Search results for: water quality classification

Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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Rapid urbanization, rising population, changing lifestyles and in-migration, Lucknow is groundwater over-exploited area, with an abstract rate of 1968 m3/day/km2 in Gomti Nagar. The groundwater situation in Gomti Nagar is deteriorating day-by-day. According to the work, the calculated annual water deficiency in Gomti Nagar area will be 28061 Million Litre (ML) in 2022. Within 30 yrs., the water deficiency will be 735570 ML (till 2051). The calculated groundwater recharge in Gomti Nagar was 10813 ML/y (in 2022). The annual groundwater abstraction from Gomti Nagar area was 35332 ML/yr. (in 2022). Bye-laws (≥ 300 sq.m) existing RTRWHs can recharge 17.71 ML/yr. in Gomti Nagar area. The existing RTRWHs are contributing 0.07% for recharging groundwater table. In Gomti Nagar, the water level is dropping at a rate of 1.0 metre per year, and the depth of the water table is less than 30 metre below ground level (mbgl). Natural groundwater recharge is affected by the geomorphological conditions of the surrounding area. Gomti Nagar is located on the erosional terrace (Te) and depositional terrace (d) of the Gomti River. The flood plain in Lucknow city is less active due to the embankments on the both sides of the Gomti River. The alluvium is composed of clay sandy up to a depth of 30m, and the alignment of the Gomti River reveals the presence of sandy soil at shallow depths. Aquifer depth 120 metre. Recharge as in Gomti Nagar (it may vary) 0 – 150 metre. Infiltration rates in alluvial floodplains range from 0.8 to 74 cm/hr. Geologically and Geomorphologically support rapid percolation of rainwater through alluvium in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow city, Uttar Pradesh. Over-exploitation of groundwater causes natural hazards viz. land subsidence, development of cracks on roads and buildings, development of vacuum and compactness of soil/clay which leads towards land subsidence, devastating effects on natural stream flow. Gomti River already transitioning phase from ‘effluent’ to ‘influent’, and saline intrusion in Aquifer –II (among Five aquifers in Lucknow city). A 250 m long crack developed in 2007 due to groundwater depletion in Dullu Khera and Vader Khera village of Kakori, Uttar Pradesh. The groundwater table of Lucknow is declining and water table imbalance occurs due to 17 times less recharge than groundwater exploitation. Uttar Pradesh along with four states have extracted 49% of groundwater in the entire country. In Gomti Nagar area, 27305 no of houses are present and available build up area 3.8 sq. km (60% of plot area) based on Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) Master plan 2031. If RTRWHs would install in all the houses, then 12% harvested rainwater contribute to the water table in Gomti Nagar area. Till 2051, Gomti Nagar area will harvest 91110 ML of rainwater. There are minimalistic chances that any incidence of flood can occur due to RTRWH. Thus, it can conclud that RTRWH is not related to flood happening in urban areas viz. Gomti Nagar.

Keywords: RTRWH, aquifer, groundwater table, rainwater, infiltration

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Authors: Eva L. Suarez, Daniel E. Meeroff, Yan Yong

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The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) developed flood maps based on experts’ experience and estimates of the probability of flooding. Current flood-risk models evaluate flood risk with regional and subjective measures without impact from torrential rain and nuisance flooding at the neighborhood level. Nuisance flooding occurs in small areas in the community, where a few streets or blocks are routinely impacted. This type of flooding event occurs when torrential rainstorm combined with high tide and sea level rise temporarily exceeds a given threshold. In South Florida, this threshold is 1.7 ft above Mean Higher High Water (MHHW). The National Weather Service defines torrential rain as rain deposition at a rate greater than 0.3-inches per hour or three inches in a single day. Data from the Florida Climate Center, 1970 to 2020, shows 371 events with more than 3-inches of rain in a day in 612 months. The purpose of this research is to develop a data-driven method to determine comprehensive analytical damage-avoidance criteria that account for nuisance flood events at the single-family home level. The method developed uses the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method from the American Society of Quality (ASQ) to estimate the Damage Avoidance (DA) preparation for a 1-day 100-year storm. The Consequence of Nuisance Flooding (CoNF) is estimated from community mitigation efforts to prevent nuisance flooding damage. The Probability of Nuisance Flooding (PoNF) is derived from the frequency and duration of torrential rainfall causing delays and community disruptions to daily transportation, human illnesses, and property damage. Urbanization and population changes are related to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual population estimates. Data collected by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service’s National Resources Inventory (NRI) and locally by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) track the development and land use/land cover changes with time. The intent is to include temporal trends in population density growth and the impact on land development. Results from this investigation provide the risk of nuisance flooding as a function of CoNF and PoNF for coastal areas of South Florida. The data-based criterion provides awareness to local municipalities on their flood-risk assessment and gives insight into flood management actions and watershed development.

Keywords: flood risk, nuisance flooding, urban flooding, FMEA

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Authors: Tim Steinhaus, Christian Beidl

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Urban air quality and climate protection are two major challenges for future mobility systems. Despite the steady reduction of pollutant emissions from vehicles over past decades, local immission load within cities partially still reaches heights, which are considered hazardous to human health. Although traffic-related emissions account for a major part of the overall urban pollution, modeling the exact interaction remains challenging. In this paper, a novel approach for the determination of the emission-immission interaction on the basis of neural network modeling for traffic induced NO2-immission load within a near-traffic hot-spot scenario is presented. In a detailed sensitivity analysis, the significance of relevant influencing variables on the prevailing NO2 concentration is initially analyzed. Based on this, the generation process of the model is described, in which not only environmental influences but also the vehicle fleet composition including its associated segment- and certification-specific real driving emission factors are derived and used as input quantities. The validity of this approach, which has been presented in the past, is re-examined in this paper using updated data on vehicle emissions and recent immission measurement data. Within the framework of a final scenario analysis, the future development of the immission load is forecast for different developments in the vehicle fleet composition. It is shown that immission levels of less than half of today’s yearly average limit values are technically feasible in hot-spot situations.

Keywords: air quality, emission, emission-immission-interaction, immission, NO2, zero impact

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Authors: Tomas Makaras, Julija Razumienė, Vidutė Gurevičienė, Gintarė Sauliutė, Milda Stankevičiūtė

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Stress responses represent animal’s natural reactions to various challenging conditions and could be used as a welfare indicator. Regardless of the wide use of glucose measurements in stress evaluation, there are some inconsistencies in its acceptance as a stress marker, especially when it comes to comparison with non-invasive cortisol measurements in the fish challenging stress. To meet the challenge and to test the reliability and applicability of glucose measurement in practice, in this study, different environmental/anthropogenic exposure scenarios were simulated to provoke chemical-induced stress in fish (14-days exposure to landfill leachate) followed by a 14-days stress recovery period and under the cumulative effect of leachate fish subsequently exposed to pathogenic oomycetes (Saprolegnia parasitica) to represent a possible infection in fish. It is endemic to all freshwater habitats worldwide and is partly responsible for the decline of natural freshwater fish populations. Brown trout (Salmo trutta fario) and sea trout (Salmo trutta trutta) juveniles were chosen because of a large amount of literature on physiological stress responses in these species was known. Glucose content in fish by applying invasive and non-invasive glucose measurement procedures in different test mediums such as fish blood, gill tissues and fish-holding water were analysed. The results indicated that the quantity of glucose released in the holding water of stressed fish increased considerably (approx. 3.5- to 8-fold) and remained substantially higher (approx. 2- to 4-fold) throughout the stress recovery period than the control level suggesting that fish did not recover from chemical-induced stress. The circulating levels of glucose in blood and gills decreased over time in fish exposed to different stressors. However, the gill glucose level in fish showed a decrease similar to the control levels measured at the same time points, which was found to be insignificant. The data analysis showed that concentrations of β-D glucose measured in gills of fish treated with S. parasitica differed significantly from the control recovery, but did not differ from the leachate recovery group showing that S. parasitica presence in water had no additive effects. In contrast, a positive correlation between blood and gills glucose were determined. Parallel trends in blood and water glucose changes suggest that water glucose measurement has much potency in predicting stress. This study demonstrated that measuring β-D-glucose in fish-holding water is not stressful as it involves no handling and manipulation of an organism and has critical technical advantages concerning current (invasive) methods, mainly using blood samples or specific tissues. The quantification of glucose could be essential for studies examining the stress physiology/aquaculture studies interested in the assessment or long-term monitoring of fish health.

Keywords: brown trout, landfill leachate, sea trout, pathogenic oomycetes, β-D-glucose

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Authors: Nakul Agrawal, Y. M. Puri

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TPM methodology is a proven approach to increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of machine. OEE is an established method to monitor and improve the effectiveness of manufacturing process. OEE is a product of equipment availability, performance efficiency and quality performance of manufacturing operations. The paper presents a project work for improving OEE of CNC-VMC in a manufacturing industry with the help of TPM tools Kaizen and Autonomous Maintenance. The aim of paper is to enhance OEE by minimizing the breakdown and re-work, increase availability, performance and quality. The calculated OEE of bottle necking machines for 4 months is lower of 53.3%. Root Cause Analysis RCA tools like fishbone diagram, Pareto chart are used for determining the reasons behind low OEE. While Tool like Why-Why analysis is use for determining the basis reasons for low OEE. Tools like Kaizen and Autonomous Maintenance are effectively implemented on CNC-VMC which eliminate the causes of breakdown and prevent from reoccurring. The result obtains from approach shows that OEE of CNC-VMC improved from 53.3% to 73.7% which saves an average sum of Rs.3, 19,000.

Keywords: OEE, TPM, Kaizen, CNC-VMC, why-why analysis, RCA

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Authors: Davide Fuscà, Kanan Rahimli, Roberto Leuzzi

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Preventing abuse and illegal activities in a given area of the sea is a very difficult and expensive task. Artificial intelligence offers the possibility to implement new methods to identify the vessel class type from the kinematic features of the vessel itself. The task strictly depends on the quality of the data. This paper explores the application of a deep, long short-term memory model by using AIS flow only with a relatively low quality. The proposed model reaches high accuracy on detecting nine vessel classes representing the most common vessel types in the Ionian-Adriatic Sea. The model has been applied during the Adriatic-Ionian trial period of the international EU ANDROMEDA H2020 project to identify vessels performing behaviors far from the expected one depending on the declared type.

Keywords: maritime surveillance, artificial intelligence, behavior analysis, LSTM

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Authors: T. Lydon, A. McNabola, P. Coughlan

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Energy consumption in the water distribution network (WDN) is a well established problem equating to the industry contributing heavily to carbon emissions, with 0.9 kg CO2 emitted per m3 of water supplied. It is indicated that 85% of energy wasted in the WDN can be recovered by installing turbines. Existing potential in networks is present at small capacity sites (5-10 kW), numerous and dispersed across networks. However, traditional turbine technology cannot be scaled down to this size in an economically viable fashion, thus alternative approaches are needed. This research aims to enable energy recovery potential within the WDN by exploring the potential of pumps-as-turbines (PATs), to realise this potential. PATs are estimated to be ten times cheaper than traditional micro-hydro turbines, presenting potential to contribute to an economically viable solution. However, a number of technical constraints currently prohibit their widespread use, including the inability of a PAT to control pressure, difficulty in the selection of PATs due to lack of performance data and a lack of understanding on how PATs can cater for fluctuations as extreme as +/- 50% of the average daily flow, characteristic of the WDN. A PAT prototype is undergoing testing in order to identify the capabilities of the technology. Results of preliminary testing, which involved testing the efficiency and power potential of the PAT for varying flow and pressure conditions, in order to develop characteristic and efficiency curves for the PAT and a baseline understanding of the technologies capabilities, are presented here: •The limitations of existing selection methods which convert BEP from pump operation to BEP in turbine operation was highlighted by the failure of such methods to reflect the conditions of maximum efficiency of the PAT. A generalised selection method for the WDN may need to be informed by an understanding of impact of flow variations and pressure control on system power potential capital cost, maintenance costs, payback period. •A clear relationship between flow and efficiency rate of the PAT has been established. The rate of efficiency reductions for flows +/- 50% BEP is significant and more extreme for deviations in flow above the BEP than below, but not dissimilar to the reaction of efficiency of other turbines. •PAT alone is not sufficient to regulate pressure, yet the relationship of pressure across the PAT is foundational in exploring ways which PAT energy recovery systems can maintain required pressure level within the WDN. Efficiencies of systems of PAT energy recovery systems operating conditions of pressure regulation, which have been conceptualise in current literature, need to be established. Initial results guide the focus of forthcoming testing and exploration of PAT technology towards how PATs can form part of an efficiency energy recovery system.

Keywords: energy recovery, pump-as-turbine, water distribution network, water distribution network

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Authors: Rana Bilal, Faiz-Ul-Hassan, Moazzam Jameel

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There is a dire need to replace high-cost protein with more economical protein to overcome animal protein shortage in developing nations especially countries like Pakistan. In conjunction with these efforts, the current study was planned to evaluate the effects of various dried distillery yeast sludge (DYS) levels on the immune level, egg quality, and performance of layers by replacing soybean meal. The study was designed with two hundred layers of Hy-Line variety. Distillery yeast sludge was dried and ground for 2 mm mesh size and after this proximate and mineral analysis was determined. Five isocaloric and isonitrogeneous feeds were given containing C (control), 5, 10, 15, 20% distillery yeast sludge by replacing soybean meal. The trial was performed in the completely randomized design with five treatments, 4 replicates and 10 hen per replicate. Results demonstrated that feed intake, egg production, feed conversion ratio decreased (P < 0.05) with the increased dietary DYS. However, statistically significant decrease (P < 0.05) was found in hens having DYS20 diet than control. Layers on Diets C, DYS5 and DYS10 exerted a higher immune level than DYS15 and DYS20 diets. Egg weight, eggshell weight, eggshell thickness, egg albumen height as well as haugh unit score were affected significantly by the increased level of DYS. In general, results of this study demonstrated that inclusion of DYS up to 10% showed no adverse effects on health and performance of layers.

Keywords: egg quality, immunity, layers, performance

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Authors: Su Sin Chong, Abdul Aziz Abdul Raman, Sulaiman Wadi Harun, Hamzah Arof

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Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) plays a vital role determination of an appropriate strategy for wastewater treatment including the control of the quality of an effluent. In this study, a new sensing method was introduced for the first time and developed to investigate chemical oxygen demand (COD) using a Mach-Zehner Interferometer (MZI)-based dye sensor. The sensor is constructed by bridging two single mode fibres (SMF1 and SMF2) with a short section (~20 mm) of multimode fibre (MMF) and was formed by tapering the MMF to generate evanescent field which is sensitive to perturbation of sensing medium. When the COD concentration increase takes effect will induce changes in output intensity and effective refractive index between the microfiber and the sensing medium. The adequacy of decisions based on COD values relies on the quality of the measurements. Therefore, the dual output response can be applied to the analytical procedure enhance measurement quality. This work presents a detailed assessment of the determination of COD values in synthetic wastewaters. Detailed models of the measurement performance, including sensitivity, reversibility, stability, and uncertainty were successfully validated by proficiency tests where supported on sound and objective criteria. Comparison of the standard method with the new proposed method was also conducted. This proposed sensor is compact, reliable and feasible to investigate the COD value.

Keywords: chemical oxygen demand, environmental sensing, Mach-Zehnder interferometer sensor, online monitoring

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Authors: Abdel Rahman A. Alzandi

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The primary objectives of this investigation were to examine the interactive effects of three air quality treatments, ethylene-diurea (EDU) and two irrigation conditions on physiological characteristics of kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) during its whole growth. These plants were grown in 12-open top chambers (OTC's). Ethylene-diurea (EDU) was used as a factor to evaluate O3 pollution impact on plant growth. The air quality treatments consisted of charcoal filtered (CF) air, nonfiltered (NF) air and ambient air (AA) were irrigated and non- irrigated. Leaf samples were collected from upper canopy positions six times (pre- EDU addition, week after four EDU's addition, at the time of harvesting). Maximal differences in leaf carbohydrate, N contents, pigments and total lipids were observed in response to moisture conditions in presence and absence of EDU applications. Significant reduction were noted for air quality treatments regarding carbohydrate and pigment fractions but not for all cases of leaf N and lipid contents under O3 effects only. Minimal differences were found for first EDU application while maximal ones were recorded at 200 mg l-1 of treatments. The EDU treatments stimulated carbohydrate and pigment contents at the upper canopy position with higher levels for both NF and AA compared to untreated conditions. The NF and AA treatments caused lower total carbohydrate and pigment contents in the canopy position before harvesting of EDU applications. The stimulation in leaf carbohydrates by the EDU treatment, compared to the non-treated EDU of AA and NF treatments, provides a rational explanation for the counteracting effects of EDU against moderate exposures to O3 regarding grain yields in C3 plants.

Keywords: leaf contents, moisture relations, EDU additions, global climate change, kidney bean

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Authors: Abdul Haseeb Wani, Shruti Sharma, Rafat Siddique

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Self-compacting concrete is an engineered concrete that flows and de-airs without additional energy input. Such concrete requires a high slump which can be achieved by the addition of superplasticizers to the concrete mix. In the present work, bagasse ash is utilised as a replacement of cement in self-compacting concrete. This serves the purpose of both land disposal and environmental concerns related to the disposal of bagasse ash. Further, an experimental program was carried out to study the fresh, strength, and durability properties of self-compacting concrete made with bagasse ash. The mixes were prepared with four percentages (0, 5, 10 and 15) of bagasse ash as partial replacement of cement. Properties investigated were; Slump-flow, V-funnel and L-box, Compressive strength, Splitting tensile strength, Chloride-ion penetration resistance and Water absorption. Compressive and splitting tensile strength tests were conducted at the age of 7 and 28 days. Rapid chloride-ion permeability test was carried at the age of 28 days and water absorption test was carried out at the age of 7 days after initial curing of 28 days. Test results showed that there is an increase in the compressive strength and splitting tensile strength of the concrete specimens having up to 10% replacement level, however, there is a slight decrease at 15% level of replacement. Resistance to chloride-ion penetration of the specimens increased as the percentage of replacement was increased. The charge passed in all the specimens containing bagasse ash was lower than that of the specimen without bagasse ash. Water absorption of the specimens decreased up to 10% replacement level and increased at 15% level of replacement. Hence, it can be concluded that optimum level of replacement of cement with bagasse ash in self-compacting concrete comes out to be 10%; at which the self-compacting concrete has satisfactory flow characteristics (as per the European guidelines), improved compressive and splitting tensile strength and better durability properties as compared to the control mix.

Keywords: bagasse ash, compressive strength, self-compacting concrete, splitting tensile strength

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Authors: A. A. Al-Saleh, E. A. Ismail, A. A. Metwalli

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Effects of camel and cow casein hydrolysates by trypsin enzyme on rheological and sensory properties and growth of starter culture of the yoghurts made from cow milk have been investigated. The hydrolysates strongly decreased the fermentation and coagulation time of the yoghurts. The rate of pH decrease was higher with camel casein hydrolysate in comparison with cow casein hydrolysate at all concentrations used (0.5; 1.0 and 1.5%). Viscosities of the yoghurt made with hydrolysates significantly (p<0.05) decreased compared to control samples. The addition of the hydrolysates significantly (p <0.05) increased the hardness and adhesiveness of the yoghurts. No significant differences in water holding capacity of control and treated samples were obsereved at 0.5 and 1.0% casein hydrolysate addition. However, increasing casein hydrolysate addition to 1.5% decreased water holding capacity of yoghurt samples. The sensory evaluation scores of the yoghurts were significantly (p<0.05) improved with the addition of casein hydrolysates.

Keywords: yoghurt, camel casein hydrolysates, cow casein hydrolysate, sensory evaluation

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Authors: Ajay Das, Sandip Basu

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Introduction: There is increasing recognition that diverse streams of knowledge can often be recombined in novel ways to generate new knowledge. However, knowledge recombination theory has not been applied to examine the effects of collaborator diversity on the quality of knowledge such collaborators produce. This is surprising because one would expect that a collaborative team with certain aspects of diversity should be able to recombine process elements related to knowledge development, which are relatively tacit, but also complementary because of the collaborator’s varying backgrounds. Theory and Hypotheses: We propose to examine two aspects of diversity in the environments of collaborative teams to try and capture such potential recombinations of relatively tacit, process knowledge. The first aspect of diversity in team members’ environments is geographical. Collaborators with more geographical distance between them (perhaps working in different countries) often have more autonomy in the processes they adopt for knowledge development. In the absence of overt monitoring, such collaborators are likely to adopt differing approaches to knowledge development. The sharing of such varying approaches among collaborators is likely to result in greater quality of the common collaborative pursuit. The second aspect is diversity in the work backgrounds of team members. Such diversity can also increase the potential for knowledge recombination. For example, if one or more members are from a manufacturing center (versus all of them being from a purely R&D center), such members will provide unique perspectives on the implementation of innovative ideas. Again, knowledge that has been evaluated from these diverse perspectives is likely to be of a higher quality. In addition to the above aspects of environmental diversity among team members, we also plan to examine the extent to which individual collaborators are in different environments from the primary innovation center of their employing firms. Proposed Methods: We will test our model on a sample of firms in the semiconductor industry. Our level of analysis will be individual patents generated by these firms and the teams involved in the generation of these. Information on manufacturing activities of our sample firms will be obtained from SEMI, a proprietary database of the semiconductor industry, as well as company 10-K reports. Conclusion: We believe that our results will represent a preliminary attempt to understand how various forms of diversity in collaborative teams impact the knowledge development process. Our dependent variable of knowledge quality is important to study since higher values of this variable can not only drive firm performance but the broader development of regions and societies through spillover impacts on future innovation. The results of this study will, therefore, inform future research and practice in innovation, geographical location, and vertical integration.

Keywords: innovation, manufacturing strategy, knowledge, diversity

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Authors: Saifullahi Umar, Baba Mamman Yarima, Mohammed Bello Usman, Hassan Mohammed

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This study was conducted along with the Hadejia valley project irrigation under the Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin Development Authority (HRBDA) in Jigawa State. The multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 72 rice farmers operating along with the Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project. Data for the study were collected using a structured questionnaire. The analytical tools employed for the study were descriptive statistics and Farm budget technique. The result shows that 55% of the farmers were between 31-40 years of age, 66.01% were male, and the result also revealed that the total cost of cultivation of an acre of land for rice production during the dry season was N73,900 with input cost accounting for 63.59% of the total cost of production. The gross return was N332,500, with a net return of N258,600 per acre. The estimated benefit-cost ratio of 3.449 indicates the strong performance of the dry season rice production. The leading constraints to dry season rice production were low access to quality extension services, low access to finance, poor quality fertilizers, and poor prices. The study, therefore, concludes that dry season rice production is a profitable enterprise in the study area hence, to productivity the farmers should be linked to effective extension service delivery institutions, expanding their access to productive sources of finances, the government should strengthen fertilizer quality control measures and comprehensive market linkages for the farmers.

Keywords: Auyo, dry season, Hadejia Valley, rice

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Authors: Soottawat Benjakul, Phakawat Tongnuanchan, Thummanoon Prodpran

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Edible pouches made from fish gelatin film incorporated without and with palm oil (PO), basil essential oil (BEO) or oil mixture (M) were prepared and used to store chicken powder and chicken skin oil in comparison with nylon/low-density polyethylene (Nylon/LDPE) pouch during storage of 15 days. The moisture content of chicken powder packaged in pouches from fish gelatin films incorporated without and with various oils increased during 15 days of storage (p > 0.05). However, there was a non-significant change in moisture content of sample packaged in Nylon/LDPE pouch (p > 0.05). Samples packaged in pouches from fish gelatin films incorporated with oils had lower moisture content than those stored in pouch from gelatin film without oil added throughout the storage (p < 0.05). This coincided with the higher increases in darkness and yellowness for the latter. All samples packaged in pouches made from all films had the slight increase in PV, whereas a drastic increase in TBARS was observed for all samples during 15 days of storage. During 15 days of storage, chicken skin oil packaged in Nylon/LDPE pouch had higher TBARS and p-anisidine value than those stored in pouches made from fish gelatin, regardless of oil incorporated (p< 0.05). Therefore, pouches from gelatin film incorporated with oils could lower water migration and lipid oxidation in fat containing foods and oils.

Keywords: edible pouch, fish gelatin, quality changes, storage stability

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Authors: Ayelet Siman-Tov, Shlomo Kaniel

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Objectives: The research validates a multivariate model that predicts parental adjustment to coping successfully with an autistic child. The model comprises four elements: parental stress, parental resources, parental adjustment and the child's autism symptoms. Background and aims: The purpose of the current study is the construction and validation of a model for the adjustment of parents and a child with autism. The suggested model is based on theoretical views on stress and links personal resources, stress, perception, parental mental health and quality of marriage and child adjustment with autism. The family stress approach focuses on the family as a system made up of a dynamic interaction between its members, who constitute interdependent parts of the system, and thus, a change in one family member brings about changes in the processes of the entire family system. From this perspective, a rise of new demands in the family and stress in the role of one family member affects the family system as a whole. Materials and methods: 176 parents of children aged between 6 to 16 diagnosed with ASD answered several questionnaires measuring parental stress, personal resources (sense of coherence, locus of control, social support), adjustment (mental health and marriage quality) and the child's autism symptoms. Results: Path analysis showed that a sense of coherence, internal locus of control, social support and quality of marriage increase the ability to cope with the stress of parenting an autistic child. Directions for further research are suggested.

Keywords: stress, adjustment, resources, Autism, parents, coherence

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Authors: Shwu-Ling Peng, Chiung-Man Tsai, Chia-Jui Weng

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Chronic micro-inflammation is a hallmark of many aging-related neurodegenerative and metabolic syndrome-driven diseases. In high glucose (HG) environment, reactive oxygen species (ROS) is generated and the ROS induced inflammation, cytokines secretion, DNA damage, and cell cycle arrest to lead to cellular senescence. Water chestnut shell (WCS) is a plant hull which containing polyphenolic compounds and showed antioxidant and anticancer activities. Orchid, which containing a natural polysaccharide compound, possesses many physiological activities including anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects. These agricultural plants might be able to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. This study was used HG-induced human normal dermal fibroblasts (HG-HNDFs) as an in vitro model to disclose the effects of water extract of Phalaenopsis orchid flower (WEPF) and ethanol extract of water chestnut shell (EEWCS) on the anti-aging and their underlying molecular mechanisms. The toxicity of extracts on human normal dermal fibroblasts (HNDFs) was determined by MTT method. The senescence of cells was assayed by β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) kit. ROS and nitrate production was analyzed by Intracellular ROS contents and ELISA, respectively. Western blotting was used to detect the proteins in cells. The results showed that the exposure of HNDFs to HG (30 mM) for 72 h were caused cellular senescence and arrested cells at G0/G1 phase. Indeed, the treatment of HG-HNDFs with WEPF (200 μg/ml) and EEWCS (10 μg/ml) significantly released cell cycle arrest and promoted cell proliferation. The G1/S phase transition regulatory proteins such as protein retinoblastoma (pRb), p53, and p16ᴵᴺᴷ⁴ᵃ depressed by WEPF and EEWCS were also observed. Additionally, the treatment of WEPF and EEWCS increased the activity of HO-1 through upregulating Nrf2 as well as decreased the ROS and NO of HG-HNDFs. Therefore, the senescence marker protein-30 (SMP30) in cells was diminished. In conclusion, the WEPF and EEWCS might inhibit HG-induced aging of HNDFs by reducing oxidative stress and free radicals.

Keywords: agricultural plant extract, anti-aging, high glucose, Phalaenopsis orchid flower, water chestnut shell

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Authors: Saeideh Lotfi Nikoo, Azadeh Ghaheri, Reza Omani Samani

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Context: In most cultures around the globe, infertility is recognized as a crisis and exposed infertile couples are under psychosocial pressure. Indeed, the quality of life (QoL) for infertile women is lower in comparison with fertile control. Objective, The purpose of this study, was to investigate the impact of social support and hope on QoL in women undergoing infertility treatment. Methods: A cross-sectional study. Patient(s): In this cross-sectional study, 350 infertile women were recruited who were referred to an infertility clinic for the first time and had no history of Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) failure. Intervention(s): Questionnaires on the Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQoL), Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (family and friends), and Snyder Hope Scale (pathway and agency) were used to collect data. Data analysis was done by univariate and multivariate analysis. P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result(s): Multivariate analysis indicated that infertile women with a higher score of social support (by family & friends) (b= 0.59 (CI 95%: 0.03, 1.15) (P = 0.040), b= 0.61 (CI 95%: 0.17, 1.04) (P = 0.006)) and hope (pathway & agency) (b= 0.94 (CI 95%: 0.29, 1.59) (P = 0.005), b= 1.13 (CI 95%: 0.45, 1.82) (P = 0.001) respectively) have significantly better Core FertiQoL. The result revealed that social support and hope are significantly and positively associated with other subscales of FertiQoL as well. Conclusions: According to the results, lifestyle interventions such as receiving social support, building a sound family with effective communication, and providing appropriate health education are of crucial importance to address psychological distress and improve the fertility QoL of women experiencing fertility problems.

Keywords: inertility, social support, infertile women, hope

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Authors: Riddhi Jangid, Gajendra Pratap Singh

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Petri nets, a formalized modeling language that was introduced back around 50-60 years, have been widely used for modeling discrete event dynamic systems and simulating their behavior. Reachability analysis of Petri nets gives many insights into a modeled system. This idea leads us to study the reachability technique and use it in the reachability problem in the state space of reachable markings. With the same concept, Crisp Boolean Petri nets were defined in which the marking vectors that are boolean are distinct in the reachability analysis of the nets. We generalize the concept and define ‘Crisp’ Petri nets that generate the marking vectors exactly once in their reachability-based analysis, not necessarily Boolean.

Keywords: marking vector, n-vector, Petri nets, reachability

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Authors: Jafar Akbari

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Quinolines are very important compounds partially because of their pharmacological properties which include wide applications in medicinal chemistry. notable among them are antimalarial drugs, anti-inflammatory agents, antiasthamatic, antibacterial, antihypertensive, and tyrosine kinase inhibiting agents. Despite quinoline usage in pharmaceutical and other industries, comparatively few methods for their preparation have been reported.The Friedlander annulation is one of the simplest and most straightforward methods for the synthesis of poly substituted quinolines. Although, modified methods employing lewis or br¢nsted acids have been reported for the synthesis of quinolines, the development of water stable acidic catalyst for quinoline synthesis is quite desirable. One of the most remarkable features of ionic liquids is that the yields can be optimized by changing the anions or the cations. Recently, sulfonic acid functionalized ionic liquids were used as solvent-catalyst for several organic reactions. We herein report the one pot domino approach for the synthesis of quinoline derivatives in Friedlander manner using TSIL as a catalyst. These ILs are miscible in water, and their homogeneous system is readily separated from the reaction product, combining advantages of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. In this reaction, the catalyst plays a dual role; it ensures an effective condensation and cyclization of 2-aminoaryl ketone with second carbonyl group and it also promotes the aromatization to the final product. Various types of quinolines from 2-aminoaryl ketones and β-ketoesters/ketones were prepared in 85-98% yields using the catalytic system of SO3-H functionalized ionic liquid/H2O. More importantly, the catalyst could be easily recycled for five times without loss of much activity.

Keywords: antimalarial drugs, green chemistry, ionic liquid, quinolines

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Authors: Heeba A. Gurku

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Introduction: Cone Beam CT(CBCT) images play an integral part in proper patient positioning in cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy treatment. But these images are low in quality. The purpose of this study is to generate high-quality synthetic CT images from CBCT using generative models. Material and Methods: This study utilized two datasets from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) 1) Lung cancer dataset of 20 patients (with full view CBCT images) and 2) Pancreatic cancer dataset of 40 patients (only 27 patients having limited view images were included in the study). Cycle Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) and its variant Attention Guided Generative Adversarial Networks (AGGAN) models were used to generate the synthetic CTs. Models were evaluated by visual evaluation and on four metrics, Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), Peak Signal Noise Ratio (PSNR) Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), to compare the synthetic CT and original CT images. Results: For pancreatic dataset with limited view CBCT images, our study showed that in Cycle GAN model, MAE, RMSE, PSNR improved from 12.57to 8.49, 20.94 to 15.29 and 21.85 to 24.63, respectively but structural similarity only marginally increased from 0.78 to 0.79. Similar, results were achieved with AGGAN with no improvement over Cycle GAN. However, for lung dataset with full view CBCT images Cycle GAN was able to reduce MAE significantly from 89.44 to 15.11 and AGGAN was able to reduce it to 19.77. Similarly, RMSE was also decreased from 92.68 to 23.50 in Cycle GAN and to 29.02 in AGGAN. SSIM and PSNR also improved significantly from 0.17 to 0.59 and from 8.81 to 21.06 in Cycle GAN respectively while in AGGAN SSIM increased to 0.52 and PSNR increased to 19.31. In both datasets, GAN models were able to reduce artifacts, reduce noise, have better resolution, and better contrast enhancement. Conclusion and Recommendation: Both Cycle GAN and AGGAN were significantly able to reduce MAE, RMSE and PSNR in both datasets. However, full view lung dataset showed more improvement in SSIM and image quality than limited view pancreatic dataset.

Keywords: CT images, CBCT images, cycle GAN, AGGAN

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Authors: Subeena Begum, Navaraj Perumalsamy

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The freshwater catfish Mystus keletius was injected with the methanolic extract (water soluble fraction) of Solanum trilobatum and Ocimum sanctum alone and in combination in 3mg, 30mg.300mg/Kg body weight. Serum was collected every 7 days interval. Fishes were fed with normal diet for the entire period of the experiment. The nonspecific immune response such as Total WBC count, phagocytic activity and serum antiprotease activity were observed. They were enhanced (p<0.05) in fish injected with methanolic extract (water soluble fraction) S.trilobatum and O. sanctum alone and in combination than control group. Highest level of WBC count, phagocytic activity and serum antiprotease activity were confirmed when the fish injected with the mixed extract of 1:1 ratio of S.trilobatum and O.sanctum in 30mg/kg (b.w).The effect of mixture of methanolic extract of medicinal plant in M. keletius is highlighted.

Keywords: Immunology, Fish, Stimulatory effect, Medicinal plants

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Authors: Deng Tingting

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The coordinated and integrated development of regions is an inevitable requirement for China to move towards high-quality, sustainable development. As one of the regions with the best economic foundation and the strongest economic strength in western China, it is a typical area with national importance and strong network connection characteristics in terms of the comprehensive effect of linking the inland hinterland and connecting the western and national urban networks. The integrated development of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle is of great strategic significance for the rapid and high-quality development of the western region. In the context of new urbanization, this paper takes 16 urban units within the economic circle as the research object, based on the 5-year panel data of population, regional economy, and spatial construction and development from 2016 to 2020, using the entropy method and Theil index to analyze the three target layers, and cause analysis. The research shows that there are temporal and spatial differences in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, and there are significant differences between the core city and the surrounding cities. Therefore, by reforming and innovating the regional coordinated development mechanism, breaking administrative barriers, and strengthening the "polar nucleus" radiation function to release the driving force for economic development, especially in the gully areas of economic development belts, not only promote the coordinated development of internal regions but also promote the coordinated and sustainable development of the western region and take a high-quality development path.

Keywords: Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, new urbanization, coordinated regional development, Theil Index

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Authors: Kechnit Djamel, Ammarri Abdelhadi, Raphael Tshimang, Mark Trrig

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One of the most important aspects of monitoring rivers is navigation. The variation of discharge in the river generally produces a change in available draft for a vessel, particularly in the low flow season, which can impact the navigable water path, especially when the water depth is less than the normal one, which allows safe navigation for boats. The water depth is related to the bathymetry of the channel as well as the discharge. For a seasonal update of the navigation maps, a daily discharge value is required. Many novel approaches based on earth observation and remote sensing have been investigated for large rivers. However, it should be noted that most of these approaches are not currently able to directly estimate river discharge. This paper discusses the application of remote sensing tools using the analysis of the reflectance value of MODIS imagery and is combined with field measurements for the estimation of discharge. This approach is applied in the lower reach of the Congo River (Pool Malebo) for the period between 2019 and 2021. The correlation obtained between the observed discharge observed in the gauging station and the reflectance ratio time series is 0.81. In this context, a Discharge Reflectance Model (DRM) was developed to express discharge as a function of reflectance. This model introduces a non-contact method that allows discharge monitoring using earth observation. DRM was validated by field measurements using ADCP, in different sections on the Pool Malebo, over two different periods (dry and wet seasons), as well as by the observed discharge in the gauging station. The observed error between the estimated and measured discharge values ranges from 1 to 8% for the ADCP and from (1% to 11%) for the gauging station. The study of the uncertainties will give us the possibility to judge the robustness of the DRM.

Keywords: discharge monitoring, navigation, MODIS, empiric, ADCP, Congo River

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Authors: Ahmadali Shirazytabar, Hamidreza Namazi

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As water resources are rapidly getting diminished, more and more interest is paid to the desalination of saline waters. Desalination has become a reliable and cost effective solution in provision of fresh water particularly in the arid areas of the world such as Middle East countries. However, the dramatic increase of utilizing desalination will cause a series of problems which are significantly related to energy consumption and environment impacts. The use of renewable energy sources to provide energy required by desalination processes is a feasible and simultaneously environmental friendly solution. In this study an attempt has been made to present a review on desalination technologies, desalination integrated with renewable energies, in brief, and practical progresses made during recent years particularly in the field of desalination by wind energy which is the most common form of renewable energies. Moreover, an economic analysis of a wind powered RO desalination system comprising of 10×2.5 MW wind turbines is done, and the results will be compared to those of a cogeneration system comprising of one 25 MW gas turbines, heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) and MED-TVC desalination.

Keywords: wind turbine, desalination, RO, MED, cogeneration, gas turbine, HRSG

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Authors: Salma Akter, Md. Kamal Uddin

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This study aims to demonstrate how top-down shelter policy and its resultant dwelling environment leads to ‘everyday compromise’ by the grassroots according to subjective (satisfaction) and objective (physical design elements and physical environmental elements) indicators, which are measured across three levels of the settlement; macro (Community), meso (Neighborhood or shelter/built environment) and micro (family). Ashrayan Prakalpa is a resettlement /housing project of Government of Bangladesh for providing shelters and human resources development activities like education, microcredit, and training programme to landless, homeless and rootless people. Despite the integrated nature of the shelter policies (comprises poverty alleviation, employment opportunity, secured tenure, and livelihood training), the ‘quality of life’ issue at the different levels of settlements becomes questionable. As dwellers of shelter units (although formally termed as ‘barracks’ rather shelter or housing) remain on the receiving end of government’s resettlement policies, they often involve with spatial-physical and socio-economic negotiation and assume curious forms of spatial practice, which often upholds contradiction with policy planning. Thus, policy based shelter force dwellers to persistently compromise with their provided built environments both in overtly and covertly. Compromising with prescribed designed space and facilities across living places articulated their negotiation with the quality of allocated space, built form and infrastructures, which in turn exert as less quality of life. The top-down shelter project, Dakshin Chandani Mahal Ashrayan Prakalpa at Dighalia Upazila, the study area located at the Eastern fringe area of Khulna, Bangladesh, is still in progress to resettle internally displaced and homeless people. In terms of methodology, this research is primarily exploratory and adopts a case study method, and an analytical framework is developed through the deductive approach for evaluating the quality of life. Secondary data have been obtained from housing policy analysis and relevant literature review, while key informant interview, focus group discussion, necessary drawings and photographs and participant observation across dwelling, neighborhood, and community level have also been administered as primary data collection methodology. Findings have revealed that various shortages, inadequacies, and negligence of policymakers force to compromise with allocated designed space, physical infrastructure and economic opportunities across dwelling, neighborhood and mostly community level. Thus, the outcome of this study can be beneficial for a global-level understating of the compromising the ‘quality of life’ under top-down shelter policy. Locally, for instance, in the context of Bangladesh, it can help policymakers and concerned authorities to formulate the shelter policies and take initiatives to improve the well-being of marginalized.

Keywords: Ashrayan Prakalpa, compromise, displaced people, quality of life

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Authors: Suneeta Kumari, Abanti Sahoo

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Industrial effluents treatment is a major problem in the world. All wastewater treatment methods have some problems in the environment. Due to this reason, today many natural biopolymers are being used in the waste water treatment because those are safe for our environment. In this study, synthesis and characterization of polyethersulfone/chitosan membranes (Thin film composite membrane) are carried out. Fish scales are used as raw materials. Different characterization techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) are analysed for the synthesized membrane. The performance of membranes such as flux, rejection, and pore size are also checked. The synthesized membrane is used for the treatment of steel industry waste water where Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), pH, colour, Total dissolved solids (TDS), Total suspended solids (TSS), Electrical conductivity (EC) and Turbidity aspects are analysed.

Keywords: fish scale, membrane synthesis, treatment of industrial effluents, chitosan

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Authors: Ezgi Şendil

Abstract:

Information extracted from social media has received great attention since it has become an effective alternative for collecting people’s opinions and emotions based on specific experiences in a faster and easier way. The paper aims to put data in a meaningful way to analyze users’ posts and get a result in terms of the experiences and opinions of the users during and after natural disasters. The posts collected from Reddit are classified into nine different categories, including injured/dead people, infrastructure and utility damage, missing/found people, donation needs/offers, caution/advice, and emotional support, identified by using labelled Twitter data and four different machine learning (ML) classifiers.

Keywords: disaster, NLP, postdisaster management, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Mohammad Salem Abdullah Alhwaiti

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This study was conducted to assess the physical, chemical, and radionuclide concentrations of pharmaceutical industrial wastewater effluents. Fourteen wastewater samples were collected from pharmaceutical industries. The results showed a marked reduction in the levels of TH, Mg, and Ca concentration in wastewater limit for properties and criteria for discharge of wastewater to streams or wadies or water bodies in the effluent, whereas TSS and TDS showed higher concentration allowable for discharge of wastewater to streams or wadies or water bodies. The gross α activity in all the wastewater samples ranged between (0.086-0.234 Bq/L) lowered the 0.1 Bq/L limit set by World Health Organization (WHO), whereas gross β activity in few samples ranged between (2.565-4.800 Bq/L), indicating the higher limit set by WHO. Gamma spectroscopy revealed that K-40, Cr-51, Co-60, I-131, Cs-137, and U-238 activity are ≤0.114 Bq/L, ≤0.062 Bq/L, ≤0.00815Bq/L, ≤0.00792Bq/L, ≤0.00956 Bq/L, and ≤0.151 Bq/L, respectively, indicating lowest concentrations of these radionuclides in the pharmaceutical industrial wastewater effluents.

Keywords: pharmaceutical wastewater, gross α/β activity, radionuclides, Jordan

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Authors: Ersin Sener, Ibrahim Demir, Hasan Aykut Karaboga, Kadir Kilinc

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Bayesian methods, which have very wide range of applications, are implemented to the data obtained from the production of F class fly ash-based geopolymer bricks’ experimental design. In this study, dependent variable is compressive strength, independent variables are treatment type (oven and steam), treatment time, molding time, temperature, water absorbtion ratio and density. The effect of independent variables on compressive strength is investigated. There is no difference among treatment types, but there is a correlation between independent variables. Therefore, hierarchical Bayesian path analysis is applied. In consequence of analysis we specified that treatment time, temperature and density effects on compressive strength is higher, molding time, and water absorbtion ratio is relatively low.

Keywords: experimental design, F class fly ash, geopolymer bricks, hierarchical Bayesian path analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 387