properties to incorporate restrained shrinkage; (2) modifying the plastic dilation rate in the presence of the tensile pressure; (3) adding a tension cut-off failure surface and (4) giving the concrete cover region and the column core different material properties. Numerical comparisons against experimental results are carried out that shown excellent agreement with the experimental results and justify the use of the proposed strategies to predict the axial load capacity of reinforce concrete columns.

Keywords: spalling, concrete, plastic dilation, reinforced concrete columns

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Authors: Prashant Verma

Abstract:

Commercial banks are facing immense pressure, including financial disintermediation, interest rate volatility and digital ways of finance. Retaining an existing customer is 5 to 25 less expensive than acquiring a new one. This paper explores customer churn prediction, based on various statistical & machine learning models and uses under-sampling, to improve the predictive power of these models. The results show that out of the various machine learning models, Random Forest which predicts the churn with 78% accuracy, has been found to be the most powerful model for the scenario. Customer vintage, customer’s age, average balance, occupation code, population code, average withdrawal amount, and an average number of transactions were found to be the variables with high predictive power for the churn prediction model. The model can be deployed by the commercial banks in order to avoid the customer churn so that they may retain the funds, which are kept by savings bank (SB) customers. The article suggests a customized campaign to be initiated by commercial banks to avoid SB customer churn. Hence, by giving better customer satisfaction and experience, the commercial banks can limit the customer churn and maintain their deposits.

Keywords: savings bank, customer churn, customer retention, random forests, machine learning, under-sampling

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