Search results for: metal ion detection

Authors: Abeer Y. Ibrahim, Faten M. Ibrahim, Samah A. El-Newary, Saber F. Hendawy

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Objective: Appreciation of in-vitro anti-inflammatory and antioxidant characters of Vitex agnus-castus berries alcoholic extract and fractions, as well as in-vivo antitumor ability of alcoholic extract and chloroform fraction against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma is the aim of this study. Material and methods: Antioxidant properties of crude alcoholic extract of vitex berries as well as petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate and butanol fractions were evaluated, in-vitro assessments, as compared with standard materials, l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and butylated hydroxyl toluene(BHT). The anti-inflammatory activity was investigated in cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 inhibition assays. Moreover, in-vivo antitumor effect of vitex berries alcoholic and chloroform extracts were evaluated using Ehrlich ascites carcinoma model. Data were presented as mean±SE, and data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance test. Results and conclusion: Berries crude extract showed potent antioxidant activity followed with its fractions ethyl acetate and chloroform as compared with standard (V.C and BHT). Ethyl acetate fraction showed good reduction capability, metal ion chelation, hydrogen peroxide scavenging, nitric oxide scavenging and superoxide anion scavenging. Meanwhile, chloroform fraction produced the highest free radical scavenging activity and total antioxidant capacity. In respectable of lipid peroxidation inhibition, crude alcoholic extract and its fractions cleared weak inhibition in comparing with standard materials. Anti-inflammatory activity of V. agnus-castus berries chloroform fraction of vitex was best COX-2 inhibitor (IC₅₀, 135.41 µg/ ml) as compared to vitex alcoholic extract or ethyl acetate fraction with weak inhibitory effect on COX-1 (IC50, 778.432 µg/ ml), where the lowest effect on COX-1 was recorded with alcoholic extract. Alcoholic extract and its fractions showed weak COX-1 inhibition activity, whereas COX-2 was inhibited (100%), compared with celecoxib drug (72% at 1000ppm). The crude alcoholic and chloroform extracts of V. agnus-castus barries significantly reduced the viable Ehrlich cell count and increased nonviable count with amelioration of all hematological parameters. This amelioration was reflected on increasing median survival time and significant increase (P < 0.05) in lifespan.

Keywords: anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, ehrlich ascites carcinoma, Vitex agnus-castus

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Doaa Hamdi, Ahmed Hashem

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The present study aims at integrating the ASTER data and Landsat 8 data to discriminate and map alteration and/or mineralization zones in addition to delineating different lithological units of Humr Akarim Granites area. The study area is located at 24º9' to 24º13' N and 34º1' to 34º2'45"E., covering a total exposed surface area of about 17 km². The area is characterized by rugged topography with low to moderate relief. Geologic fieldwork and petrographic investigations revealed that the basement complex of the study area is composed of metasediments, mafic dikes, older granitoids, and alkali-feldspar granites. Petrographic investigations revealed that the secondary minerals in the study area are mainly represented by chlorite, epidote, clay minerals and iron oxides. These minerals have specific spectral signatures in the region of visible near-infrared and short-wave infrared (0.4 to 2.5 µm). So that the ASTER imagery processing was concentrated on VNIR-SWIR spectrometric data in order to achieve the purposes of this study (geologic mapping of hydrothermal alteration zones and delineate possible radioactive potentialities). Mapping of hydrothermal alterations zones in addition to discriminating the lithological units in the study area are achieved through the utilization of some different image processing, including color band composites (CBC) and data transformation techniques such as band ratios (BR), band ratio codes (BRCs), principal component analysis(PCA), Crosta Technique and minimum noise fraction (MNF). The field verification and petrographic investigation confirm the results of ASTER imagery and Landsat 8 data, proposing a geological map (scale 1:50000).

Keywords: remote sensing, petrography, mineralization, alteration detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Ahmed Tamer AlMotasem, Jens Bergström, Anders Gåård, Pavel Krakhmalev, Thijs Jan Holleboom

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In sheet metal forming processes, accumulation and transfer of sheet material to tool surfaces, often referred to as galling, is the major cause of tool failure. Initiation of galling is assumed to occur due to local adhesive wear between two surfaces. Therefore, reducing adhesion between the tool and the work sheet has a great potential to improve the tool materials galling resistance. Experimental observations and theoretical studies show that the presence of primary micro-sized carbides and/or nitrides in alloyed steels may significantly improve galling resistance. Generally, decreased adhesion between the ceramic precipitates and the sheet material counter-surface are attributed as main reason to the latter observations. On the other hand, adhesion processes occur at an atomic scale and, hence, fundamental understanding of galling can be obtained via atomic scale simulations. In the present study, molecular dynamics simulations are used, with utilizing second nearest neighbor embedded atom method potential to investigate the influence of nano-sized cementite precipitates embedded in tool atoms. The main aim of the simulations is to gain new fundamental knowledge on galling initiation mechanisms. Two tool/work piece configurations, iron/iron and iron-cementite/iron, are studied under dry sliding conditions. We find that the average frictional force decreases whereas the normal force increases for the iron-cementite/iron system, in comparison to the iron/iron configuration. Moreover, the average friction coefficient between the tool/work-piece decreases by about 10 % for the iron-cementite/iron case. The increase of the normal force in the case of iron-cementite/iron system may be attributed to the high stiffness of cementite compared to bcc iron. In order to qualitatively explain the effect of cementite on adhesion, the adhesion force between self-mated iron/iron and cementite/iron surfaces has been determined and we found that iron/cementite surface exhibits lower adhesive force than that of iron-iron surface. The variation of adhesion force with temperature was investigated up to 600 K and we found that the adhesive force, generally, decreases with increasing temperature. Structural analyses show that plastic deformation is the main deformation mechanism of the work-piece, accompanied with dislocations generation.

Keywords: adhesion, cementite, galling, molecular dynamics

Procedia PDF Downloads 301

Authors: Elsa Marta Soares, Ana Rita Valente, Cristiana Rodrigues, Filipa Gonçalves

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Background: The assessment of feelings and attitudes of preschool children in relation to stuttering is crucial. Negative experiences can lead to anxiety, worry or frustration. To avoid the worsening of attitudes and feelings related to stuttering, it is important the early detection in order to intervene as soon as possible through an individualized intervention plan. Then it is important to have Portuguese instruments that allow this assessment. Aims: The aim of the present study is to realize the translation and adaptation of the Communication Attitude Test for Children in Preschool Age and Kindergarten (KiddyCat) for EP. Methodology: For the translation and adaptation process, a methodological study was carried out with the following steps: translation, back translation, assessment by a committee of experts and pre-test. This abstract describes the results of the first two phases of this process. The translation was accomplished by two bilingual individuals without experience in health and any knowledge about the instrument. One of them was an English teacher and the other one a Translator. The back-translation was conducted by two Senior Class Teachers that live in United Kingdom without any knowledge in health and about the instrument. Results and Discussion: In translation there were differences in semantic equivalences of various expressions and concepts. A discussion between the two translators, mediated by the researchers, allowed to achieve the consensus version of the translated instrument. Taking into account the original version of KiddyCAT the results demonstrated that back-translation versions were similar to the original version of this assessment instrument. Although the back-translators used different words, they were synonymous, maintaining semantic and idiomatic equivalences of the instrument’s items. Conclusion: This project contributes with an important resource that can be used in the assessment of feelings and attitudes of preschool children who stutter. This was the first phase of the research; expert panel and pretest are being developed. Therefore, it is expected that this instrument contributes to an holistic therapeutic intervention, taking into account the individual characteristics of each child.

Keywords: assessment, feelings and attitudes, preschool children, stuttering

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Ahmed El Naggar, Homyan Saleh

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Dams are crucial for flood control, water supply, and the creation of hydroelectric power. Every dam has a water conveyance system, such as a spillway, providing the safe discharge of catastrophic floods when necessary. Spillway design has historically been investigated in laboratory research owing to the absence of suitable full-scale flow monitoring equipment and safety problems. Prototype measurements of aerated flows are urgently needed to quantify projected scale effects and provide missing validation data for design guidelines and numerical simulations. In this work, an image-based investigation of free-surface flows on a tiered spillway was undertaken at the laboratory (fixed camera installation) and prototype size (drone video) (drone footage) (drone footage). The drone videos were generated using data from citizen science. Analyses permitted the measurement of the free-surface aeration inception point, air-water surface velocities, fluctuations, and residual energy at the chute's downstream end from a remote site. The prototype observations offered full-scale proof of concept, while laboratory results were efficiently confirmed against invasive phase-detection probe data. This paper stresses the efficacy of image-based analyses at prototype spillways. It highlights how citizen science data may enable academics better understand real-world air-water flow dynamics and offers a framework for a small collection of long-missing prototype data.

Keywords: remote sensing, aerated flows, large dams, proof of concept, dam spillways, air-water flows, prototype operation, remote sensing, inception point, optical flow, turbulence, residual energy

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Fathi Kallel, Abdulelah Alabd Uljabbar, Abdulrahman Aldukhail, Abdulaziz Alomran

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The brain is an important organ in our body since it is responsible about the majority actions such as vision, memory, etc. However, different diseases such as Alzheimer and tumors could affect the brain and conduct to a partial or full disorder. Regular diagnosis are necessary as a preventive measure and could help doctors to early detect a possible trouble and therefore taking the appropriate treatment, especially in the case of brain tumors. Different imaging modalities are proposed for diagnosis of brain tumor. The powerful and most used modality is the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRI images are analyzed by doctor in order to locate eventual tumor in the brain and describe the appropriate and needed treatment. Diverse image processing methods are also proposed for helping doctors in identifying and analyzing the tumor. In fact, a large Computer Aided Diagnostic (CAD) tools including developed image processing algorithms are proposed and exploited by doctors as a second opinion to analyze and identify the brain tumors. In this paper, we proposed a new advanced CAD for brain tumor identification, classification and feature extraction. Our proposed CAD includes three main parts. Firstly, we load the brain MRI. Secondly, a robust technique for brain tumor extraction is proposed. This technique is based on both Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). DWT is characterized by its multiresolution analytic property, that’s why it was applied on MRI images with different decomposition levels for feature extraction. Nevertheless, this technique suffers from a main drawback since it necessitates a huge storage and is computationally expensive. To decrease the dimensions of the feature vector and the computing time, PCA technique is considered. In the last stage, according to different extracted features, the brain tumor is classified into either benign or malignant tumor using Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm. A CAD tool for brain tumor detection and classification, including all above-mentioned stages, is designed and developed using MATLAB guide user interface.

Keywords: MRI, brain tumor, CAD, feature extraction, DWT, PCA, classification, SVM

Procedia PDF Downloads 251

Authors: Diana A. Sokolova

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This article is devoted to one of the possibilities for identifying the author of an oral or written text - sociolinguistic profiling. Sociolinguistic profiling is utilized as a forensic linguistics technique to identify individuals through language patterns, particularly in criminal cases. It examines how social factors influence language use. This study aims to showcase the significance of linguistic profiling for attributing authorship in texts and emphasizes the necessity for its continuous enhancement while considering its strengths and weaknesses. The study employs semantic-syntactic, lexical-semantic, linguopragmatic, logical, presupposition, authorization, and content analysis methods to investigate linguistic profiling. The research highlights the relevance of sociolinguistic profiling in authorship attribution and underscores the importance of ongoing refinement of the technique, considering its limitations. This study emphasizes the practical application of linguistic profiling in legal settings and underscores the impact of social factors on language use, contributing to the field of forensic linguistics. Data collection involves collecting oral and written texts from criminal and civil court cases to analyze language patterns for authorship attribution. The collected data is analyzed using various linguistic analysis methods to identify individual characteristics and patterns that can aid in authorship attribution. The study addresses the effectiveness of sociolinguistic profiling in identifying authors of texts and explores the impact of social factors on language use in legal contexts. In spite of advantages challenges in linguistics profiling have spurred debates and controversies in academic circles, legal environments, and the public sphere. So, this research highlights the significance of sociolinguistic profiling in authorship attribution and emphasizes the need for further development of this method, considering its strengths and weaknesses.

Keywords: authorship attribution, detection of identifying, dialect, features, forensic linguistics, social influence, sociolinguistics, unique speech characteristics

Procedia PDF Downloads 40

Authors: E. O. Clarke, O. J. Aderinola, O. A. Adeboyejo, M. A. Anetekhai

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Aims: The study is aimed at establishing the influence of some physical and chemical parameters on the abundance, distribution pattern and seasonal variations of the planktonic crustacean populations. Place and Duration of Study: A premier investigation into the dynamics of planktonic crustacean populations in Ologe lagoon was carried out from January 2011 to December 2012. Study Design: The study covered identification, temporal abundance, spatial distribution and diversity of the planktonic crustacea. Methodology: Standard techniques were used to collect samples from eleven stations covering five proximal satellite towns (Idoluwo, Oto, Ibiye, Obele, and Gbanko) bordering the lagoon. Data obtained were statistically analyzed using linear regression and hierarchical clustering. Results:Thirteen (13) planktonic crustacean populations were identified. Total percentage abundance was highest for Bosmina species (20%) and lowest for Polyphemus species (0.8%). The Pearson’s correlation coefficient (“r” values) between total planktonic crustacean population and some physical and chemical parameters showed that positive correlations having low level of significance occurred with salinity (r = 0.042) (sig = 0.184) and with surface water dissolved oxygen (r = 0.299) (sig = 0.155). Linear regression plots indicated that, the total population of planktonic crustacea were mainly influenced and only increased with an increase in value of surface water temperature (Rsq = 0.791) and conductivity (Rsq = 0.589). The total population of planktonic crustacea had a near neutral (zero correlation) with the surface water dissolved oxygen and thus, does not significantly change with the level of the surface water dissolved oxygen. The correlations were positive with NO3-N (midstream) at Ibiye (Rsq =0.022) and (downstream) Gbanko (Rsq =0.013), PO4-P at Ibiye (Rsq =0.258), K at Idoluwo (Rsq =0.295) and SO4-S at Oto (Rsq = 0.094) and Gbanko (Rsq = 0.457). The Berger-Parker Dominance Index (BPDI) showed that the most dominant species was Bosmina species (BPDI = 1.000), followed by Calanus species (BPDI = 1.254). Clusters by squared Euclidan distances using average linkage between groups showed proximities, transcending the borders of genera. Conclusion: The results revealed that planktonic crustacean population in Ologe lagoon undergo seasonal perturbations, were highly influenced by nutrient, metal and organic matter inputs from river Owoh, Agbara industrial estate and surrounding farmlands and were patchy in spatial distribution.

Keywords: diversity, dominance, perturbations, richness, crustacea, lagoon

Procedia PDF Downloads 723

Authors: Deepak Kumar, Ravi Rajwanshi, Mohd. Aslam Yusuf, Nisha Kant Pandey, Preeti Singh, Mukesh Saxena, Neera Bhalla Sarin

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Global issues are leading to concerns over food security. These include climate change, urbanization, increase in population subsequently leading to greater energy and water demand. Futuristic approach for crop improvement involves gene pyramiding for agronomic traits that empower the plants to withstand multiple stresses. In an earlier study from the laboratory, the efficacy of overexpressing γ-tocopherol methyl transferase (γ-TMT) gene from the vitamin E biosynthetic pathway has been shown to result in six-fold increase of the most biologically active form, the α-tocopherol in Brassica juncea which resulted in alleviation of salt, heavy metal and osmoticum induced stress by the transgenic plants. The glyoxalase I (gly I) gene from the glyoxalase pathway has also been earlier shown by us to impart tolerance against multiple abioitc stresses by detoxification of the cytotoxic compound methylglyoxal in Brassica juncea. Recently, both the transgenes were pyramided in Brassica juncea lines through sexual crosses involving two stable Brassica juncea lines overexpressing γ-TMT and gly I genes respectively. The transgene integration was confirmed by PCR analysis and their mRNA expression was evident by RT-PCR analysis. Preliminary physiological investigations showed ~55% increased seed germination under 200 mM NaCl stress in the pyramided line and 81% higher seed germination under 200 mM mannitol stress as compared to the WT control plants. The pyramided lines also retained more chlorophyll content when the leaf discs were floated on NaCl (200, 400 and 600 mM) or mannitol (200, 400 and 600 mM) compared to the WT control plants. These plants had higher Relative Water Content and greater solute accumulation under stress compared to the parental plants having γ-TMT or the glyI gene respectively. The studies revealed the synergy of two components from different metabolic pathways in enhancing stress hardiness of the transgenic B. juncea plants. It was concluded that pyramiding of genes (γ-TMT and glyI) from diverse pathways can lead to enhanced tolerance to salt and mannitol stress (simulating drought conditions). This strategy can prove useful in enhancing the crop yields under various abiotic stresses.

Keywords: abiotic stress, brassica juncea, glyoxalase I, α-tocopherol

Procedia PDF Downloads 550

Authors: Won Hyuck Kim, Chang Hwan Kim, Hyun Wook Kim, Myoung Hoon Lee, Chan Hong Park, Hyeon Yeong Park

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We conducted submarine topography & beach survey from December 2015 and January 2016 using multi-beam echo sounder EM3001(Kongsberg corporation) & Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System. Our survey area were the Anmok beach in Gangneung, South Korea. We made Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System for these survey. Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System includes LiDAR (RIEGL LMS-420i), IMU ((Inertial Measurement Unit, MAGUS Inertial+) and RTKGNSS (Real Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite System, LEIAC GS 15 GS25) for beach's measurement, LiDAR's motion compensation & precise position. Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System scans beach on the movable vessel using the laser. We mounted Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System on the top of the vessel. Before beach survey, we conducted eight circles IMU calibration survey for stabilizing heading of IMU. This exploration should be as close as possible to the beach. But our vessel could not come closer to the beach because of latency objects in the water. At the same time, we conduct submarine topography survey using multi-beam echo sounder EM3001. A multi-beam echo sounder is a device observing and recording the submarine topography using sound wave. We mounted multi-beam echo sounder on left side of the vessel. We were equipped with a motion sensor, DGNSS (Differential Global Navigation Satellite System), and SV (Sound velocity) sensor for the vessel's motion compensation, vessel's position, and the velocity of sound of seawater. Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System was able to reduce the consuming time of beach survey rather than previous conventional methods of beach survey.

Keywords: Anmok, beach survey, Shipborne Mobile LiDAR System, submarine topography

Procedia PDF Downloads 430

Authors: Anshika Kankane, Dongshik Kang

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Marine debris has a significant influence on coastal environments, damaging biodiversity, and causing loss and damage to marine and ocean sector. A functional cost-effective and automatic approach has been used to look up at this problem. Computer vision combined with a deep learning-based model is being proposed to identify and categorize marine debris of seven kinds on different beach locations of Japan. This research compares state-of-the-art deep learning models with a suggested model architecture that is utilized as a feature extractor for debris categorization. The model is being proposed to detect seven categories of litter using a manually constructed debris dataset, with the help of Mask R-CNN for instance segmentation and a shape matching network called HOGShape, which can then be cleaned on time by clean-up organizations using warning notifications of the system. The manually constructed dataset for this system is created by annotating the images taken by fixed KaKaXi camera using CVAT annotation tool with seven kinds of category labels. A pre-trained HOG feature extractor on LIBSVM is being used along with multiple templates matching on HOG maps of images and HOG maps of templates to improve the predicted masked images obtained via Mask R-CNN training. This system intends to timely alert the cleanup organizations with the warning notifications using live recorded beach debris data. The suggested network results in the improvement of misclassified debris masks of debris objects with different illuminations, shapes, viewpoints and litter with occlusions which have vague visibility.

Keywords: computer vision, debris, deep learning, fixed live camera images, histogram of gradients feature extractor, instance segmentation, manually annotated dataset, multiple template matching

Procedia PDF Downloads 107

Authors: Saule Mussabekova

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Recent advances in genetics have allowed increasing acutely the capacities of the formation of reliable evidence in conducting forensic examinations. Thus, traces of biological origin are important sources of information about a crime. Currently, around the world, sexual offenses have increased, and among them are those in which the criminals use various detergents to remove traces of their crime. A feature of modern synthetic detergents is the presence of biological additives - enzymes. Enzymes purposefully destroy stains of biological origin. To study the nature and extent of the impact of modern washing powders on saliva stains on the physical evidence, specially prepared test specimens of different types of tissues to which saliva was applied have been examined. Materials and Methods: Washing machines of famous manufacturers of household appliances have been used with different production characteristics and advertised brands of washing powder for test washing. Over 3,500 experimental samples were tested. After washing, the traces of saliva were identified using modern research methods of forensic medicine. Results: The influence was tested and the dependence of the use of different washing programs, types of washing machines and washing powders in the process of establishing saliva trace and identify of the stains on the physical evidence while washing was revealed. The results of experimental and practical expert studies have shown that in most cases it is not possible to draw the conclusions in the identification of saliva traces on physical evidence after washing. This is a consequence of the effect of biological additives and other additional factors on traces of saliva during washing. Conclusions: On the basis of the results of the study, the feasibility of saliva traces of the stains on physical evidence after washing is established. The use of modern molecular genetic methods makes it possible to partially solve the problems arising in the study of unlaundered evidence. Additional study of physical evidence after washing facilitates detection and investigation of sexual offenses against women and children.

Keywords: saliva research, modern synthetic detergents, laundry detergents, forensic medicine

Procedia PDF Downloads 217

Authors: Mehdi Tajdari, Farzad Mokhtarnejad, Fatemeh Moradi, Mehdi Najafizadeh

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Nowadays, energy absorbing devices have been widely used in all vehicles and moving parts such as railway couches, aircraft, ships and lifts. The aim is to protect these structures from serious damages while subjected to impact loads, or to minimize human injuries while collision is occurred in transportation systems. These energy-absorbing devices can dissipate kinetic energy in a wide variety of ways like friction, facture, plastic bending, crushing, cyclic plastic deformation and metal cutting. On the other hand, various structures may be used as collapsible energy absorbers. Metallic cylindrical tubes have attracted much more attention due to their high stiffness and strength combined with the low weight and ease of manufacturing process. As a matter of fact, favorable crash worthiness characteristics for energy dissipation purposes can be achieved from axial collapse of tubes while they crush progressively in symmetric modes. However, experimental and theoretical results have shown that depending on various parameters such as tube geometry, material properties of tube, boundary and loading conditions, circular tubes buckle in different modes of deformation, namely, diamond and Euler collapsing modes. It is shown that when the tube length is greater than the critical length, the tube deforms in overall Euler buckling mode, which is an inefficient mode of energy absorption and needs to be avoided in crash worthiness applications. This study develops a new method with the aim of improving energy absorption characteristics of long steel circular tubes. Inserting a helical spring into the tubes is proved experimentally to be an efficient solution. In fact when a long tube is subjected to axial compression load, the spring prevents of undesirable Euler or diamond collapsing modes. This is because the spring reinforces the internal wall of tubes and it causes symmetric deformation in tubes. In this research three specimens were prepared and three tests were performed. The dimensions of tubes were selected so that in axial compression load buckling is occurred. In the second and third tests a spring was inserted into tubes and they were subjected to axial compression load in quasi-static and impact loading, respectively. The results showed that in the second and third tests buckling were not happened and the tubes deformed in symmetric modes which are desirable in energy absorption.

Keywords: energy absorption, circular tubes, collapsing deformation, crashworthiness

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Authors: P. Joshna, Souvik Kundu

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Detection of ultraviolet (UV) radiation is very important as it has exhibited a profound influence on humankind and other existences, including military equipment. In this work, a self-powered UV photodetector was reported based on oxides heterojunctions. The thin films of p-type nickel oxide (NiO) and n-type reduced graphene oxide (rGO) were used for the formation of p-n heterojunction. Low-Cost and low-temperature chemical synthesis was utilized to prepare the oxides, and the spin coating technique was employed to deposit those onto indium doped tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates. The top electrode platinum was deposited utilizing physical vapor evaporation technique. NiO offers strong UV absorption with high hole mobility, and rGO prevents the recombination rate by separating electrons out from the photogenerated carriers. Several structural characterizations such as x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscope, scanning electron microscope were used to study the materials crystallinity, microstructures, and surface roughness. On one side, the oxides were found to be polycrystalline in nature, and no secondary phases were present. On the other side, surface roughness was found to be low with no pit holes, which depicts the formation of high-quality oxides thin films. Whereas, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was employed to study the chemical compositions and oxidation structures. The electrical characterizations such as current-voltage and current response were also performed on the device to determine the responsivity, detectivity, and external quantum efficiency under dark and UV illumination. This p-n heterojunction device offered faster photoresponse and high on-off ratio under 365 nm UV light illumination of zero bias. The device based on the proposed architecture shows the efficacy of the oxides heterojunction for efficient UV photodetection under zero bias, which opens up a new path towards the development of self-powered photodetector for environment and health monitoring sector.

Keywords: chemical synthesis, oxides, photodetectors, spin coating

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Authors: Guillaume Lemahieu, Matthias Sentis, Giovanni Brambilla, Gérard Meunier

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Static Multiple Light Scattering (SMLS) has been shown to be a straightforward technique for the characterization of colloidal dispersions without dilution, as multiply scattered light in backscattered and transmitted mode is directly related to the concentration and size of scatterers present in the sample. In this view, the use of SMLS for stability measurement of various dispersion types has already been widely described in the literature. Indeed, starting from a homogeneous dispersion, the variation of backscattered or transmitted light can be attributed to destabilization phenomena, such as migration (sedimentation, creaming) or particle size variation (flocculation, aggregation). In a view to investigating more on the dispersibility of colloidal suspensions, an experimental set-up for “at the line” SMLS experiment has been developed to understand the impact of the formulation parameters on particle size and dispersibility. The SMLS experiment is performed with a high acquisition rate (up to 10 measurements per second), without dilution, and under direct agitation. Using such experimental device, SMLS detection can be combined with the Hansen approach to optimize the dispersing and stabilizing properties of TiO₂ particles. It appears that the dispersibility and the stability spheres generated are clearly separated, arguing that lower stability is not necessarily a consequence of poor dispersibility. Beyond this clarification, this combined SMLS-Hansen approach is a major step toward the optimization of dispersibility and stability of colloidal formulations by finding solvents having the best compromise between dispersing and stabilizing properties. Such study can be intended to find better dispersion media, greener and cheaper solvents to optimize particles suspensions, reduce the content of costly stabilizing additives or satisfy product regulatory requirements evolution in various industrial fields using suspensions (paints & inks, coatings, cosmetics, energy).

Keywords: dispersibility, stability, Hansen parameters, particles, solvents

Procedia PDF Downloads 113

Authors: Eric Jacob Bacon, Chaoyang Jin, Dianning He, Shuaishuai Hu, Lanbo Wang, Han Li, Shouliang Qi

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Objective: Refractory epilepsy is a complicated type of epilepsy that can be difficult to diagnose. Recent technological advancements have made resting-state functional magnetic resonance (rsfMRI) a vital technique for studying brain activity. However, there is still much to learn about rsfMRI. Investigating rsfMRI connectivity may aid in the detection of abnormal activities. In this paper, we propose studying the functional connectivity of rsfMRI candidates to diagnose epilepsy. Methods: 45 rsfMRI candidates, comprising 26 with refractory epilepsy and 19 healthy controls, were enrolled in this study. A data-driven approach known as independent component analysis (ICA) was used to achieve our goal. First, rsfMRI data from both patients and healthy controls were analyzed using group ICA. The components that were obtained were then spatially sorted to find and select meaningful ones. A two-sample t-test was also used to identify abnormal networks in patients and healthy controls. Finally, based on the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), a chi-square statistic test was used to distinguish the network properties of the patient and healthy control groups. Results: The two-sample t-test analysis yielded abnormal in the default mode network, including the left superior temporal lobe and the left supramarginal. The right precuneus was found to be abnormal in the dorsal attention network. In addition, the frontal cortex showed an abnormal cluster in the medial temporal gyrus. In contrast, the temporal cortex showed an abnormal cluster in the right middle temporal gyrus and the right fronto-operculum gyrus. Finally, the chi-square statistic test was significant, producing a p-value of 0.001 for the analysis. Conclusion: This study offers evidence that investigating rsfMRI connectivity provides an excellent diagnosis option for refractory epilepsy.

Keywords: ICA, RSN, refractory epilepsy, rsfMRI

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Authors: Randa M. Ali, Naguiba F. Loutfy, Osama M. Awad

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Background: Leishmaniasis is a worldwide disease, affecting 88 countries, it is estimated that about 350 million people are at risk of leishmaniasis. Overall prevalence is 12 million people with annual mortality of about 60,000. Annual incidence is 1,500,000 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) worldwide and half million cases of visceral Leishmaniasis (VL). Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess primary health care physicians knowledge (PHP) and attitude about leishmaniasis and to assess awareness of local inhabitants about the disease and its vector in four areas in west Alexandria, Egypt. Methods: This study was a cross sectional survey that was conducted in four PHC units in west Alexandria. All physicians currently working in these units during the study period were invited to participate in the study, only 20 PHP completed the questionnaire. 60 local inhabitant were selected randomly from the four areas of the study, 15 from each area; Data was collected through two different specially designed questionnaires. Results: 11(55%) percent of the physicians had satisfactory knowledge, they answered more than 9 (60%) questions out of a total 14 questions about leishmaniasis and sandfly. The second part of the questionnaire is concerned with attitude of the primary health care physicians about leishmaniasis, 17 (85%) had good attitude and 3 (15%) had poor attitude. The second questionnaire showed that the awareness of local inhabitants about leishmaniasis and sandly as a vector of the disease is poor and needs to be corrected. Most of the respondents (90%) had not heard about leishmaniasis, Only 3 (5%) of the interviewed inhabitants said they know sandfly and its role in transmission of leishmaniasis. Conclusions: knowledge and attitudes of physicians are acceptable. However, there is, room for improvement and could be done through formal training courses and distribution of guidelines. In addition to raising the awareness of primary health care physicians about the importance of early detection and notification of cases of lesihmaniasis. Moreover, health education for raising awareness of the public regarding the vector and the disease is necessary because related studies have demonstrated that if the inhabitants do not perceive mosquitoes to be responsible for diseases such as malaria they do not take enough measures to protect themselves against the vector.

Keywords: leishmaniasis, PHP, knowledge, attitude, local inhabitants

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Authors: Hung-Sheng Lin, Cheng-Hsuan Li

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Over the past few years, kernel-based algorithms have been widely used to extend some linear feature extraction methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), linear discriminate analysis (LDA), and nonparametric weighted feature extraction (NWFE) to their nonlinear versions, kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), generalized discriminate analysis (GDA), and kernel nonparametric weighted feature extraction (KNWFE), respectively. These nonlinear feature extraction methods can detect nonlinear directions with the largest nonlinear variance or the largest class separability based on the given kernel function. Moreover, they have been applied to improve the target detection or the image classification of hyperspectral images. The double nearest proportion feature extraction (DNP) can effectively reduce the overlap effect and have good performance in hyperspectral image classification. The DNP structure is an extension of the k-nearest neighbor technique. For each sample, there are two corresponding nearest proportions of samples, the self-class nearest proportion and the other-class nearest proportion. The term “nearest proportion” used here consider both the local information and other more global information. With these settings, the effect of the overlap between the sample distributions can be reduced. Usually, the maximum likelihood estimator and the related unbiased estimator are not ideal estimators in high dimensional inference problems, particularly in small data-size situation. Hence, an improved estimator by shrinkage estimation (regularization) is proposed. Based on the DNP structure, LDA is included as a special case. In this paper, the kernel method is applied to extend DNP to kernel-based DNP (KDNP). In addition to the advantages of DNP, KDNP surpasses DNP in the experimental results. According to the experiments on the real hyperspectral image data sets, the classification performance of KDNP is better than that of PCA, LDA, NWFE, and their kernel versions, KPCA, GDA, and KNWFE.

Keywords: feature extraction, kernel method, double nearest proportion feature extraction, kernel double nearest feature extraction

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Authors: P. Bauer, K. Mougin, V. Vignal, A. Buch, P. Ponthiaux, D. Faye

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Nowadays, noble metallic nanostructures with unique morphology are widely used as new sensors due to their fascinating optical, electronic and catalytic properties. Among various shapes, dendritic nanostructures have attracted much attention because of their large surface-to-volume ratio, high sensitivity and special texture with sharp tips and nanoscale junctions. Several methods have been developed to fabricate those specific structures such as electrodeposition, photochemical way, seed-mediated growth or wet chemical method. The present study deals with a novel approach for a controlled growth pattern-directed organisation of Au flower-like crystals (NFs) deposited onto stainless steel plates to achieve large-scale functional surfaces. This technique consists in the deposition of a soft nanoporous template on which Au NFs are grown by electroplating and seed-mediated method. Size, morphology, and interstructure distance have been controlled by a site selective nucleation process. Dendritic Au nanostructures have appeared as excellent Raman-active candidates due to the presence of very sharp tips of multi-branched Au nanoparticles that leads to a large local field enhancement and a good SERS sensitivity. In addition, these structures have also been used as electrochemical sensors to detect traces of molecules present in a solution. A correlation of the number of active sites on the surface and the current charge by both colorimetric method and cyclic voltammetry of gold structures have allowed a calibration of the system. This device represents a first step for the fabrication of MEMs platform that could ultimately be integrated into a lab-on-chip system. It also opens pathways to several technologically large-scale nanomaterials fabrication such as hierarchically ordered crystal architectures for sensor applications.

Keywords: dendritic, electroplating, gold, template

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Authors: Susana Aragoneses Garrido

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Every day, the roads are scenery of numerous accidents involving vehicles, producing thousands of deaths and serious injuries all over the world. Investigations have revealed that Human Factors (HF) are one of the main causes of road accidents in modern societies. Distracted driving (including external or internal aspects of the vehicle), which is considered as a human factor, is a serious and emergent risk to road safety. Consequently, a further analysis regarding this issue is essential due to its transcendence on today’s society. The objectives of this investigation are the detection and assessment of the HF in order to provide solutions (including a better vehicle design), which might mitigate road accidents. The methodology of the project is divided in different phases. First, a statistical analysis of public databases is provided between Spain and The UK. Second, data is classified in order to analyse the major causes involved in road accidents. Third, a simulation between different paths and vehicles is presented. The causes related to the HF are assessed by Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Fourth, different car models are evaluated using the Rapid Upper Body Assessment (RULA). Additionally, the JACK SIEMENS PLM tool is used with the intention of evaluating the Human Factor causes and providing the redesign of the vehicles. Finally, improvements in the car design are proposed with the intention of reducing the implication of HF in traffic accidents. The results from the statistical analysis, the simulations and the evaluations confirm that accidents are an important issue in today’s society, especially the accidents caused by HF resembling distractions. The results explore the reduction of external and internal HF through the global analysis risk of vehicle accidents. Moreover, the evaluation of the different car models using RULA method and the JACK SIEMENS PLM prove the importance of having a good regulation of the driver’s seat in order to avoid harmful postures and therefore distractions. For this reason, a car redesign is proposed for the driver to acquire the optimum position and consequently reducing the human factors in road accidents.

Keywords: analysis vehicles, asssesment, ergonomics, car redesign

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Authors: Lorenzo Cocola, Massimo Fedel, Dragiša Savić, Bojana Danilović, Luca Poletto

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An instrument for the detection and evaluation of gaseous carbon dioxide in the headspace of closed containers has been developed in the context of Packsensor Italian-Serbian joint project. The device is based on Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) with a Wavelength Modulation Spectroscopy (WMS) technique in order to accomplish a non-invasive measurement inside closed containers of fermented dairy products (yogurts and fermented cheese in cups and bottles). The purpose of this instrument is the continuous monitoring of carbon dioxide concentration during incubation and storage of products over a time span of the whole shelf life of the product, in the presence of different microorganisms. The instrument’s optical front end has been designed to be integrated in a thermally stabilized incubator. An embedded computer provides processing of spectral artifacts and storage of an arbitrary set of calibration data allowing a properly calibrated measurement on many samples (cups and bottles) of different shapes and sizes commonly found in the retail distribution. A calibration protocol has been developed in order to be able to calibrate the instrument on the field also on containers which are notoriously difficult to seal properly. This calibration protocol is described and evaluated against reference measurements obtained through an industry standard (sampling) carbon dioxide metering technique. Some sets of validation test measurements on different containers are reported. Two test recordings of carbon dioxide concentration evolution are shown as an example of instrument operation. The first demonstrates the ability to monitor a rapid yeast growth in a contaminated sample through the increase of headspace carbon dioxide. Another experiment shows the dissolution transient with a non-saturated liquid medium in presence of a carbon dioxide rich headspace atmosphere.

Keywords: TDLAS, carbon dioxide, cups, headspace, measurement

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Authors: Taha Enes Kon, Vanshika Reddy

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This project focuses on developing a gamified mobile application to aid in stroke rehabilitation by enhancing motor skills through interactive activities. The primary goal was to design a companion app for a passive haptic rehab glove, incorporating Google MediaPipe for gesture tracking and vibrotactile feedback. The app simulates farming activities, offering a fun and engaging experience while addressing the monotony of traditional rehabilitation methods. The prototype focuses on a single minigame, Flower Picking, which uses gesture recognition to interact with virtual elements, encouraging users to perform exercises that improve hand dexterity. The development process involved creating accessible and user-centered designs using Figma, integrating gesture recognition algorithms, and implementing unity-based game mechanics. Real-time feedback and progressive difficulty levels ensured a personalized experience, motivating users to adhere to rehabilitation routines. The prototype achieved a gesture detection precision of 90%, effectively recognizing predefined gestures such as the Fist and OK symbols. Quantitative analysis highlighted a 40% increase in average session duration compared to traditional exercises, while qualitative feedback praised the app’s immersive design and ease of use. Despite its success, challenges included rigidity in gesture recognition, requiring precise hand orientations, and limited gesture support. Future improvements include expanding gesture adaptability and incorporating additional minigames to target a broader range of exercises. The project demonstrates the potential of gamification in stroke rehabilitation, offering a scalable and accessible solution that complements clinical treatments, making recovery engaging and effective for users.

Keywords: stroke rehabilitation, haptic feedback, gamification, MediaPipe, motor control

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Authors: Hellen L. De Castro e Silva, Ana A. Robles Aguilar, Erik Meers

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Digestates are residual by-products, rich in nutrients and trace elements, which can be used as organic fertilisers on soils. However, due to the non-digestibility of these elements and reduced dry matter during the anaerobic digestion process, metal concentrations are higher in digestates than in feedstocks, which might hamper their use as fertilisers according to the threshold values of some country policies. Furthermore, there is uncertainty regarding the required assimilated amount of these elements by some crops, which might result in their bioaccumulation. Therefore, further processing of the digestate to obtain safe fertilizing products has been recommended. This research aims to analyze the effect of applying the hydrothermal carbonization process to manure-derived digestates as a thermal treatment to reduce the bioavailability of heavy metals in mono and co-digestates derived from pig manure and maize from contaminated land in France. This study examined pig manure collected from a novel stable system (VeDoWs, province of East Flanders, Belgium) that separates the collection of pig urine and feces, resulting in a solid fraction of manure with high up-concentration of heavy metals and nutrients. Mono-digestion and co-digestion processes were conducted in semi-continuous reactors for 45 days at mesophilic conditions, in which the digestates were dried at 105 °C for 24 hours. Then, hydrothermal carbonization was applied to a 1:10 solid/water ratio to guarantee controlled experimental conditions in different temperatures (180, 200, and 220 °C) and residence times (2 h and 4 h). During the process, the pressure was generated autogenously, and the reactor was cooled down after completing the treatments. The solid and liquid phases were separated through vacuum filtration, in which the solid phase of each treatment -hydrochar- was dried and ground for chemical characterization. Different fractions (exchangeable / adsorbed fraction - F1, carbonates-bound fraction - F2, organic matter-bound fraction - F3, and residual fraction – F4) of some heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Ni, and Cr) have been determined in digestates and derived hydrochars using the modified Community Bureau of Reference (BCR) sequential extraction procedure. The main results indicated a difference in the heavy metals fractionation between digestates and their derived hydrochars; however, the hydrothermal carbonization operating conditions didn’t have remarkable effects on heavy metals partitioning between the hydrochars of the proposed treatments. Based on the estimated potential ecological risk assessment, there was one level decrease (considerate to moderate) when comparing the HMs partitioning in digestates and derived hydrochars.

Keywords: heavy metals, bioavailability, hydrothermal treatment, bio-based fertilisers, agriculture

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Authors: Melvin Sethobya, Sithule Xanga, Sechaba Lenong, Lunga Nolakana, Gbenga Adesola

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Mining has been the cornerstone of the South African economy for the last century. Most of the gold mining in South Africa was conducted within the Witwatersrand basin, which contributed to the rapid growth of the city of Johannesburg and capitulated the city to becoming the business and wealth capital of the country. But with gradual depletion of resources, a stoppage in the extraction of underground water from mines and other factors relating to survival of the mining operations over a lengthy period, most of the mines were abandoned and left to pollute the local waterways and groundwater with toxins, heavy metal residue and increased acid mine drainage ensued. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy commissioned a project whose aim is to monitor, maintain, and mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of polluted water mine water flowing into local streams affecting local ecosystems and livelihoods downstream. As part of mitigation efforts, the diagnosis and monitoring of groundwater or surface water polluted sites has become important. Geophysical surveys, in particular, Resistivity and Magnetics surveys, were selected as some of most suitable techniques for investigation of local ingress points along of one the major streams cutting through the Witwatersrand basin, namely the Blesbokspruit, which is found in the eastern part of the basin. The aim of the surveys was to provide information that could be used to assist in determining possible water loss/ ingress from the Blesbokspriut stream. Modelling of geophysical surveys results offered an in-depth insight into the interaction and pathways of polluted water through mapping of possible ingress channels near the Blesbokspruit. The resistivity - depth profile of the surveyed site exhibit a three(3) layered model with low resistivity values (10 to 200 Ω.m) overburden, which is underlain by a moderate resistivity weathered layer (>300 Ω.m), which sits on a more resistive crystalline bedrock (>500 Ω.m). Two locations of potential ingress channels were mapped across the two traverses at the site. The magnetic survey conducted at the site mapped a major NE-SW trending regional linearment with a strong magnetic signature, which was modeled to depth beyond 100m, with the potential to act as a conduit for dispersion of stream water away from the stream, as it shared a similar orientation with the potential ingress channels as mapped using the resistivity method.

Keywords: eletrictrical resistivity, magnetics survey, blesbokspruit, ingress

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Authors: Saeed Bagherifam, Trevor Brown, Chris Fellows, Ravi Naidu

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Over the last century, rapid urbanization, industrial emissions, and mining activities have resulted in widespread contamination of the environment by heavy metal(loid)s. Arsenic (As) is a toxic metalloid belonging to group 15 of the periodic table, which occurs naturally at low concentrations in soils and the earth’s crust, although concentrations can be significantly elevated in natural systems as a result of dispersion from anthropogenic sources, e.g., mining activities. Bioavailability is the fraction of a contaminant in soils that is available for uptake by plants, food chains, and humans and therefore presents the greatest risk to terrestrial ecosystems. Numerous attempts have been made to establish in situ and ex-situ technologies of remedial action for remediation of arsenic-contaminated soils. In situ stabilization techniques are based on deactivation or chemical immobilization of metalloid(s) in soil by means of soil amendments, which consequently reduce the bioavailability (for biota) and bioaccessibility (for humans) of metalloids due to the formation of low-solubility products or precipitates. This study investigated the effectiveness of two different types of synthetic manganese and iron oxides (birnessite and goethite) for stabilization of As in a soil spiked with 1000 mg kg⁻¹ of As and treated with 10% dosages of soil amendments. Birnessite was made using HCl and KMnO₄, and goethite was synthesized by the dropwise addition of KOH into Fe(NO₃) solution. The resulting contaminated soils were subjected to a series of chemical extraction studies including sequential extraction (BCR method), single-step extraction with distilled (DI) water, 2M HNO₃ and simplified bioaccessibility extraction tests (SBET) for estimation of bioaccessible fractions of As in two different soil fractions ( < 250 µm and < 2 mm). Concentrations of As in samples were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results showed that soil with birnessite reduced bioaccessibility of As by up to 92% in both soil fractions. Furthermore, the results of single-step extractions revealed that the application of both birnessite and Goethite reduced DI water and HNO₃ extractable amounts of arsenic by 75, 75, 91, and 57%, respectively. Moreover, the results of the sequential extraction studies showed that both birnessite and goethite dramatically reduced the exchangeable fraction of As in soils. However, the amounts of recalcitrant fractions were higher in birnessite, and Goethite amended soils. The results revealed that the application of both birnessite and goethite significantly reduced bioavailability and the exchangeable fraction of As in contaminated soils, and therefore birnessite and Goethite amendments might be considered as promising adsorbents for stabilization and remediation of As contaminated soils.

Keywords: arsenic, bioavailability, in situ stabilisation, metalloid(s) contaminated soils

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Authors: Ahmed Abdullah Ahmed

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The task of recognizing the writer of a handwritten text has been an attractive research problem in the document analysis and recognition community with applications in handwriting forensics, paleography, document examination and handwriting recognition. This research presents an automatic method for writer recognition from digitized images of unconstrained writings. Although a great effort has been made by previous studies to come out with various methods, their performances, especially in terms of accuracy, are fallen short, and room for improvements is still wide open. The proposed technique employs optimal codebook based writer characterization where each writing sample is represented by a set of features computed from two codebooks, beginning and ending. Unlike most of the classical codebook based approaches which segment the writing into graphemes, this study is based on fragmenting a particular area of writing which are beginning and ending strokes. The proposed method starting with contour detection to extract significant information from the handwriting and the curve fragmentation is then employed to categorize the handwriting into Beginning and Ending zones into small fragments. The similar fragments of beginning strokes are grouped together to create Beginning cluster, and similarly, the ending strokes are grouped to create the ending cluster. These two clusters lead to the development of two codebooks (beginning and ending) by choosing the center of every similar fragments group. Writings under study are then represented by computing the probability of occurrence of codebook patterns. The probability distribution is used to characterize each writer. Two writings are then compared by computing distances between their respective probability distribution. The evaluations carried out on ICFHR standard dataset of 206 writers using Beginning and Ending codebooks separately. Finally, the Ending codebook achieved the highest identification rate of 98.23%, which is the best result so far on ICFHR dataset.

Keywords: off-line text-independent writer identification, feature extraction, codebook, fragments

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Authors: Stoyanka Vladeva, Elena Kirilova, Nikola Kirilov

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Background: The creatinine clearance is a widely used value to estimate the GFR. Increased creatinine clearance is often called hyperfiltration and is usually seen during pregnancy, patients with diabetes mellitus preceding the diabetic nephropathy. It may also occur with large dietary protein intake or with plasma volume expansion. Renal injury in lupus nephritis is known to affect the glomerular, tubulointerstitial, and vascular compartment. However high creatinine clearance has not been found in patients with SLE, Target: Follow-up of creatinine clearance values in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus without history of kidney injury. Material and methods: We observed the creatinine, creatinine clearance, GFR and dipstick protein values of 7 women (with a mean age of 42.71 years) with systemic lupus erythematosus. Patients with active lupus have been monthly tested in the period of 13 months. Creatinine clearance has been estimated by Cockcroft-Gault Equation formula in ml/sec. GFR has been estimated by MDRD formula (The Modification of Diet in renal Disease) in ml/min/1.73 m2. Proteinuria has been defined as present when dipstick protein > 1+.Results: In all patients without history of kidney injury we found elevated creatinine clearance levels, but GFRremained within the reference range. Two of the patients were in remission while the other five patients had clinically and immunologically active Lupus. Three of the patients had a permanent presence of high creatinine clearance levels and proteinuria. Two of the patients had periodically elevated creatinine clearance without proteinuria. These results show that kidney disturbances may be caused by the vascular changes typical for SLE. Glomerular hyperfiltration can be result of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis caused by a reduction in renal mass. Probably lupus nephropathy is preceded not only by glomerular vascular changes, but also by tubular vascular changes. Using only the GFR is not a sufficient method to detect these primary functional disturbances. Conclusion: For early detection of kidney injury in patients with SLE we determined that the follow up of creatinine clearance values could be helpful.

Keywords: systemic Lupus erythematosus, kidney injury, elevated creatinine clearance level, normal glomerular filtration rate

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Authors: Catalina Iticescu, Lucian P. Georgescu, Mihaela Timofti, Gabriel Murariu

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Since the accumulation of large quantities of sewage sludge is producing serious environmental problems, numerous environmental specialists are looking for solutions to solve this problem. The sewage sludge obtained by treatment of municipal wastewater may be used as fertiliser on agricultural soils because such sludge contains large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter. In many countries, sewage sludge is used instead of chemical fertilizers in agriculture, this being the most feasible method to reduce the increasingly larger quantities of sludge. The use of sewage sludge on agricultural soils is allowed only with a strict monitoring of their physical and chemical parameters, because heavy metals exist in varying amounts in sewage sludge. Exceeding maximum permitted quantities of harmful substances may lead to pollution of agricultural soil and may cause their removal aside because the plants may take up the heavy metals existing in soil and these metals will most probably be found in humans and animals through food. The sewage sludge analyzed for the present paper was extracted from the Wastewater Treatment Station (WWTP) Galati, Romania. The physico-chemical parameters determined were: pH (upH), total organic carbon (TOC) (mg L⁻¹), N-total (mg L⁻¹), P-total (mg L⁻¹), N-NH₄ (mg L⁻¹), N-NO₂ (mg L⁻¹), N-NO₃ (mg L⁻¹), Fe-total (mg L⁻¹), Cr-total (mg L⁻¹), Cu (mg L⁻¹), Zn (mg L⁻¹), Cd (mg L⁻¹), Pb (mg L⁻¹), Ni (mg L⁻¹). The determination methods were electrometrical (pH, C, TSD) - with a portable HI 9828 HANNA electrodes committed multiparameter and spectrophotometric - with a Spectroquant NOVA 60 - Merck spectrophotometer and with specific Merck parameter kits. The tests made pointed out the fact that the sludge analysed is low heavy metal falling within the legal limits, the quantities of metals measured being much lower than the maximum allowed. The results of the tests made to determine the content of nutrients in the sewage sludge have shown that the existing nutrients may be used to increase the fertility of agricultural soils. Other tests were carried out on lands where sewage sludge was applied in order to establish the maximum quantity of sludge that may be used so as not to constitute a source of pollution. The tests were made on three plots: a first batch with no mud and no chemical fertilizers applied, a second batch on which only sewage sludge was applied, and a third batch on which small amounts of chemical fertilizers were applied in addition to sewage sludge. The results showed that the production increases when the soil is treated with sludge and small amounts of chemical fertilizers. Based on the results of the present research, a fertilization plan has been suggested. This plan should be reconsidered each year based on the crops planned, the yields proposed, the agrochemical indications, the sludge analysis, etc.

Keywords: agricultural use, crops, physico–chemical parameters, sewage sludge

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Authors: Jamshid Hussain, Kuen Song Lin

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Over one thousand tons of pig hair biowaste (PHB) are produced yearly in Taiwan. The improper disposal of PHB can have a negative impact on the environment, consequently contributing to the spread of diseases. The treatment of PHB has become a major environmental and economic challenge. Innovative treatments must be developed because of the heavy metal and sulfur content of PHB. Like most organic materials, PHB is composed of many organic volatiles that contain large amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen gas can be effectively produced by the catalytic gasification of PHB using a laboratory-scale fixed-bed gasifier, employing 15 wt% NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst at 753–913 K. The derived kinetic parameters were obtained and refined using simulation calculations. FE–SEM microphotograph showed that NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst particles are Spherical or irregularly shaped with diameters of 10–20 nm. HR–TEM represented that the fresh Ni particles were evenly dispersed and uniform in the microstructure of Al₂O₃ support. The sizes of the NiO nanoparticles were vital in determining catalyst activity. As displayed in the pre-edge XANES spectra of the NiO/Al₂O₃ catalysts, it exhibited a non-intensive absorbance nature for the 1s to 3d transition, which is prohibited by the selection rule for an ideal octahedral symmetry. Similarly, the populace of Ni(II) and Ni(0) onto Al₂O₃ supports are proportional to the strength of the 1s to 4pxy transition, respectively. The weak shoulder at 8329–8334 eV and a strong character at 8345–8353 eV were ascribed to the 1s to 4pxy shift, which suggested the presence of NiO types onto Al₂O₃ support in PHB catalytic gasification. As determined by the XANES analyses, Ni(II)→Ni(0) reduction was mostly observed. The oxidation of PHB onto the NiO/Al₂O₃ surface may have resulted in Ni(0) and the formation of tar during the gasification process. The EXAFS spectra revealed that the Ni atoms with Ni–Ni/Ni–O bonds were found. The Ni–O bonding proved that the produced syngas were unable to reduce NiO to Ni(0) completely. The weakness of the Ni–Ni bonds may have been caused by the highly dispersed Ni in the Al₂O₃ support. The central Ni atoms have Ni–O (2.01 Å) and Ni–Ni (2.34 Å) bond distances in the fresh NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst. The PHB was converted into hydrogen-rich syngas (CO + H₂, >89.8% dry basis). When PHB (250 kg h−1) was catalytically gasified at 753–913 K, syngas was produced at approximately 5.45 × 105 kcal h−1 of heat recovery with 76.5%–83.5% cold gas efficiency. The simulation of the pilot-scale PHB catalytic gasification demonstrated that the system could provide hydrogen (purity > 99.99%) and generate electricity for an internal combustion engine of 100 kW and a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) of 175 kW. A projected payback for a PHB catalytic gasification plant with a capacity of 10- or 20-TPD (ton per day) was around 3.2 or 2.5 years, respectively.

Keywords: pig hair biowaste, catalytic gasification, hydrogen production, PEMFC, resource recovery

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Authors: Rashmi Tomar, A. Srinivasan, Nayan K. Mohanty, Arun K. Jain

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Phthalates have been used as additives in industrial products since the 1930s, and are universally considered to be ubiquitous environmental contaminants. The general population is exposed to phthalates through consumer products, as well as diet and medical treatments. Animal studies showing the existence of an association between some phthalates and testicular toxicity have generated public and scientific concern about the potential adverse effects of environmental changes on male reproductive health. Unprecedented declines in fertility rates and semen quality have been reported during the last half of the 20th century in developed countries and increasing interest exists on the potential relationship between exposure to environmental contaminants, including phthalates, and human male reproductive health Studies. Phthalates may be associated with altered endocrine function and adverse effects on male reproductive development and function, but human studies are limited. The aim of the present study was detection of phthalate compounds, estimation of their metabolites in infertile & fertile male. Blood and urine samples were collected from 150 infertile patients & 75 fertile volunteers recruited through Department of Urology, Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi. Blood have been collected in separate glass tubes from the antecubital vein of the patients, serum have been separate and estimate the phthalate level in serum samples by Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry using NIOSH / OSHA detailed protocol. Urine of Infertile & Fertile Subjects was collected & extracted using solid phase extraction method, analysis by HPLC. In conclusion, to the best of our knowledge the present study based on human is first to show the presence of phthalate in human serum samples and their metabolites in urine samples. Significant differences were observed between several phthalates in infertile and fertile healthy individuals.

Keywords: Gas Chromatography, HPLC, male infertility, phthalates, serum, toxicity, urine

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