Search results for: motion and time study

Authors: Violina Angelova, Galina Pevicharova

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A comparative research had been carried out to allow us to determine the quantities and the centers of accumulation of Pb, Cu, Zn and Cd in the vegetative and reproductive organs of the sweet potatoes and to ascertain the possibilities for growing them on soils, polluted with heavy metals. The experiments were performed on agricultural fields contaminated by the (1) Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, (2) Lead and Zinc Complex near Kardjali and (3) a copper smelter near Pirdop, Bulgaria. The soils used in this experiment were characterized by acid, neutral and slightly alkaline reaction, loamy texture and a moderate content of organic matter. The total content of Zn, Pb, and Cd was high and exceeded the limit value in agriculture soils. Sweet potatoes were in a 2-year rotation scheme on three blocks in the experimental field. On reaching commercial ripeness the sweet potatoes were gathered and the contents of heavy metals in their different parts – root, tuber (peel and core), leaves and stems, were determined after microwave mineralization. The quantitative measurements were carried out with inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The contamination of the sweet potatoes was due mainly to the presence of heavy metals in the soil, which entered the plants through their root system, as well as by diffusion through the peel. Pb, Cu, Zn, and Cd were selectively accumulated in the underground parts of the sweet potatoes, and most of all in the root system and the peel. Heavy metals have an impact on the development and productivity of the sweet potatoes. The high anthropogenic contamination leads to an increased assimilation of heavy metals which reduces the yield and the quality of the production of sweet potatoes, as well as leads to decrease of the absolute dry substance and the quantity of sugars in sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes could be grown on soils, which are light to medium polluted with lead, zinc, and cadmium, as they do not accumulate these elements. On heavily polluted soils, however, (Pb – 1504 mg/kg, Zn – 3322 mg/kg, Cd – 47 mg/kg) the growing of sweet potatoes is not allowed, as the accumulation of Pb and Cd in the core of the potatoes exceeds the Maximum Acceptable Concentration. Acknowledgment: The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (Project DFNI DH04/9).

Keywords: heavy metals, polluted soils, sweet potatoes, uptake

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Authors: Yi Zhang, Yuan Tian, Jiehua Chen, Sihong Gu

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Chip-scale spin-exchange relaxation free (SERF) atomic magnetometer makes use of millimeter-scale vapor cells micro-fabricated by Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) technique and SERF mechanism, resulting in the characteristics of high spatial resolution and high sensitivity. It is useful for biomagnetic imaging including magnetoencephalography and magnetocardiography. In a prevailing scheme, circularly polarized on-resonance laser beam is adapted for both pumping and probing the atomic polarization. And the magnetic-field-sensitive signal is extracted by transmission laser intensity enhancement as a result of atomic polarization increase on zero field level crossing resonance. The scheme is very suitable for integration, however, the laser amplitude modulation (AM) noise and laser frequency modulation to amplitude modulation (FM-AM) noise is superimposed on the photon shot noise reducing the signal to noise ratio (SNR). To suppress AM and FM-AM noise the paper puts forward a novel scheme which adopts circularly polarized on-resonance light pumping and linearly polarized frequency-detuning laser probing. The transmission beam is divided into transmission and reflection beams by a polarization analyzer, the angle between the analyzer's transmission polarization axis and frequency-detuning laser polarization direction is set to 45°. The magnetic-field-sensitive signal is extracted by polarization rotation enhancement of frequency-detuning laser which induces two beams intensity difference increase as the atomic polarization increases. Therefore, AM and FM-AM noise in two beams are common-mode and can be almost entirely canceled by differential detection. We have carried out an experiment to study our scheme. The experiment reveals that the noise in the differential signal is obviously smaller than that in each beam. The scheme is promising to be applied for developing more sensitive chip-scale magnetometer.

Keywords: atomic magnetometer, chip scale, differential detection, spin-exchange relaxation free

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Vishal Mahale, Jayashree Bijwe, Sujeet K. Sinha

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Range of thermal conductivity (TC) of Friction Materials (FMs) is a critical issue since lower TC leads to accumulation of frictional heat on the working surface, which results in excessive fade while higher TC leads to excessive heat flow towards back-plate resulting in boiling of brake-fluid leading to ‘spongy brakes’. This phenomenon prohibits braking action, which is most undesirable. Therefore, TC of the FMs across the brake pads should not be high while along the brake pad, it should be high. To enhance TC, metals in the forms of powder and fibers are used in the FMs. Apart from TC improvement, metals provide strength and structural integrity to the composites. Due to higher TC Copper (Cu) powder/fiber is a most preferred metallic ingredient in FM industry. However, Cu powders/fibers are responsible for metallic wear debris generation, which has harmful effects on aquatic organisms. Hence to get rid of a problem of metallic wear debris generation and to keep the positive effect of TC improvement, incorporation of Cu fabric in NAO brake-pads can be an innovative solution. Keeping this in view, two realistic multi-ingredient FM composites with identical formulations were developed in the form of brake-pads. Out of which one composite series consisted of a single layer of Cu fabric in the body of brake-pad and designated as C1 while double layer of Cu fabric was incorporated in another brake-pad series with designation of C2. Distance of Cu fabric layer from the back-plate was kept constant for C1 and C2. One more composite (C0) was developed without Cu fabric for the sake of comparison. Developed composites were characterized for physical properties. Tribological performance was evaluated on full scale inertia dynamometer by following JASO C 406 testing standard. It was concluded that Cu fabric successfully improved fade resistance by increasing conductivity of the composite and also showed slight improvement in wear resistance. Worn surfaces of pads and disc were analyzed by SEM and EDAX to study wear mechanism.

Keywords: brake inertia dynamometer, copper fabric, non-asbestos organic (NAO) friction materials, thermal conductivity enhancement

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Authors: Subham Ghosh, Banani Basu, Marami Das

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Background: The development of compact, low-power antenna sensors has resulted in hardware restructuring, allowing for wireless ubiquitous sensing. The antenna sensors can create wireless body-area networks (WBAN) by linking various wireless nodes across the human body. WBAN and IoT applications, such as remote health and fitness monitoring and rehabilitation, are becoming increasingly important. In particular, Parkinson’s disease (PD), a common neurodegenerative disorder, presents clinical features that can be easily misdiagnosed. As a mobility disease, it may greatly benefit from the antenna’s nearfield approach with a variety of activities that can use WBAN and IoT technologies to increase diagnosis accuracy and patient monitoring. Methodology: This study investigates the feasibility of leveraging a single patch antenna mounted (using cloth) on the wrist dorsal to differentiate actual Parkinson's disease (PD) from false PD using a small hardware platform. The semi-flexible antenna operates at the 2.4 GHz ISM band and collects reflection coefficient (Γ) data from patients performing five exercises designed for the classification of PD and other disorders such as essential tremor (ET) or those physiological disorders caused by anxiety or stress. The obtained data is normalized and converted into 2-D representations using the Gabor wavelet transform (GWT). Data augmentation is then used to expand the dataset size. A lightweight deep-learning (DL) model is developed to run on the GPU-enabled NVIDIA Jetson Nano platform. The DL model processes the 2-D images for feature extraction and classification. Findings: The DL model was trained and tested on both the original and augmented datasets, thus doubling the dataset size. To ensure robustness, a 5-fold stratified cross-validation (5-FSCV) method was used. The proposed framework, utilizing a DL model with 1.356 million parameters on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano, achieved optimal performance in terms of accuracy of 88.64%, F1-score of 88.54, and recall of 90.46%, with a latency of 33 seconds per epoch.

Keywords: antenna, deep-learning, GPU-hardware, Parkinson’s disease

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Authors: Lily Ingsrisawang, Tasanee Nacharoen

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Introduction: The problems of unbalanced data sets generally appear in real world applications. Due to unequal class distribution, many research papers found that the performance of existing classifier tends to be biased towards the majority class. The k -nearest neighbors’ nonparametric discriminant analysis is one method that was proposed for classifying unbalanced classes with good performance. Hence, the methods of discriminant analysis are of interest to us in investigating misclassification error rates for class-imbalanced data of three diabetes risk groups. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the classification performance between parametric discriminant analysis and nonparametric discriminant analysis in a three-class classification application of class-imbalanced data of diabetes risk groups. Methods: Data from a healthy project for 599 staffs in a government hospital in Bangkok were obtained for the classification problem. The staffs were diagnosed into one of three diabetes risk groups: non-risk (90%), risk (5%), and diabetic (5%). The original data along with the variables; diabetes risk group, age, gender, cholesterol, and BMI was analyzed and bootstrapped up to 50 and 100 samples, 599 observations per sample, for additional estimation of misclassification error rate. Each data set was explored for the departure of multivariate normality and the equality of covariance matrices of the three risk groups. Both the original data and the bootstrap samples show non-normality and unequal covariance matrices. The parametric linear discriminant function, quadratic discriminant function, and the nonparametric k-nearest neighbors’ discriminant function were performed over 50 and 100 bootstrap samples and applied to the original data. In finding the optimal classification rule, the choices of prior probabilities were set up for both equal proportions (0.33: 0.33: 0.33) and unequal proportions with three choices of (0.90:0.05:0.05), (0.80: 0.10: 0.10) or (0.70, 0.15, 0.15). Results: The results from 50 and 100 bootstrap samples indicated that the k-nearest neighbors approach when k = 3 or k = 4 and the prior probabilities of {non-risk:risk:diabetic} as {0.90:0.05:0.05} or {0.80:0.10:0.10} gave the smallest error rate of misclassification. Conclusion: The k-nearest neighbors approach would be suggested for classifying a three-class-imbalanced data of diabetes risk groups.

Keywords: error rate, bootstrap, diabetes risk groups, k-nearest neighbors

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Authors: Anil Kumar, Diwakar Aggarwal, M. Sudhakara Reddy

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The wood of Eucalyptus, Populus and bamboos are some important species used as raw material for the manufacture of pulp. However, higher levels of lignin pose a problem during Kraft pulping and yield of pulp is also lower. In order to increase the yield of pulp per unit wood and reduce the use of chemicals during kraft pulping it is important to reduce the lignin content and/or increase cellulose content in wood. Cellulose biosynthesis in wood takes place by the coordinated action of many enzymes. The two important enzymes are KORRIGAN and SUCROSE SYNTHASE. KORRIGAN (Endo-1,4--glucanase) is implicated in the process of editing growing cellulose chains and improvement of the crystallinity of produced cellulose, whereas SUCROSE SYNTHASE is involved in providing substrate (UDP-glucose) for growing cellulose chains. The present study was aimed at the cloning, characterization and overexpression of these genes in Eucalyptus and Populus. An efficient shoot organogenesis protocol from leaf explants taken from micro shoots of the species has been developed. Agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation using Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain EHA105 and LBA4404 harboring binary vector pBI121 was achieved. Both the genes were cloned from cDNA library of Populus deltoides. These were subsequently characterized using various bioinformatics tools. The cloned genes were then inserted into pBI121 under the CaMV35S promotors replacing GUS gene. The constructs were then mobilized into above strains of Agrobacterium and used for the transformation work. Subsequently, genetic transformation of these clones with target genes following already developed protocol is in progress. Four transgenic lines of Eucalyptus tereticornis overexpressing Korrigan gene under the strong constitutive promoters CaMV35S have been developed, which are being further evaluated. Work on development of more transgenic lines overexpressing these genes in Populus and Eucalyptus is also in progress. This presentation will focus on important developments in this direction.

Keywords: Eucalyptus tereticornis, genetic transformation, Kraft pulping Populus deltoides

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Authors: Thomai Voulgari, Vasilis Vasilopoulos, Antonis Skamnakis

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The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the European election campaigns (May 23-26, 2019) on Twitter achieving with artificial intelligence tools such as troll factories and automated inauthentic accounts. Our research focuses on the last European Parliamentary elections that took place between 23 and 26 May 2019 specifically in Italy, Greece, Germany and France. It is difficult to estimate how many Twitter users are actually bots (Echeverría, 2017). Detection for fake accounts is becoming even more complicated as AI bots are made more advanced. A political bot can be programmed to post comments on a Twitter account for a political candidate, target journalists with manipulated content or engage with politicians and artificially increase their impact and popularity. We analyze variables related to 1) the scope of activity of automated bots accounts and 2) degree of coherence and 3) degree of interaction taking into account different factors, such as the type of content of Twitter messages and their intentions, as well as the spreading to the general public. For this purpose, we collected large volumes of Twitter accounts of party leaders and MEP candidates between 10th of May and 26th of July based on content analysis of tweets based on hashtags while using an innovative network analysis tool known as MediaWatch.io (https://mediawatch.io/). According to our findings, one of the highest percentage (64.6%) of automated “bot” accounts during 2019 European election campaigns was in Greece. In general terms, political bots aim to proliferation of misinformation on social media. Targeting voters is a way that it can be achieved contribute to social media manipulation. We found that political parties and individual politicians create and promote purposeful content on Twitter using algorithmic tools. Based on this analysis, online political advertising play an important role to the process of spreading misinformation during elections campaigns. Overall, inauthentic accounts and social media algorithms are being used to manipulate political behavior and public opinion.

Keywords: artificial intelligence tools, human-bot interactions, political manipulation, social networking, troll factories

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Authors: G. Gevorgyan, S. Khudaverdyan, A. Vaseashta

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The Lake Sevan basin is situated in the eastern part of the Republic of Armenia (Gegharquniq marz/district). The heavy metal pollution of the some tributaries of Lake Sevan was investigated. Water sampling was performed in August and December, 2014 from the 4 observation sites: 1) Sotq river upstream (about 600 meters upstream from the Sotq gold mine); 2) Sotq river mouth; 3) Masrik river mouth; 4) Dzknaget river mouth. Heavy metal (V, Fe, Ni, Cu, As, Mo, Pb) concentrations in the water samples were determined by the standard methods using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The results of the study showed that heavy metal content mainly increased from the upstream of the Sotq river to the mouth of the Masrik river which may have been conditioned by the influence of gold mining activity as the Masrik and its tributary-Sotq rivers passing through the gold mining area were exposed to heavy metal pollution. The observation sites can be ranked by pollution degree as follows: №3> №2> №1> №4. The highest heavy metal pollution degree was observed in the Masrik river mouth which may have been conditioned by the direct impact of gold mining activity and the pressure of its tributary–the Sotq river which flows through the gold mining area. The lowest heavy metal pollution degree was registered in the Dzknaget river mouth which flowing through rural areas wasn’t subject to significant heavy metal pollution. According to the observation sites of the Sotq and Masrik rivers, high positive correlation was mainly observed between the concentrations of the investigated heavy metals (except nickel) which indicated that all the heavy metals except the nickel had the same anthropogenic pollution source which was the activity of the Sotq gold mine. In general, it is possible to state that the activity of the Sotq gold mine in the Lake Sevan basin caused the heavy metal pollution of the Sotq and Masrik rivers which may have posed environmental hazards. Heavy metals are nondegradable substances, and heavy metal pollution of freshwater systems may pose risks to the environment and human health through accumulation in the tissues of aquatic organisms, water-food chain as well as oral ingestion and dermal contact.

Keywords: Armenia, Lake Sevan basin, gold mining activity, river ecosystems, heavy metal pollution

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Authors: Layal Mansour

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The aim of this paper is to identify whether oil price volatility or geopolitical risks can predict future financial stress periods or economic recessions in Kuwait. We construct the first Financial Stress Index for Kuwait (FSIK) that includes informative vulnerable indicators of the main financial sectors: the banking sector, the equities market, and the foreign exchange market. The study covers the period from 2000 to 2020, so it includes the two recent most devastating world economic crises with oil price fluctuation: the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and Ukraine-Russia War. All data are taken by the central bank of Kuwait, the World Bank, IMF, DataStream, and from Federal Reserve System St Louis. The variables are computed as the percentage growth rate, then standardized and aggregated into one index using the variance equal weights method, the most frequently used in the literature. The graphical FSIK analysis provides detailed information (by dates) to policymakers on how internal financial stability depends on internal policy and events such as government elections or resignation. It also shows how monetary authorities or internal policymakers’ decisions to relieve personal loans or increase/decrease the public budget trigger internal financial instability. The empirical analysis under vector autoregression (VAR) models shows the dynamic causal relationship between the oil price fluctuation and the Kuwaiti economy, which relies heavily on the oil price. Similarly, using vector autoregression (VAR) models to assess the impact of the global geopolitical risks on Kuwaiti financial stability, results reveal whether Kuwait is confronted with or sheltered from geopolitical risks. The Financial Stress Index serves as a guide for macroprudential regulators in order to understand the weakness of the overall Kuwaiti financial market and economy regardless of the Kuwaiti dinar strength and exchange rate stability. It helps policymakers predict future stress periods and, thus, address alternative cushions to confront future possible financial threats.

Keywords: Kuwait, financial stress index, causality test, VAR, oil price, geopolitical risks

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Authors: Heena Akbar, Winnie Niumata, Danielle Gallegos

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Type 2 diabetes is a significant public health problem for Māori and Pasifika communities in Queensland, who are experiencing a higher burden of morbidity and mortality from the condition. Despite this higher burden, there are few initiatives that are culturally tailored to improve prevention and management. Modification of personal behaviors through women’s wellness programs aimed at early intervention has been shown to reduce the risk of developing complications in established type 2 diabetes and may reduce hospitalization rates from preventable complications related to this disease. The 24-week Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program (PWDWP) was culturally co-designed and co-developed with Māori and Pasifika women with type 2 diabetes through a community-academia partnership in Queensland. Underpinned by Social Cognitive Theory and the Indigenous Pacific Health frameworks to include family culture & spirituality and integrating a collectivist and whānau (family) centered approach to self-care, the program takes into consideration the cultural shame associated with acknowledging the disease and tailors the interventions using talanoa (storytelling or conversation in a relational context) as the key strategy to come to a shared meaning for behavior change. The pilot trial is a 12-week intervention followed by a 12-week follow-up period conducted with 50 women with type 2 diabetes, 25 women who will receive the intervention and 25 women who will receive usual care. The pilot program provides in-person and virtual access to culturally supported prevention and self-management of Māori and Pasifika women with type 2 diabetes with the aim to improve healthy lifestyles and reduce late hospital presentations from diabetes-related complications for better diabetes-related outcomes. This study will test and evaluate the effectiveness of the PWDWP pilot trial in partnership with Māori & Pasifika community organizations and key stakeholders for improved glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels associated with poor management of type 2 diabetes.

Keywords: culturally co-designed intervention, Indigenous methodology, Māori and Pasifika communities, type 2 diabetes self-management

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Authors: M. T. Amina, A. A. Alazba, U. Manzoor

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Solar disinfection (SODIS) is a viable method for household water treatment and is recommended by the World Health Organization as cost effective approach that can be used without special skills. The efficiency of both SODIS and solar collector disinfection (SOCODIS) system was evaluated using four different sources of water including stored rainwater, storm water, ground water and treated sewage. Samples with naturally occurring microorganisms were exposed to sunlight for about 8-9 hours in 2-L polyethylene terephthalate bottles under similar experimental conditions. Total coliform (TC), Escherichia coli (E. coli) and heterotrophic plate counts (HPC) were used as microbial water quality indicators for evaluating the disinfection efficiency at different sunlight intensities categorized as weak, mild and strong weathers. Heterotrophic bacteria showed lower inactivation rates compared to E. coli and TC in both SODIS and SOCODIS system. The SOCODIS system at strong weather was the strongest disinfection system in this study and the complete inactivation of HPC was observed after 8-9 hours of exposure with SODIS being ineffective for HPC. At moderate weathers, however, the SOCODIS system did not show complete inactivation of HPC due to very high concentrations (up to 5x10^7 CFU/ml) in both storm water and treated sewage. SODIS even remained ineffective for the complete inactivation of E. coli due to its high concentrations of about 2.5x10^5 in treated sewage compared with other waters even after 8-9 hours of exposure. At weak weather, SODIS was not effective at all while SOCODIS system, though incomplete, showed good disinfection efficiency except for HPC and to some extent for high E. coli concentrations in storm water. Largest reduction of >5 log occurred for TC when used stored rainwater even after 6 hours of exposure in the case of SOCODIS system at strong weather. The lowest E. coli and HPC reduction of ~2 log was observed in SODIS system at weak weather. Further tests with varying pH and turbidity are required to understand the effects of reaction parameters that could be a step forward towards maximizing the disinfection efficiency of such systems for the complete inactivation of naturally occurring E. coli or HPC at moderate or even at weak weathers.

Keywords: efficiency, microbial, SODIS, SOCODIS, weathers

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Authors: Raja Asad Zaheer, Aisha Tanveer, Hafza Mehreen Fatima

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Global Software Development (GSD) is becoming a common norm in software industry, despite of the fact that global distribution of the teams presents special issues for effective communication and coordination of the teams. Now trends are changing and project management for distributed teams is no longer in a limbo. GSD can be effectively established using agile and project managers can use different agile techniques/tools for solving the problems associated with distributed teams. Agile methodologies like scrum and XP have been successfully used with distributed teams. We have employed exploratory research method to analyze different recent studies related to challenges of GSD and their proposed solutions. In our study, we had deep insight in six commonly faced challenges: communication and coordination, temporal differences, cultural differences, knowledge sharing/group awareness, speed and communication tools. We have established that each of these challenges cannot be neglected for distributed teams of any kind. They are interlinked and as an aggregated whole can cause the failure of projects. In this paper we have focused on creating a scalable framework for detecting and overcoming these commonly faced challenges. In the proposed solution, our objective is to suggest agile techniques/tools relevant to a particular problem faced by the organizations related to the management of distributed teams. We focused mainly on scrum and XP techniques/tools because they are widely accepted and used in the industry. Our solution identifies the problem and suggests an appropriate technique/tool to help solve the problem based on globally shared knowledgebase. We can establish a cause and effect relationship using a fishbone diagram based on the inputs provided for issues commonly faced by organizations. Based on the identified cause, suitable tool is suggested, our framework suggests a suitable tool. Hence, a scalable, extensible, self-learning, intelligent framework proposed will help implement and assess GSD to achieve maximum out of it. Globally shared knowledgebase will help new organizations to easily adapt best practices set forth by the practicing organizations.

Keywords: agile project management, agile tools/techniques, distributed teams, global software development

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Authors: R. M. W. Rajapakshe

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Sri Lanka, which is officially called the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island nation situated near India. It is a multi-lingual, multi- religious and multi – ethnic country, where Sinhalese form the majority and the Tamils form the largest ethnic minority. The composition of the population (ethnic basis) in Sri Lanka is as follows: Sinhalese: 74.5%, Tamil (Sri Lankan): 12.6%, Muslim: 7.5 %, Tamil (Indian): 5.5%, Malay: 0.3%, Burgher: 0.3 %, other: 0.2 %. The Tamil people use the Tamil language as their mother tongue and the Sinhala people use the Sinhala language as their mother tongue. A very few people in both communities use English as their mother tongue and however, a large number of people use English as a second language. The Sinhala Language was declared the only official language in Sri Lanka in 1959. However, it was not acceptable to Tamil politicians as well as to the common Tamil people and it was the beginning of long standing ethnic crisis which later became a military war where a lot of blood was shed. As a solution to the above ethnic crisis the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka was introduced in 1987 and according to it both Sinhala and Tamil were declared official languages and English as the link language in Sri Lanka. Thus, a new programme namely, second language teaching programme under which Sinhala was taught to Tamil students and Tamil was taught to Sinhala students, was introduced at government schools. Language teaching includes knowledge of the culture of the target language. As all cultures are mixed and have common features students have reduced their enmity about the other community and learned to respect the other culture. On the other hand as all languages are mixed, students came to the understanding that there are no pure languages. Thus, they learned to respect the other language. In the case of Sri Lanka the Sinhala language is mixed with the Tamil language and vice versa. Thus, the development of second language teaching is the prominent way to solve the above ethnic problem and this study clearly shows it. However, the above programme suffers with lack of trained second language teachers, infrastructure facilities and insufficient funds and, they can be considered as the main obstacles to develop the second language teaching programme. Yet, there are no satisfactory answers to those problems. The data were collected from relevant books, articles and other documents based on research and forty five recordings, each with one hour duration, of natural conversations covering all factions of the Sinhala community.

Keywords: ethnic crisis, official language, second language teaching, Sinhala, Tami

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Authors: Hafiz M. Rizwan, Muhammad S. Sajid, Zafar Iqbal, Muhammad Saqib

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Gastro-intestinal (GI) helminths infection in sheep causes a substantial loss in terms of productivity and constitutes serious economic losses in the world. Different types of forages are rich in trace element contents and may act as a natural resource to improve the trace element deficiencies leading to immunity boost-up in general and against gastrointestinal parasitic infections in particular. In the present study, the level of trace elements (Cu, Co, Mn, Zn) determined in sera of different breeds of sheep, available feedstuffs, respective soil samples and their association with GI helminths in Sialkot district, Punjab, Pakistan. Almost similar prevalence of GI helminths was recorded (32.81%) during spring 2015 and (32.55%) during autumn 2014. The parasitic species identified from the microscopically scanned faecal samples of district Sialkot were Fasciola (F.) hepatica, F. gigantica, Haemonchus contortus, Eimeria crandallis, Gongylonema pulchrum, Oesophagostomum sp., Trichuris ovis, Strongyles sp., Cryptosporidium sp. and Trichostrongylus sp. Among variables like age, sex, and breed, only sex was found significant in district Sialkot. A significant (P < 0.05) variation in the concentration of Zn, Cu, Mn, and Co was recorded in collected forages species. Soils of grazing field showed insignificant (P > 0.05) variation among soils of different tehsils of Sialkot district. Statistically, sera of sheep showed no variation (P > 0.05) during autumn 2014, While, variation (P < 0.05) among different tehsils of Sialkot district during spring 2015 except Co. During autumn 2014 the mean concentration of Cu, Zn, and Co in sera was inversely proportional to the mean EPG of sheep while during spring 2015 only Zn was inversely proportional to the mean EPG of sheep. The trace element-rich forages preferably Zn were effective ones against helminths infection. The trace element-rich forages will be recommended for their utilization as an alternate to improve the trace element deficiencies in sheep which ultimately boost up the immunity against gastrointestinal parasitic infections.

Keywords: coprological examination, gastro-intestinal parasites, prevalence, sheep, trace elements

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Authors: Juntip Kanjanasilp, Ratree Sawangjit, Kanokporn Meelap, Kwanchanok Kruthakool

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Depression is a common mental health disorder. Antidepressants are effective pharmacological treatments, but most patients have low medication adherence. This study aims to systematic review and meta-analysis what method increase the antidepressants adherence efficiently and improve clinical outcome. Systematic review of articles of randomized controlled trials obtained by a computerized literature search of The Cochrane, Library, Pubmed, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Education search, Web of Science and ThaiLIS (28 December 2017). Twenty-three studies were included and assessed the quality of research by ROB 2.0. The results reported that printing media improved in number of people who had medication adherence statistical significantly (p= 0.018), but education, phone call, and program utilization were no different (p=0.172, p=0.127, p=0.659). There was no significant difference in pharmacist’s group, health care team’s group and physician’s group (p=0.329, p=0.070, p=0.040). Times of intervention at 1 month and 6 months improved medication adherence significantly (p= 0.0001, p=0.013). There was significantly improved adherence in single intervention (p=0.027) but no different in multiple interventions (p=0.154). When we analyzed medication adherence with the mean score, no improved adherence was found, not relevant with who gives the intervention and times to intervention. However, the multiple interventions group was statistically significant improved medication adherence (p=0.040). Phone call and the physician’s group were statistically significant improved clinical outcomes in number of improved patients (0.025 and 0.020, respectively). But in the pharmacist’s group and physician’s group were not found difference in the mean score of clinical outcomes (p=0.993, p=0.120, respectively). Times to intervention and number of intervention were not significant difference than usual care. The overall intervention can increase antidepressant adherence, especially the printing media, and the appropriate timing of the intervention is at least 6 months. For effective treatment, the provider should have experience and expert in caring for patients with depressive disorders, such as a psychiatrist. Medical personnel should have knowledge in caring for these patients also.

Keywords: depression, medication adherence, clinical outcomes, systematic review, meta-analysis

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Authors: Esam Jassim

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Industries using conventional fossil fuels have an interest in better understanding the mechanism of particulate formation during combustion since such is responsible for emission of undesired inorganic elements that directly impact the atmospheric pollution level. Fine and ultrafine particulates have tendency to escape the flue gas cleaning devices to the atmosphere. They also preferentially collect on surfaces in power systems resulting in ascending in corrosion inclination, descending in the heat transfer thermal unit, and severe impact on human health. This adverseness manifests particularly in the regions of world where coal is the dominated source of energy for consumption. This study highlights the behavior of calcium transformation as mineral grains verses organically associated inorganic components during pulverized coal combustion. The influence of existing type of calcium on the coarse, fine and ultrafine mode formation mechanisms is also presented. The impact of two sub-bituminous coals on particle size and calcium composition evolution during combustion is to be assessed. Three mixed blends named Blends 1, 2, and 3 are selected according to the ration of coal A to coal B by weight. Calcium percentage in original coal increases as going from Blend 1 to 3. A mathematical model and a new approach of describing constituent distribution are proposed. Analysis of experiments of calcium distribution in ash is also modeled using Poisson distribution. A novel parameter, called elemental index λ, is introduced as a measuring factor of element distribution. Results show that calcium in ash that originally in coal as mineral grains has index of 17, whereas organically associated calcium transformed to fly ash shown to be best described when elemental index λ is 7. As an alkaline-earth element, calcium is considered the fundamental element responsible for boiler deficiency since it is the major player in the mechanism of ash slagging process. The mechanism of particle size distribution and mineral species of ash particles are presented using CCSEM and size-segregated ash characteristics. Conclusions are drawn from the analysis of pulverized coal ash generated from a utility-scale boiler.

Keywords: coal combustion, inorganic element, calcium evolution, fluid dynamics

Procedia PDF Downloads 334

Authors: Endris Yibru Hanurry, Wei-Hsin Hsu, Hsieh-Chih Tsai

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In recent years, the discovery of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) has got great attention for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. However, the therapeutic efficacy of siRNAs has been faced with many drawbacks because of short half-life in blood circulation, poor membrane penetration, weak endosomal escape and inadequate release into the cytosol. To overcome these drawbacks, we designed a non-viral vector by conjugating polyamidoamine generation 4.5 dendrimer (PDG4.5) with diethylenetriamine (DETA)- and tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) followed by binding with siRNA to form polyplexes through electrostatic interaction. The result of 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), 13C NMR, correlation spectroscopy, heteronuclear single–quantum correlation spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the successful conjugation of DETA and TEPA with PDG4.5. Then, the size, surface charge, morphology, binding ability, stability, release assay, toxicity and cellular internalization were analyzed to explore the physicochemical and biological properties of PDG4.5-DETA and PDG4.5-TEPA polyplexes at specific N/P ratios. The polyplexes (N/P = 8) exhibited spherical nanosized (125 and 85 nm) particles with optimum surface charge (13 and 26 mV), showed strong siRNA binding ability, protected the siRNA against enzyme digestion and accepted biocompatibility to the HeLa cells. Qualitatively, the fluorescence microscopy image revealed the delocalization (Manders’ coefficient 0.63 and 0.53 for PDG4.5-DETA and PDG4.5-TEPA, respectively) of polyplexes and the translocation of the siRNA throughout the cytosol to show a decent cellular internalization and intracellular biodistribution of polyplexes in HeLa cells. Quantitatively, the flow cytometry result indicated that a significant (P < 0.05) amount of siRNA was internalized by cells treated with PDG4.5-DETA (68.5%) and PDG4.5-TEPA (73%) polyplexes. Generally, PDG4.5-DETA and PDG4.5-TEPA were ideal nanocarriers of siRNA in vitro and might be used as promising candidates for in vivo study and future pharmaceutical applications.

Keywords: non-viral carrier, oligoalkylamine, poly(amidoamine) dendrimer, polyplexes, siRNA

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Authors: Aaron G. Laylo

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This paper mainly assumes that social entrepreneurship contributes significantly to youth empowerment i.e., work and community engagement. Two questions are thus raised in order to establish this hypothesis: 1) First, how does social entrepreneurship contribute to youth empowerment?; and 2) secondly, why is social entrpreneurship significantly incremental to youth empowerment? This research aims a) to investigate on the social aspect of entrepreneurship; b) to explore challenges in youth empowerment particularly in respect to work and community engagement; and c) to inquire into whether social enterprises have truly served as a catalyst for, thus an effective response to, youth empowerment. It must be emphasized that young people, which comprise 1.8 billion in a world of seven billion are an asset; Apparently, how to maximize that potential is crucial. By utilizing exploratory research design, the paper endeavors to generate new ideas in regards to both components, develop tentative theories on social entrepreneurship, and refine certain issues that are under observation and seek scholarly attention— a rather emerging phenomenon vis a vis the challenge to empower a significant cluster of the society. Case studies will be utilized as an approach in order to comparatively analyze youth-driven social enterprises in the Philippines that have been widely recognized as successful insofar as social impact is concerned. As most scholars attested, social entrepreneurship is still at its infancy stage. Youth empowerment, meanwhile, is yet a vast area to explore insofar as academic research is concerned. Programs and projects that advocate the pursuit of these components abound. However, academic research is yet to be undertaken to see and understand their social and economic relevance. This research is also an opportunity for scholars to explore, understand, and make sense of the promise that lies in social entrepreneurship research and how it can serve as a catalyst for youth empowerment. Youth-driven social enterprises can be an influential tool in sustaining development across the globe as they intend to provide opportunities for optimal economic productivity that recognizes social inclusion. Ultimately, this study should be able to contribute to both research and development-in-practice communities for the greater good of the society. By establishing the nexus between these two components, the research may contribute to fostering greater exploration of the benefits that both may yield to human progress as well as the gaps that have to be filled in by various policy stakeholders relevant to these units.

Keywords: social entpreneurship, youth, empowerment, social inclusion

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Authors: Vinícius L. L. Morrone, David Douek, Helder M. F. Pereira, Bernadete L. M. Grandolpho

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This work aimed to identify the relationships between the level of consumer environmental awareness and their search for sustainable properties, as well as to understand the main sustainability structures considered by these consumers during the decision process. Additionally, the paper looked up to the influence environmental awareness and financial status have over the disposition of buyers to pay more for sustainable properties. To achieve these objectives, 318 questionnaires were answered electronically, after being sent to the Green Building Brazil email basis, as to other Real Estate developers client basis. From all the questionnaires answered, 71 were discarded, leaving a total amount of 247 admitted questionnaires to be analyzed. The responses were evaluated based on the theory of consumer decision making, especially on the influence factors of this process. The data were processed using a PLS model, using the R software. The results have shown that the level of consumer environmental awareness effectively affects the consumer’s will of acquiring a sustainable property or, at least, a property with some environmental friendly structures. The consumer’s environmental awareness also positively impacts the importance consumers give to individual environmental friendly structures. Also, as a consumer value to those individual structures raises, it is also observed a raise in his will to buy a sustainable property. Additionally, the impact of consumer’s environmental awareness and financial status over the willingness to pay more for a property with those attributes. The results indicate that there was no relationship between consumers' environmental awareness and their willingness to pay more for a sustainable property. On the other hand, the financial status and the family income of the consumers showed a positive relation with the willingness to pay more for a sustainable property. This indicates that consumers with better financial conditions, which according to the analysis do not necessarily have a greater environmental awareness, are those who are willing to pay more for a sustainable property. Thus, this study indicates that, even if the environmental awareness impact positively the demand for sustainable structures and properties, this impact is not price reflected, due to the price elasticity of the consumption, especially for a category of lower income consumers. This paper adds to the literature in the way it projects some guidelines to the consumer’s decision process in the Real Estate market in emerging economies, as well as it presents some drivers to pricing decisions.

Keywords: consumer behavior, environmental awareness, real estate pricing, sustainable buildings

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Authors: Rehin Sulay, Anandhu Krishna, Jintumol Mathew, Vibin Ipe Thomas

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N-Nitrosodimethyl amine, the simplest member of the N-Nitrosoamine family, is a carcinogenic and mutagenic agent that has gained considerable research interest owing to its toxic nature. Ozonation of industrially important hydrazines such as unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) or monomethylhydrazine (MMH) has been associated with NDMA formation and accumulation in the environment. UDMH/MMH - ozonation also leads to several other transformation products such as acetaldehyde dimethyl hydrazone (ADMH), tetramethyl tetra azene (TMT), diazomethane, methyl diazene, etc, which can be either precursors or competitors for NDMA formation.In this work, we explored the formation mechanism of ADMH and TMT from UDMH-ozonation and their further oxidation to NDMA using the second-order Moller Plesset perturbation theory employing the 6-311G(d) basis set. We have also investigated how MMH selectively forms methyl diazene and diazomethane under normal conditions and NDMA in the presence of excess ozone. Our calculations indicate that the reactions proceed via an initial H abstraction from the hydrazine –NH2 group followed by the oxidation of the generated N-radical species. The formation of ADMH from the UDMH-ozone reaction involves an acetaldehyde intermediate, which then reacts with a second UDMH molecule to generate ADMH. The preferable attack of ozone molecule on N=C bond of ADMH generates DMAN intermediate, which subsequently undergoes oxidation to form NDMA. Unlike other transformation products, TMT formation occurs via the dimerization of DMAN. Though there exist a N=N bonds in the TMT, which are preferable attacking sites for ozone, experimental studies show the lower yields of NDMA formation, which corroborates with the high activation barrier required for the process(42kcal/mol).Overall, our calculated results agree well with the experimental observations and rate constants. Computational calculations bring insights into the electronic nature and kinetics of the elementary reactions of this pathway, enabled by computed energies of structures that are not possible to access experimentally.

Keywords: reaction mechanism, ozonation, substituted hydrazine, transition state

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Authors: Duncan Fraser

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A 3-Dimensional (3D) conceptual site model was developed using the Leapfrog Works® platform utilising a comprehensive historical dataset for a large former Gasworks site in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The gasworks had been constructed across two fractured geological units with varying hydraulic conductivities. A Newer Volcanic (basaltic) outcrop covered approximately half of the site and was overlying a fractured Melbourne formation (Siltstone) bedrock outcropping over the remaining portion. During the investigative phase of works, a dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) plume (coal tar) was identified within both geological units in the subsurface originating from multiple sources, including gasholders, tar wells, condensers, and leaking pipework. The first stage of model development was undertaken to determine the horizontal and vertical extents of the coal tar in the subsurface and assess the potential causality between potential sources, plume location, and site geology. Concentrations of key contaminants of interest (COIs) were also interpolated within Leapfrog to refine the distribution of contaminated soils. The model was subsequently used to develop a robust soil remediation strategy and achieve endorsement from an Environmental Auditor. A change in project scope, following the removal and validation of the three former gasholders, necessitated the additional excavation of a significant volume of residual contaminated rock to allow for the future construction of two-story underground basements. To assess financial liabilities associated with the offsite disposal or thermal treatment of material, the 3D model was updated with three years of additional analytical data from the active remediation phase of works. Chemical concentrations and the residual tar plume within the rock fractures were modelled to pre-classify the in-situ material and enhance separation strategies to prevent the unnecessary treatment of material and reduce costs.

Keywords: 3D model, contaminated land, Leapfrog, remediation

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Authors: Harsh Agarwal, Pratikkumar Patel, Maharshi Pathak

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Recently the low prices of Crude oil and increase in strict environmental regulations limit limits the use of diesel based muds as these muds are relatively costlier and toxic, as a result disposal of cuttings into the eco-system is a major issue faced by the drilling industries. To overcome these issues faced by the Oil Industry, an attempt has been made to develop oil-in-water emulsion mud system using nettlespurge oil. Nettlespurge oil could be easily available and its cost is around ₹30/litre which is about half the price of diesel in India. Oil-based mud (OBM) was formulated with Nettlespurge oil extracted from Nettlespurge seeds using the Soxhlet extraction method. The formulated nettlespurge oil mud properties were analysed with diesel oil mud properties. The compared properties were rheological properties, yield point and gel strength, and mud density and filtration loss properties, fluid loss and filter cake. The mud density measurement showed that nettlespurge OBM was slightly higher than diesel OBM with mud density values of 9.175 lb/gal and 8.5 lb/gal, respectively, at barite content of 70 g. Thus it has a higher lubricating property. Additionally, the filtration loss test results showed that nettlespurge mud fluid loss volumes, oil was 11 ml, compared to diesel oil mud volume of 15 ml. The filtration loss test indicated that the nettlespurge oil mud with filter cake thickness of 2.2 mm had a cake characteristic of thin and squashy while the diesel oil mud resulted in filter cake thickness of 2.7 mm with cake characteristic of tenacious, rubbery and resilient. The filtration loss test results showed that nettlespurge oil mud fluid loss volumes was much less than the diesel based oil mud. The filtration loss test indicated that the nettlespurge oil mud filter cake thickness less than the diesel oil mud filter cake thickness. So Low formation damage and the emulsion stability effect was analysed with this experiment. The nettlespurge oil-in-water mud system had lower coefficient of friction than the diesel oil based mud system. All the rheological properties have shown better results relative to the diesel based oil mud. Therefore, with all the above mentioned factors and with the data of the conducted experiment we could conclude that the Nettlespurge oil based mud is economically and well as eco-logically much more feasible than the worn out and shabby diesel-based oil mud in the Drilling Industry.

Keywords: economical feasible, ecological feasible, emulsion stability, nettle spurge oil, rheological properties, soxhlet extraction method

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Authors: Mary Rosa Espinosa-Ochoa

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Some constructions appear suddenly in children’s speech and are productive from the beginning. These constructions are supported by others, previously acquired, with which they share semantic and pragmatic features. Thus, for example, the acquisition of the passive voice in German is supported by other constructions with which it shares the lexical verb sein (“to be”). This also occurs in Spanish, in the acquisition of the progressive aspectual periphrasis estar (“to be”) + verb root + -ndo (present participle), supported by locative constructions acquired earlier with the same verb. The periphrasis shares with the locative constructions not only the lexical verb estar, but also pragmatic relations. Both constructions can be used to answer the question ¿Dónde está? (“Where is he/she/it?”), whose answer could be either Está aquí (“He/she/it is here”) or Se está bañando (“He/she/it is taking a bath”).This study is a corpus-based analysis of two children (1;08-2;08) and the input directed to them: it proposes that the pragmatic and semantic support from previously-acquired constructions comes from the input, during interaction with others. This hypothesis is based on analysis of constructions with estar, whose use to express temporal change (which differentiates it from its counterpart ser [“to be”]), is given in variation sets, similar to those described by Küntay and Slobin (2002), that allow the child to perceive the change of place experienced by nouns that function as its grammatical subject. For example, at different points during a bath, the mother says: El jabón está aquí “The soap is here” (beginning of bath); five minutes later, the soap has moved, and the mother says el jabón está ahí “the soap is there”; the soap moves again later on and she says: el jabón está abajo de ti “the soap is under you”. “The soap” is the grammatical subject of all of these utterances. The Spanish verb + -ndo is a progressive phase aspect encoder of a dynamic state that generates a token. The verb + -ndo is also combined with verb estar to encode. It is proposed here that the phases experienced in interaction with the adult, in events related to the verb estar, allow a child to generate this dynamicity and token reading of the verb + -ndo. In this way, children begin to produce the periphrasis suddenly and productively, even though neither the periphrasis nor the verb + -ndo itself are frequent in adult speech.

Keywords: child language acquisition, input, variation sets, Spanish language

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Authors: Hager E. Amer, Hany El Saftawy, Laila Rashed, Ahmed M. Ata, Fatma Metwally, Hesham Mettawei, Hossam E. Sayed, Tamer Adel, Kareem M. El Sawah

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Aim: The purpose of this study is to regenerate the damaged photoreceptor cells as a result of argon laser as a model of Retinitis Pigmentosa in rabbits' retina by using adult stem cells from rabbits' bone marrow. Background: Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of inherited disorders that primarily affect photoreceptor and pigment epithelium function. RP leads to loss of the rod outer segment and shorten the photoreceptor layer and expose the photoreceptor cell body to high-pressure levels in oxygen (oxidative stress) leads to apoptosis to the rod and cone cells. In particular, there is no specific treatment for retinitis pigmentosa. Materials and Methods: Forty Two Giant (Rex) rabbits were used in this experiment divided into 3 groups: Group 1: Control (6 rabbits), Group 2: Argon laser radiated as a model of retinitis pigmentosa (12 rabbits), Group 3: Laser radiated and treated by 6 million stem cells (12 rabbits). The last two groups are divided each into two subgroups each subgroup contains 6 rabbits, the ophthalmological examination was performed on rabbits, blood samples and retina samples were taken after 25 days and after 36 days from the laser radiation (10 days and 21 days after stem cells insertion in group 3) to perform the biochemical analysis. Results: Compared to control Group, a decrease of ERG wave amplitude and antioxidant substances (Glutathione) in blood and retina in group 2, and an increase of oxidative stress substances (Nitric oxide, Malonaldehyde, and carponyl protein) and apoptotic substances (Advanced glycation end product and M-metalloproteinase) in blood and retina. Compared to group 2, mostly increases of antioxidant substances and ERG wave amplitude in group 3, and mostly decreases in oxidative stress substances and apoptotic substances. Conclusion: Insertion of 6 million stem cells intravitreous gives good results in regeneration of the damaged photoreceptor cells after 21 days.

Keywords: retinitis pigmentosa, stem cells, argon laser, oxidative stress, apoptosis

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Authors: Rayhana Begum, Manju Sharma

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Careya arborea Roxb. belongs to the Lecythidaceae family, is traditionally used in tumors, anthelmintic, bronchitis, epileptic fits, astringents, inflammation, an antidote to snake-venom, skin disease, diarrhea, dysentery with bloody stools, dyspepsia, ulcer, toothache, and ear pain. The present study was focused on investigating the anti-arthritic effect of coumaroyl lupendioic acid, a new lupane-type triterpene from Careya arborea stem bark in the chronic inflammatory model and further assessing its possible mechanism on the modulation of inflammatory biomarkers. Arthritis was induced by injecting 0.1 ml of Complete Freund’s Adjuvant (5 mg/ml of heat killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis) into the subplantar region of the left hind paw. Treatment with coumaroyl lupendioic acid (10 and 20 mg/kg, p.o.) and reference drugs (indomethacin and dexamethasone at the dose of 5 mg/kg, p.o.) were started on the day of induction and continued up to 28 days. The progression of arthritis was evaluated by measuring paw volume, tibio tarsal joint diameters, and arthritic index. The effect of coumaroyl lupendioic acid (CLA) on the production PGE₂, NO, MPO, NF-κB, TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 on serum level as well as inflamed paw tissue were also assessed. In addition, ankle joints and spleen were collected and prepared for histological examination. CLA in inflamed rats resulted in significant amelioration of paw edema, tibio-tarsal joint swelling and arthritic score as compared to CFA control group. The results indicated that CLA treated groups markedly decreased the levels of inflammatory mediators (PGE₂, NO, MPO and NF-κB levels) and down-regulated the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6) in paw tissue homogenates as well as in serum. However, the more pronounced effect was observed in the inflamed paw tissue homogenates. CLA also revealed a protective effect to the tibio-tarsal joint cartilage and spleen. These results suggest that coumaroyl lupendioic acid inhibits inflammation may be through the suppression of the cascade of proinflammatory mediators via the down-regulation of NF-ҡB.

Keywords: complete Freund’s adjuvant , Coumaroyl lupendioic acid, pro-inflammatory cytokines, prostaglandin E2

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Authors: Christin Koch, Andreas Winkel, Martin Kahlmeyer, Stefan Böhm

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Due to environmental regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of fossil fuels, there is an increasing interest in electric vehicles.To maximize their driving range, batteries with high storage capacities are needed. In most electric cars, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are used because of their high energy density. However, it has to be taken into account that these batteries generate a large amount of heat during the charge and discharge processes. This leads to a decrease in a lifetime and damage to the battery cells when the temperature exceeds the defined operating range. To ensure an efficient performance of the battery cells, reliable thermal management is required. Currently, the cooling is achieved by heat sinks (e.g., cooling plates) bonded to the battery cells with a thermally conductive adhesive (TCA) that directs the heat away from the components. Especially when large amounts of heat have to be dissipated spontaneously due to peak loads, the principle of heat conduction is not sufficient, so attention must be paid to the mechanism of heat storage. An efficient method to store thermal energy is the use of phase change materials (PCM). Through an isothermal phase change, PCM can briefly absorb or release thermal energy at a constant temperature. If the phase change takes place in the transition from solid to liquid, heat is stored during melting and is released to the ambient during the freezing process upon cooling. The presented work displays the great potential of thermally conductive adhesives filled with microencapsulated PCM to limit peak temperatures in battery systems. The encapsulation of the PCM avoids the effects of aging (e.g., migration) and chemical reactions between the PCM and the adhesive matrix components. In this study, microencapsulation has been carried out by in situ polymerization. The microencapsulated PCM was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, and the thermal properties were measured by DSC and laser flash method. The mechanical properties, electrical and thermal conductivity, and adhesive toughness of the TCA/PCM composite were also investigated.

Keywords: phase change material, microencapsulation, adhesive bonding, thermal management

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Authors: Sarah Elsayed Mohammed, Lamiaa Ahmed Ahmed, Mahmoud Mohammed Khattab

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Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether combined nicorandil and bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMDMSC) treatment could offer an additional benefit in ameliorating isoproterenol (ISO)-induced heart failure in rats. Methods: ISO (85 and 170 mg/kg/day) was injected subcutaneously for 2 successive days, respectively. By day 3, electrocardiographic changes were recorded and serum was separated for determination of CK-MB level for confirmation of myocardial damage. Nicorandil (3 mg/kg/day) was then given orally with or without a single i.v. BMDMSC administration. Electrocardiography and echocardiography were recorded 2 weeks after beginning of treatment. Rats were then sacrificed and ventricles were isolated for estimation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) contents, caspase-3 activity as well as inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and connexin-43 protein expressions. Moreover, histological analysis of myocardial fibrosis was performed and cryosections were done for estimation of homing of BMDMSC. Results: ISO induced a significant increase in ventricles/body weight ratio, left ventricular end diastolic (LVEDD) and systolic dimensions (LVESD), ST segment and QRS duration. Moreover, myocardial fibrosis as well as VEGF, TNF-α and TGF-β contents were significantly increased. On the other hand, connexin-43 protein expression was significantly decreased, while caspase-3 and iNOS protein expressions were significantly increased. Combined therapy provided additional improvement compared to cell treatment alone towards reducing cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis and inflammation. Furthermore, combined therapy induced significant increase in angiogenesis and BMDMSC homing and prevented ISO induced changes in iNOS, connexin-43 and caspase-3 protein expressions. Conclusion: Combined nicorandil/BMDMSC treatment was superior to BMDMSC alone towards preventing ISO-induced heart failure in rats.

Keywords: fibrosis, isoproterenol, mesenchymal stem cells, nicorandil

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Authors: Cindy Woods

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After years of implacable neoliberal globalization, multinational corporations have moved from the periphery to the center of the international legal agenda. Human rights advocates have long called for greater corporate accountability in the international arena. The creation of the Global Compact in 2000, while aimed at fostering greater corporate respect for human rights, did not silence these calls. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to adopt a set of norms relating to the human rights responsibilities of transnational corporations, the United Nations succeeded in 2008 with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Guiding Principles). The Guiding Principles, praised by some within the international human rights community for their recognition of an individual corporate responsibility to respect human rights, have not escaped their share of criticism. Many view the Guiding Principles to be toothless, failing to directly impose obligations upon corporations, and call for binding international obligations on corporate entities. After decades of attempting to promulgate human rights obligations for multinational corporations, the existing legal frameworks in place fall short of protecting individuals from the human rights abuses of multinational corporations. The Global Compact and Guiding Principles are proof of the United Nations’ unwillingness to impose international legal obligations on corporate actors. In June 2014, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to draft international legally binding human rights norms for business entities; however, key players in the international arena have already announced they will not cooperate with such efforts. This Note, through an overview of the existing corporate accountability frameworks and a study of Newmont Mining’s Minas Conga project in Peru, argues that binding international human rights obligations on corporations are necessary to fully protect human rights. Where states refuse to or simply cannot uphold their duty to protect individuals from transnational businesses’ human rights transgressions, there must exist mechanisms to pursue justice directly against the multinational corporation.

Keywords: business and human rights, Latin America, international treaty on business and human rights, mining, human rights

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Authors: Marybec Griffin

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Purpose: The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to get a better understanding of healthcare usage and satisfaction among young adult gay men (YAGM), including the facility used as the usual source of healthcare, preference for coordinated healthcare, and if their primary care provider (PCP) adequately addressed the health needs of gay men. Methods: Interviews were conducted among n=800 YAGM in New York City (NYC). Participants were surveyed about their sociodemographic characteristics and healthcare usage and satisfaction access using multivariable logistic regression models. The surveys were conducted between November 2015 and June 2016. Results: The mean age of the sample was 24.22 years old (SD=4.26). The racial and ethnic background of the participants is as follows: 35.8% (n=286) Black Non-Hispanic, 31.9% (n=225) Hispanic/Latino, 20.5% (n=164) White Non-Hispanic, 4.4% (n=35) Asian/Pacific Islander, and 6.9% (n=55) reporting some other racial or ethnic background. 31.1% (n=249) of the sample had an income below $14,999. 86.7% (n=694) report having either public or private health insurance. For usual source of healthcare, 44.6% (n=357) of the sample reported a private doctor’s office, 16.3% (n=130) reported a community health center, and 7.4% (n=59) reported an urgent care facility, and 7.6% (n=61) reported not having a usual source of healthcare. 56.4% (n=451) of the sample indicated a preference for coordinated healthcare. 54% (n=334) of the sample were very satisfied with their healthcare. Findings from multivariable logistical regression models indicate that participants with higher incomes (AOR=0.54, 95% CI 0.36-0.81, p < 0.01) and participants with a PCP (AOR=0.12, 95% CI 0.07-0.20, p < 0.001) were less likely to use a walk-in facility as their usual source of healthcare. Results from the second multivariable logistic regression model indicated that participants who experienced discrimination in a healthcare setting were less likely to prefer coordinated healthcare (AOR=0.63, 95% CI 0.42-0.96, p < 0.05). In the final multivariable logistic model, results indicated that participants who had disclosed their sexual orientation to their PCP (AOR=2.57, 95% CI 1.25-5.21, p < 0.01) and were comfortable discussing their sexual activity with their PCP (AOR=8.04, 95% CI 4.76-13.58, p < 0.001) were more likely to agree that their PCP adequately addressed the healthcare needs of gay men. Conclusion: Understanding healthcare usage and satisfaction among YAGM is necessary as the healthcare landscape changes, especially given the relatively recent addition of urgent care facilities. The type of healthcare facility used as a usual source of care influences the ability to seek comprehensive and coordinated healthcare services. While coordinated primary and sexual healthcare may be ideal, individual preference for this coordination among YAGM is desired but may be limited due to experiences of discrimination in primary care settings.

Keywords: healthcare policy, gay men, healthcare access, Affordable Care Act

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Authors: Sospeter P. Maganga, Alphonce Wikedzi, Mussa D. Budeba, Samwel V. Manyele

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This study characterizes complex gold ores (elemental and mineralogical composition, gold distribution, ore grindability, and mineral liberation) for preliminary process selection. About 200 kg of ore samples were collected from each location using systematic sampling by mass interval. Ores were dried, crushed, milled, and split into representative sub-samples (about 1 kg) for elemental and mineralogical composition analyses using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), fire assay finished with Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) methods, respectively. The gold distribution was studied on size-by-size fractions, while ore grindability was determined using the standard Bond test. The mineral liberation analysis was conducted using ThermoFisher Scientific Mineral Liberation Analyzer (MLA) 650, where unsieved polished grain mounts (80% passing 700 µm) were used as MLA feed. Two MLA measurement modes, X-ray modal analysis (XMOD) and sparse phase liberation-grain X-ray mapping analysis (SPL-GXMAP), were employed. At least two cyanide consumers (Cu, Fe, Pb, and Zn) and kinetics impeders (Mn, S, As, and Bi) were present in all locations investigated. Copper content at Kapanda (0.77% Cu) and Ibindi (7.48% Cu) exceeded the recommended threshold of 0.5% Cu for direct cyanidation. The gold ore at Ibindi indicated a higher rate of grinding compared to other locations. This could be explained by the highest grindability (2.119 g/rev.) and lowest Bond work index (10.213 kWh/t) values. The pyrite-marcasite, chalcopyrite, galena, and siderite were identified as major gold, copper, lead, and iron-bearing minerals, respectively, with potential for economic extraction. However, only gold and copper can be recovered under conventional milling because of grain size issues (galena is exposed by 10%) and process complexity (difficult to concentrate and smelt iron from siderite). Therefore, the preliminary process selection is copper flotation followed by gold cyanidation for Kapanda and Ibindi ores, whereas gold cyanidation with additives such as glycine or ammonia is selected for Mawemeru and Itumbi ores because of low concentrations of Cu, Pb, Fe, and Zn minerals.

Keywords: complex gold ores, mineral liberation, ore characterization, ore grindability

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