Search results for: operator pool

Authors: Almira Sharafeeva

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In the Soviet Union of the 1930s, motherhood was seen as a natural need of women. The masculine Bolshevik state did not see the emancipated woman as free from her maternal burden. In order to support the idea of "joyful motherhood," a medical discourse on the anesthesia of childbirth emerges. In March 1935 at the IX Congress of obstetricians and gynecologists the People's Commissar of Public Health of the RSFSR G.N. Kaminsky raised the issue of anesthesia of childbirth. It was also from that year that medical, literary and artistic editions with enviable frequency began to publish articles, studies devoted to the issue, the goal - to anesthetize all childbirths in the USSR - was proclaimed. These publications were often filled with anti-German and anti-capitalist propaganda, through which the advantages of socialism over Capitalism and Nazism were demonstrated. At congresses, in journals, and at institute meetings, doctors' discussions around obstetric anesthesia were accompanied by discussions of shortening the duration of the childbirth process, the prevention and prevention of disease, the admission of nurses to the procedure, and the proper behavior of women during the childbirth process. With the help of articles from medical periodicals of the 1930s., brochures, as well as documents from the funds of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (TsGANTD SPb) and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the NKZ USSR (GARF) in this paper we will show, how the advantages of the Soviet system and the socialist way of life were constructed through the problem of childbirth pain relief, and we will also show how childbirth pain relief in the USSR was related to the foreign policy situation and how projects of labor pain relief were related to the anti-abortion policy of the state. This study also attempts to answer the question of why anesthesia of childbirth in the USSR did not become widespread and how, through this medical procedure, the Soviet authorities tried to take control of a female function (childbirth) that was not available to men. Considering this subject from the perspective of gender studies and the social history of medicine, it is productive to use the term "biopolitics. Michel Foucault and Antonio Negri, wrote that biopolitics takes under its wing the control and management of hygiene, nutrition, fertility, sexuality, contraception. The central issue of biopolitics is population reproduction. It includes strategies for intervening in collective existence in the name of life and health, ways of subjectivation by which individuals are forced to work on themselves. The Soviet state, through intervention in the reproductive lives of its citizens, sought to realize its goals of population growth, which was necessary to demonstrate the benefits of living in the Soviet Union and to train a pool of builders of socialism. The woman's body was seen as the object over which the socialist experiment of reproductive policy was being conducted.

Keywords: labor anesthesia, biopolitics of stalinism, childbirth pain relief, reproductive policy

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Authors: Sarah E. Nelson, Casey Weiner, Alexander Sigmon, Jun Hua, Haris I. Sair, Jose I. Suarez, Robert D. Stevens

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Graph-theoretical information from structural connectomes indicated significant connectivity changes and improved acute prognostication in a Random Forest (RF) model in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), which can lead to significant morbidity and mortality and has traditionally been fraught by poor methods to predict outcome. This study’s hypothesis was that structural connectivity changes occur in canonical brain networks of acute aSAH patients, and that these changes are associated with functional outcome at six months. In a prospective cohort of patients admitted to a single institution for management of acute aSAH, patients underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as part of a multimodal MRI scan. A weighted undirected structural connectome was created of each patient’s images using Constant Solid Angle (CSA) tractography, with 176 regions of interest (ROIs) defined by the Johns Hopkins Eve atlas. ROIs were sorted into four networks: Default Mode Network, Executive Control Network, Salience Network, and Whole Brain. The resulting nodes and edges were characterized using graph-theoretic features, including Node Strength (NS), Betweenness Centrality (BC), Network Degree (ND), and Connectedness (C). Clinical (including demographics and World Federation of Neurologic Surgeons scale) and graph features were used separately and in combination to train RF and Logistic Regression classifiers to predict two outcomes: dichotomized modified Rankin Score (mRS) at discharge and at six months after discharge (favorable outcome mRS 0-2, unfavorable outcome mRS 3-6). A total of 56 aSAH patients underwent DTI a median (IQR) of 7 (IQR=8.5) days after admission. The best performing model (RF) combining clinical and DTI graph features had a mean Area Under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve (AUROC) of 0.88 ± 0.00 and Area Under the Precision Recall Curve (AUPRC) of 0.95 ± 0.00 over 500 trials. The combined model performed better than the clinical model alone (AUROC 0.81 ± 0.01, AUPRC 0.91 ± 0.00). The highest-ranked graph features for prediction were NS, BC, and ND. These results indicate reorganization of the connectome early after aSAH. The performance of clinical prognostic models was increased significantly by the inclusion of DTI-derived graph connectivity metrics. This methodology could significantly improve prognostication of aSAH.

Keywords: connectomics, diffusion tensor imaging, graph theory, machine learning, subarachnoid hemorrhage

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: Hemant Upadhyay, Tarun Kumar Kundu

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It is utmost important for a blast furnace operator to understand the mechanisms governing the liquid flow, accumulation, drainage and heat transfer between various phases in blast furnace hearth for a stable and efficient blast furnace operation. Abnormal drainage behavior may lead to high liquid build up in the hearth. Operational problems such as pressurization, low wind intake, and lower material descent rates, normally be encountered if the liquid levels in the hearth exceed a critical limit when Hearth coke and Deadman start to float. Similarly, hot metal temperature is an important parameter to be controlled in the BF operation; it should be kept at an optimal level to obtain desired product quality and a stable BF performance. It is not possible to carry out any direct measurement of above due to the hostile conditions in the hearth with chemically aggressive hot liquids. The objective here is to develop a mathematical model to simulate the variation in hot metal / slag accumulation and temperature during the tapping of the blast furnace based on the computed drainage rate, production rate, mass balance, heat transfer between metal and slag, metal and solids, slag and solids as well as among the various zones of metal and slag itself. For modeling purpose, the BF hearth is considered as a pressurized vessel, filled with solid coke particles. Liquids trickle down in hearth from top and accumulate in voids between the coke particles which are assumed thermally saturated. A set of generic mass balance equations gives the amount of metal and slag intake in hearth. A small drainage (tap hole) is situated at the bottom of the hearth and flow rate of liquids from tap hole is computed taking in account the amount of both the phases accumulated their level in hearth, pressure from gases in the furnace and erosion behaviors of tap hole itself. Heat transfer equations provide the exchange of heat between various layers of liquid metal and slag, and heat loss to cooling system through refractories. Based on all that information a dynamic simulation is carried out which provides real time information of liquids accumulation in hearth before and during tapping, drainage rate and its variation, predicts critical event timings during tapping and expected tapping temperature of metal and slag on preset time intervals. The model is in use at JSPL, India BF-II and its output is regularly cross-checked with actual tapping data, which are in good agreement.

Keywords: blast furnace, hearth, deadman, hotmetal

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Jun Won Kim

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Objective: Theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling (TGC) was used as a novel evidence-based tool to reflect the dysfunctional cortico-thalamic interaction in patients with schizophrenia. However, to our best knowledge, no studies have reported the diagnostic utility of the TGC in the resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) of neuroleptic-naive patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls. Thus, the purpose of this EEG study was to understand the underlying mechanisms in patients with schizophrenia by comparing the TGC at rest between two groups and to evaluate the diagnostic utility of TGC. Method: The subjects included 90 patients with schizophrenia and 90 healthy controls. All patients were diagnosed with schizophrenia according to the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) by two independent psychiatrists using semi-structured clinical interviews. Because patients were either drug-naïve (first episode) or had not been taking psychoactive drugs for one month before the study, we could exclude the influence of medications. Five frequency bands were defined for spectral analyses: delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), slow alpha (8–10 Hz), fast alpha (10–13.5 Hz), beta (13.5–30 Hz), and gamma (30-80 Hz). The spectral power of the EEG data was calculated with fast Fourier Transformation using the 'spectrogram.m' function of the signal processing toolbox in Matlab. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed to compare the TGC results between the groups, which were adjusted using a Bonferroni correction (P < 0.05/19 = 0.0026). Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted to examine the discriminating ability of the TGC data for schizophrenia diagnosis. Results: The patients with schizophrenia showed a significant increase in the resting-state TGC at all electrodes. The delta, theta, slow alpha, fast alpha, and beta powers showed low accuracies of 62.2%, 58.4%, 56.9%, 60.9%, and 59.0%, respectively, in discriminating the patients with schizophrenia from the healthy controls. The ROC analysis performed on the TGC data generated the most accurate result among the EEG measures, displaying an overall classification accuracy of 92.5%. Conclusion: As TGC includes phase, which contains information about neuronal interactions from the EEG recording, TGC is expected to be useful for understanding the mechanisms the dysfunctional cortico-thalamic interaction in patients with schizophrenia. The resting-state TGC value was increased in the patients with schizophrenia compared to that in the healthy controls and had a higher discriminating ability than the other parameters. These findings may be related to the compensatory hyper-arousal patterns of the dysfunctional default-mode network (DMN) in schizophrenia. Further research exploring the association between TGC and medical or psychiatric conditions that may confound EEG signals will help clarify the potential utility of TGC.

Keywords: quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG), theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling (TGC), schizophrenia, diagnostic utility

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Authors: Hosna Pourhashemi

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Chahar Bagh, the symbol of the world, displayed around the pool of life in the centre, attempts to emulate Eden. It represents a duality concept based on the division of the universe into two perceptional insights, a celestial and an earthly one. Chahar Bagh garden pattern refers to the Garden of Eden, that was watered and framed by main four rivers. This microcosm is combined with a mystical love of flowers, sweet-scented trees, the variety of colors, and the sense of eternal life. This symbol of the integration of spontaneous expressivity of the natural elements and reasoning awareness of man strives for the ideal of divine perfection. Through collecting and analyzing the data, the prevalence and continuous influence of Chahar Bagh concept on selected historical gardens was elaborated and evaluated. After the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the 7th century, Chahar Bagh was adopted and spread throughout the Islamic expansion, from the Middle East, westward across northern Africa to Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, and eastward through Iran to Central Asia and India. Furthermore, its continuity to the mid of 16th century Renaissance period is shown. By adapting the semiotic theory of Peirce and Saussure on the Persian garden, Chahar Bagh was defined as the basic pattern language for the garden culture. The hypothesis of the continuous influence of Chahar Bagh pattern language on today’s landscape architecture was examined on selected works of Dieter Kienast, as the important and relevant protagonist of his time (end of twentieth ct.) and up to our time. Chahar Bagh pattern language offers collective cultural sensitive healing wisdom transmitted down through the millennia. Through my reflections in Dieter Kienast’s works, I transformed my personal experience into a transpersonal understanding regarding the Sufi philosophy and the Jung psychology, which brings me to define new design theories and methods to form a spiritual, as I call it” Quaternary Perception Model” for landscape architecture. Based on a cognition process through self-journeying in this holistic model, human consciousness can be developed to access to “higher” levels of being and embrace the unity. The self-purification and mindfulness through transpersonal confrontation in the ”Quaternary Perception Model” generates a form of heart-based treatment. I adapted the seven spiritual levels of Sufi self-development on the perception of landscape, representing the stages of the self, ranging from absolutely self-centered to pure spiritual humanity. I redefine and reread the elements and features of Chahar Bagh pattern language for today’s landscape architecture. The “lost paradise” lies in our heart and can be perceived by all humans in landscapes and cities designed in the spirit of” Quaternary Model”.

Keywords: persian garden, pattern language of Chahar Bagh, wholistic Perception, dieter kienast, “quaternary model”

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Authors: Khethiwe Mtshali, Zamantungwa T. H. Khumalo, Stanford Kwenda, Ismail Arshad, Oriel M. M. Thekisoe

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Ecologically, the gut, mammary glands and bloodstream consist of distinct microbial communities of commensals, mutualists and pathogens, forming a complex ecosystem of niches. The by-products derived from these body sites i.e. faeces, milk and blood, respectively, have many uses in rural communities where they aid in the facilitation of day-to-day household activities and occasional rituals. Thus, although livestock rearing plays a vital role in the sustenance of the livelihoods of rural communities, it may serve as a potent reservoir of different pathogenic organisms that could have devastating health and economic implications. This study aimed to simultaneously explore the microbial profiles of corresponding faecal, milk and blood samples from lactating cows using 16S rRNA metagenomic sequencing. Bacterial communities were inferred through the Divisive Amplicon Denoising Algorithm 2 (DADA2) pipeline coupled with SILVA database v138. All downstream analyses were performed in R v3.6.1. Alpha-diversity metrics showed significant differences between faeces and blood, faeces and milk, but did not vary significantly between blood and milk (Kruskal-Wallis, P < 0.05). Beta-diversity metrics on Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) and Non-Metric Dimensional Scaling (NMDS) clustered samples by type, suggesting that microbial communities of the studied niches are significantly different (PERMANOVA, P < 0.05). A number of taxa were significantly differentially abundant (DA) between groups based on the Wald test implemented in the DESeq2 package (Padj < 0.01). The majority of the DA taxa were significantly enriched in faeces than in milk and blood, except for the genus Anaplasma, which was significantly enriched in blood and was, in turn, the most abundant taxon overall. A total of 30 phyla, 74 classes, 156 orders, 243 families and 408 genera were obtained from the overall analysis. The most abundant phyla obtained between the three body sites were Firmicutes, Bacteroidota, and Proteobacteria. A total of 58 genus-level taxa were simultaneously detected between the sample groups, while bacterial signatures of at least 8 of these occurred concurrently in corresponding faeces, milk and blood samples from the same group of animals constituting a pool. The important taxa identified in this study could be categorized into four potentially pathogenic clusters: i) arthropod-borne; ii) food-borne and zoonotic; iii) mastitogenic and; iv) metritic and abortigenic. This study provides insight into the microbial composition of bovine faeces, milk, and blood and its extent of overlapping. It further highlights the potential risk of disease occurrence and transmission between the animals and the inhabitants of the sampled rural community, pertaining to their unsanitary practices associated with the use of cattle by-products.

Keywords: microbial profiling, 16S rRNA, NGS, feces, milk, blood, lactating cows, small-scale farmers

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: Marlin Mubarak

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Background: Endometriosis is a complex disabling disease affecting young females in the reproductive period mainly. The aim of this project is to generate a diagnostic model to predict severity and stage of endometriosis prior to Laparoscopic surgery. This will help to improve the pre-operative diagnostic accuracy of stage 3 & 4 endometriosis and as a result, refer relevant women to a specialist centre for complex Laparoscopic surgery. The model is based on the British Society of Gynaecological Endoscopy (BSGE) pain questionnaire, clinical examination and ultrasound scan. Design: This is a prospective, observational, study, in which women completed the BSGE pain questionnaire, a BSGE requirement. Also, as part of the routine preoperative assessment patient had a routine ultrasound scan and when recto-vaginal and deep infiltrating endometriosis was suspected an MRI was performed. Setting: Luton & Dunstable University Hospital. Patients: Symptomatic women (n = 56) scheduled for laparoscopy due to pelvic pain. The age ranged between 17 – 52 years of age (mean 33.8 years, SD 8.7 years). Interventions: None outside the recognised and established endometriosis centre protocol set up by BSGE. Main Outcome Measure(s): Sensitivity and specificity of endometriosis diagnosis predicted by symptoms based on BSGE pain questionnaire, clinical examinations and imaging. Findings: The prevalence of diagnosed endometriosis was calculated to be 76.8% and the prevalence of advanced stage was 55.4%. Deep infiltrating endometriosis in various locations was diagnosed in 32/56 women (57.1%) and some had DIE involving several locations. Logistic regression analysis was performed on 36 clinical variables to create a simple clinical prediction model. After creating the scoring system using variables with P < 0.05, the model was applied to the whole dataset. The sensitivity was 83.87% and specificity 96%. The positive likelihood ratio was 20.97 and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.17, indicating that the model has a good predictive value and could be useful in predicting advanced stage endometriosis. Conclusions: This is a hypothesis-generating project with one operator, but future proposed research would provide validation of the model and establish its usefulness in the general setting. Predictive tools based on such model could help organise the appropriate investigation in clinical practice, reduce risks associated with surgery and improve outcome. It could be of value for future research to standardise the assessment of women presenting with pelvic pain. The model needs further testing in a general setting to assess if the initial results are reproducible.

Keywords: deep endometriosis, endometriosis, minimally invasive, MRI, ultrasound.

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Authors: Monkiz Khasreen

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In the context of the global trend towards reducing new buildings carbon footprint, the design team is required to make early decisions that have a major influence on embodied and operational carbon. Sustainability strategies should be clear during early stages of building design process, as changes made later can be extremely costly. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) could be used as the vehicle to carry other tools and processes towards achieving the requested improvement. Although LCA is the ‘golden standard’ to evaluate buildings from 'cradle to grave', lack of details available on the concept design makes LCA very difficult, if not impossible, to be used as an estimation tool at early stages. Issues related to transparency and accessibility of information in the building industry are affecting the credibility of LCA studies. A verified database derived from LCA case studies is required to be accessible to researchers, design professionals, and decision makers in order to offer guidance on specific areas of significant impact. This database could be the build-up of data from multiple sources within a pool of research held in this context. One of the most important factors that affects the reliability of such data is the temporal factor as building materials, components, and systems are rapidly changing with the advancement of technology making production more efficient and less environmentally harmful. Recent LCA studies on different building functions, types, and structures are always needed to update databases derived from research and to form case bases for comparison studies. There is also a need to make these studies transparent and accessible to designers. The work in this paper sets out to address this need. This paper also presents life-cycle case study of a new-build educational building in England. The building utilised very current construction methods and technologies and is rated as BREEAM excellent. Carbon emissions of different life-cycle stages and different building materials and components were modelled. Scenario and sensitivity analyses were used to estimate the future of new educational buildings in England. The study attempts to form an indicator during the early design stages of similar buildings. Carbon dioxide emissions of this case study building, when normalised according to floor area, lie towards the lower end of the range of worldwide data reported in the literature. Sensitivity analysis shows that life cycle assessment results are highly sensitive to future assumptions made at the design stage, such as future changes in electricity generation structure over time, refurbishment processes and recycling. The analyses also prove that large savings in carbon dioxide emissions can result from very small changes at the design stage.

Keywords: architecture, building, carbon dioxide, construction, educational buildings, England, environmental impact, life-cycle assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 112

Authors: Gordana Branković, Vesna Dragičević, Dejan Dodig, Desimir Knežević, Srbislav Denčić, Gordana Šurlan-Momirović

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Phytic acid is a major pool in the flux of phosphorus through agroecosystems and represents a sum equivalent to > 50% of all phosphorus fertilizer used annually. Nutrition rich in phytic acid can substantially decrease micronutrients apsorption as calcium, zink, iron, manganese, copper due to phytate salts excretion by human and non-ruminant animals as poultry, swine and fish, having in common very scarce phytase activity, and consequently the ability to digest and utilize phytic acid, thus phytic acid derived phosphorus in animal waste contributes to water pollution. The tested accessions consisted of 15 genotypes of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L. ssp. vulgare) and of 15 genotypes of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.). The trials were sown at the three test sites in Serbia: Rimski Šančevi (RS) (45º19´51´´N; 19º50´59´´E), Zemun Polje (ZP) (44º52´N; 20º19´E) and Padinska Skela (PS) (44º57´N 20º26´E) during two vegetation seasons 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. The experimental design was randomized complete block design with four replications. The elementary plot consisted of 3 internal rows of 0.6 m2 area (3 × 0.2 m × 1 m). Grains were grinded with Laboratory Mill 120 Perten (“Perten”, Sweden) (particles size < 500 μm) and flour was used for the analysis. Phytic acid grain content was determined spectrophotometrically with the Shimadzu UV-1601 spectrophotometer (Shimadzu Corporation, Japan). Objectives of this study were to determine: i) variability and stability of the phytic acid content among selected genotypes of bread and durum wheat, ii) predominant source of variation regarding genotype (G), environment (E) and genotype × environment interaction (GEI) from the multi-environment trial, iii) influence of climatic variables on the GEI for the phytic acid content. Based on the analysis of variance it had been determined that the variation of phytic acid content was predominantly influenced by environment in durum wheat, while the GEI prevailed for the variation of the phytic acid content in bread wheat. Phytic acid content expressed on the dry mass basis was in the range 14.21-17.86 mg g-1 with the average of 16.05 mg g-1 for bread wheat and 14.63-16.78 mg g-1 with the average of 15.91 mg g-1 for durum wheat. Average-environment coordination view of the genotype by environment (GGE) biplot was used for the selection of the most desirable genotypes for breeding for low phytic acid content in the sense of good stability and lower level of phytic acid content. The most desirable genotypes of bread and durum wheat for breeding for phytic acid were Apache and 37EDUYT /07 No. 7849. Models of climatic factors in the highest percentage (> 91%) were useful in interpreting GEI for phytic acid content, and included relative humidity in June, sunshine hours in April, mean temperature in April and winter moisture reserves for genotypes of bread wheat, as well as precipitation in June and April, maximum temperature in April and mean temperature in June for genotypes of durum wheat.

Keywords: genotype × environment interaction, phytic acid, stability, variability

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Authors: Jeffrey A. Humenik

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Environmental, Limited Liability Corporation (EMR) provided civil construction services to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District, for the placement of a protective riprap blanket on the west bank of the Smoky Hill River, construction of 2 shore abutments and the construction of a 140 foot long sill wall spanning the Smoky Hill River in Salina, Kansas. The purpose of the project was to protect the riverbank from erosion and hold back water to a specified elevation, creating a pool to ensure adequate water intake for the municipal water supply. Geotextile matting and riprap were installed for streambank erosion protection. An inflatable bladder (AquaDam®) was designed to the specific river dimension and installed to divert the river and allow for dewatering during the construction of the sill walls and cofferdam. AquaDam® consists of water filled polyethylene tubes to create aqua barriers and divert water flow or prevent flooding. A challenge of the project was the fact that 100% of the sill wall was constructed within an active river channel. The threat of flooding of the work area, damage to the aqua dam by debris, and potential difficulty of water removal presented a unique set of challenges to the construction team. Upon completion of the West Sill Wall, floating debris punctured the AquaDam®. The manufacturing and delivery of a new AquaDam® would delay project completion by at least 6 weeks. To keep the project ahead of schedule, the decision was made to construct an earthen cofferdam reinforced with rip rap for the construction of the East Abutment and East Sill Wall section. During construction of the west sill wall section, a deep scour hole was encountered in the wall alignment that prevented EMR from using the natural rock formation as a concrete form for the lower section of the sill wall. A formwork system was constructed, that allowed the west sill wall section to be placed in two horizontal lifts of concrete poured on separate occasions. The first sectional lift was poured to fill in the scour hole and act as a footing for the second sectional lift. Concrete wall forms were set on the first lift and anchored to the surrounding riverbed in a manner that the second lift was poured in a similar fashion as a basement wall. EMR’s timely decision to keep the project moving toward completion in the face of changing conditions enabled project completion two (2) months ahead of schedule. The use of inflatable bladders is an effective and cost-efficient technology to divert river flow during construction. However, a secondary plan should be part of project design in the event debris transported by river punctures or damages the bladders.

Keywords: abutment, AquaDam®, riverbed, scour

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Authors: Minna Pikkarainen, Yueqiang Xu

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The integration of digital technology with existing healthcare processes has been painfully slow, a huge gap exists between the fields of strictly regulated official medical care and the quickly moving field of health and wellness technology. We claim that the promises of preventive healthcare can only be fulfilled when this gap is closed – health care and self-care becomes seamless continuum “correct information, in the correct hands, at the correct time allowing individuals and professionals to make better decisions” what we call connected health approach. Currently, the issues related to security, privacy, consumer consent and data sharing are hindering the implementation of this new paradigm of healthcare. This could be solved by following MyData principles stating that: Individuals should have the right and practical means to manage their data and privacy. MyData infrastructure enables decentralized management of personal data, improves interoperability, makes it easier for companies to comply with tightening data protection regulations, and allows individuals to change service providers without proprietary data lock-ins. This paper tackles today’s unprecedented challenges of enabling and stimulating multiple healthcare data providers and stakeholders to have more active participation in the digital health ecosystem. First, the paper systematically proposes the MyData approach for healthcare and preventive health data ecosystem. In this research, the work is targeted for health and wellness ecosystems. Each ecosystem consists of key actors, such as 1) individual (citizen or professional controlling/using the services) i.e. data subject, 2) services providing personal data (e.g. startups providing data collection apps or data collection devices), 3) health and wellness services utilizing aforementioned data and 4) services authorizing the access to this data under individual’s provided explicit consent. Second, the research extends the existing four archetypes of orchestrator-driven healthcare data business models for the healthcare industry and proposes the fifth type of healthcare data model, the MyData Blockchain Platform. This new architecture is developed by the Action Design Research approach, which is a prominent research methodology in the information system domain. The key novelty of the paper is to expand the health data value chain architecture and design from centralization and pseudo-decentralization to full decentralization, enabled by blockchain, thus the MyData blockchain platform. The study not only broadens the healthcare informatics literature but also contributes to the theoretical development of digital healthcare and blockchain research domains with a systemic approach.

Keywords: blockchain, health data, platform, action design

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Authors: B. Kriheli, E. Levner, T. C. E. Cheng, C. T. Ng

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During the last decades, research interest in planning, scheduling, and control of emergency response operations, especially people rescue and evacuation from the dangerous zone of marine accidents, has increased dramatically. Until the survivors (called ‘targets’) are found and saved, it may cause loss or damage whose extent depends on the location of the targets and the search duration. The problem is to efficiently search for and detect/rescue the targets as soon as possible with the help of intelligent mobile robots so as to maximize the number of saved people and/or minimize the search cost under restrictions on the amount of saved people within the allowable response time. We consider a special situation when the autonomous mobile robots (AMR), e.g., unmanned aerial vehicles and remote-controlled robo-ships have no operator on board as they are guided and completely controlled by on-board sensors and computer programs. We construct a mathematical model for the search process in an uncertain environment and provide a new fast algorithm for scheduling the activities of the autonomous robots during the search-and rescue missions after an accident at sea. We presume that in the unknown environments, the AMR’s search-and-rescue activity is subject to two types of error: (i) a 'false-negative' detection error where a target object is not discovered (‘overlooked') by the AMR’s sensors in spite that the AMR is in a close neighborhood of the latter and (ii) a 'false-positive' detection error, also known as ‘a false alarm’, in which a clean place or area is wrongly classified by the AMR’s sensors as a correct target. As the general resource-constrained discrete search problem is NP-hard, we restrict our study to finding local-optimal strategies. A specificity of the considered operational research problem in comparison with the traditional Kadane-De Groot-Stone search models is that in our model the probability of the successful search outcome depends not only on cost/time/probability parameters assigned to each individual location but, as well, on parameters characterizing the entire history of (unsuccessful) search before selecting any next location. We provide a fast approximation algorithm for finding the AMR route adopting a greedy search strategy in which, in each step, the on-board computer computes a current search effectiveness value for each location in the zone and sequentially searches for a location with the highest search effectiveness value. Extensive experiments with random and real-life data provide strong evidence in favor of the suggested operations research model and corresponding algorithm.

Keywords: disaster management, intelligent robots, scheduling algorithm, search-and-rescue at sea

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Authors: Leo Nnamdi Ozurumba-Dwight

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Single-cell genomic analytical systems have proved to be a platform to isolate bulk cells into selected single cells for genomic, proteomic, and related metabolomic studies. This is enabling systematic investigations of the level of heterogeneity in a diverse and wide pool of cell populations. Single cell technologies, embracing techniques such as high parameter flow cytometry, single-cell sequencing, and high-resolution images are playing vital roles in these investigations on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) molecules and related gene expressions in tracking the nature and course of disease conditions. This entails targeted molecular investigations on unit cells that help us understand cell behavoiur and expressions, which can be examined for their health implications on the health state of patients. One of the vital good sides of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA seq) is its probing capacity to detect deranged or abnormal cell populations present within homogenously perceived pooled cells, which would have evaded cursory screening on the pooled cell populations of biological samples obtained as part of diagnostic procedures. Despite conduction of just single-cell transcriptome analysis, scRNAseq now permits comparison of the transcriptome of the individual cells, which can be evaluated for gene expressional patterns that depict areas of heterogeneity with pharmaceutical drug discovery and clinical treatment applications. It is vital to strictly work through the tools of investigations from wet lab to bioinformatics and computational tooled analyses. In the precise steps for scRNAseq, it is critical to do thorough and effective isolation of viable single cells from the tissues of interest using dependable techniques (such as FACS) before proceeding to lysis, as this enhances the appropriate picking of quality mRNA molecules for subsequent sequencing (such as by the use of Polymerase Chain Reaction machine). Interestingly, scRNAseq can be deployed to analyze various types of biological samples such as embryos, nervous systems, tumour cells, stem cells, lymphocytes, and haematopoietic cells. In haematopoietic cells, it can be used to stratify acute myeloid leukemia patterns in patients, sorting them out into cohorts that enable re-modeling of treatment regimens based on stratified presentations. In immunotherapy, it can furnish specialist clinician-immunologist with tools to re-model treatment for each patient, an attribute of precision medicine. Finally, the good predictive attribute of scRNAseq can help reduce the cost of treatment for patients, thus attracting more patients who would have otherwise been discouraged from seeking quality clinical consultation help due to perceived high cost. This is a positive paradigm shift for patients’ attitudes primed towards seeking treatment.

Keywords: immunotherapy, transcriptome, re-modeling, mRNA, scRNA-seq

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Authors: Mercedes Bertotto, Marcelo Bello, Hector Goicoechea, Veronica Fusca

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The National Service of Agri-Food Health and Quality (SENASA), controls honey to detect contamination by synthetic or natural chemical substances and establishes and controls the traceability of the product. The utility of near-infrared spectroscopy for the detection of adulteration of honey with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was investigated. First of all, a mixture of different authentic artisanal Argentinian honey was prepared to cover as much heterogeneity as possible. Then, mixtures were prepared by adding different concentrations of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to samples of the honey pool. 237 samples were used, 108 of them were authentic honey and 129 samples corresponded to honey adulterated with HFCS between 1 and 10%. They were stored unrefrigerated from time of production until scanning and were not filtered after receipt in the laboratory. Immediately prior to spectral collection, honey was incubated at 40°C overnight to dissolve any crystalline material, manually stirred to achieve homogeneity and adjusted to a standard solids content (70° Brix) with distilled water. Adulterant solutions were also adjusted to 70° Brix. Samples were measured by NIR spectroscopy in the range of 650 to 7000 cm⁻¹. The technique of specular reflectance was used, with a lens aperture range of 150 mm. Pretreatment of the spectra was performed by Standard Normal Variate (SNV). The ant colony optimization genetic algorithm sample selection (ACOGASS) graphical interface was used, using MATLAB version 5.3, to select the variables with the greatest discriminating power. The data set was divided into a validation set and a calibration set, using the Kennard-Stone (KS) algorithm. A combined method of Potential Functions (PF) was chosen together with Partial Least Square Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA). Different estimators of the predictive capacity of the model were compared, which were obtained using a decreasing number of groups, which implies more demanding validation conditions. The optimal number of latent variables was selected as the number associated with the minimum error and the smallest number of unassigned samples. Once the optimal number of latent variables was defined, we proceeded to apply the model to the training samples. With the calibrated model for the training samples, we proceeded to study the validation samples. The calibrated model that combines the potential function methods and PLSDA can be considered reliable and stable since its performance in future samples is expected to be comparable to that achieved for the training samples. By use of Potential Functions (PF) and Partial Least Square Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) classification, authentic honey and honey adulterated with HFCS could be identified with a correct classification rate of 97.9%. The results showed that NIR in combination with the PT and PLS-DS methods can be a simple, fast and low-cost technique for the detection of HFCS in honey with high sensitivity and power of discrimination.

Keywords: adulteration, multivariate analysis, potential functions, regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Dewan Ahsan

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Denmark is well ahead in generating electricity from renewable sources. The offshore wind sector is playing the pivotal role to achieve this target. Though there is a rapid growth of offshore wind sector in Denmark, still there is a dearth of synchronization in OHS (occupational health and safety) regulation and standards. Therefore, this paper attempts to ascertain: i) what are the major challenges of the company specific OHS standards? ii) why does the offshore wind industry need a standardized OHS management system? and iii) who can play the key role in this process? To achieve these objectives, this research applies the interview and survey techniques. This study has identified several key challenges in OHS management system which are; gaps in coordination and communication among the stakeholders, gaps in incident reporting systems, absence of a harmonized OHS standard and blame culture. Furthermore, this research has identified eleven key stakeholders who are actively involve with the offshore wind business in Denmark. As noticed, the relationships among these stakeholders are very complex specially between operators and sub-contractors. The respondent technicians are concerned with the compliance of various third-party OHS standards (e.g. ISO 31000, ISO 29400, Good practice guidelines by G+) which are applying by various offshore companies. On top of these standards, operators also impose their own OHS standards. From the technicians point of angle, many of these standards are not even specific for the offshore wind sector. So, it is a big challenge for the technicians and sub-contractors to comply with different company specific standards which also elevate the price of their services offer to the operators. For instance, when a sub-contractor is competing for a bidding, it must fulfill a number of OHS requirements (which demands many extra documantions) set by the individual operator and/the turbine supplier. According to sub-contractors’ point of view these extra works consume too much time to prepare the bidding documents and they also need to train their employees to pass the specific OHS certification courses to accomplish the demand for individual clients and individual project. The sub-contractors argued that in many cases these extra documentations and OHS certificates are inessential to ensure the quality service. So, a standardized OHS management procedure (which could be applicable for all the clients) can easily solve this problem. In conclusion, this study highlights that i) development of a harmonized OHS standard applicable for all the operators and turbine suppliers, ii) encouragement of technicians’ active participation in the OHS management, iii) development of a good safety leadership, and, iv) sharing of experiences among the stakeholders (specially operators-operators-sub contractors) are the most vital strategies to overcome the existing challenges and to achieve the goal of 'zero accident/harm' in the offshore wind industry.

Keywords: green energy, offshore, safety, Denmark

Procedia PDF Downloads 214

Authors: T. N. Goh, M. Hashmi, O. Hussain

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Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction (TMD) is a condition that may affect patients via restricted mouth opening, significant pain during normal functioning, and/or reproducible joint noise. TMD includes myofascial pain, TMJ functional derangements (internal derangement, dislocation), and TMJ degenerative/inflammatory joint disease. Internal derangement (ID) is the most common cause of TMD-related clicking and locking. These patients are managed in a stepwise approach, from patient education (homecare advice and analgesia), splint therapy, physiotherapy, botulinum toxin treatment, to arthrocentesis. Arthrotomy is offered when the aforementioned treatment options fail to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. The aim of this prospective study was to review the outcomes of jaw joint open surgery in TMD patients. Patients who presented from 2015-2022 at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department in the Doncaster NHS Foundation Trust, UK, with a Wilkes classification of III -V were included. These patients underwent either i) discopexy with bone-anchoring suture (9); ii) intrapositional temporalis flap (ITF) with bone-anchoring suture (3); iii) eminoplasty and discopexy with suturing to the capsule (3); iii) discectomy + ITF with bone-anchoring suture (1); iv) discoplasty + bone-anchoring suture (1); v) ITF (1). Maximum incisal opening (MIO) was assessed pre-operatively and at each follow-up. Pain score, determined via the visual analogue scale (VAS, with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain), was also recorded. A total of 18 eligible patients were identified with a mean age of 45 (range 22 - 79), of which 16 were female. The patients were scored by Wilkes Classification as III (14), IV (1), or V (4). Twelve patients had anterior disc displacement without reduction (66%) and six had degenerative/arthritic changes (33%) to the TMJ. The open joint procedure resulted in an increase in MIO and reduction in pain VAS and for the majority of patients, across all Wilkes Classifications. Pre-procedural MIO was 22.9 ± 7.4 mm and VAS was 7.8 ± 1.5. At three months post-procedure there was an increase in MIO to 34.4 ± 10.4 mm (p < 0.01) and a decrease in the VAS to 1.5 ± 2.9 (p < 0.01). Three patients were lost to follow-up prior to six months. Six were discharged at six month review and five patients were discharged at 12 months review as they were asymptomatic with good mouth opening. Four patients are still attending for annual botulinum toxin treatment. Two patients (Wilkes III and V) subsequently underwent TMJ replacement (11%). One of these patients (Wilkes III) had improvement initially to MIO of 40 mm, but subsequently relapsed to less than 20 mm due to lack of compliance with jaw rehabilitation device post-operatively. Clinical improvements in 89% of patients within the study group were found, with a return to near normal MIO range and reduced pain score. Intraoperatively, the operator found bone-anchoring suture used for discopexy/discoplasty more secure than the soft tissue anchoring suturing technique.

Keywords: bone anchoring suture, open temporomandibular joint surgery, temporomandibular joint, temporomandibular joint dysfunction

Procedia PDF Downloads 105

Authors: Benjamin Blat Belmonte, Stephan Rinderknecht

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The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) stands at the forefront of innovative strategies designed to address environmental concerns and reduce fossil fuel dependency. As the number of EVs on the roads increases, so too does the potential for their integration into energy markets. This research dives deep into the transformative possibilities of using electric vehicle fleets, specifically electric bus fleets, not just as consumers but as active participants in the energy market. This paper investigates the feasibility and grid effects of electric vehicle fleet operators in the energy market. Our objective centers around a comprehensive exploration of the sector coupling domain, with an emphasis on the economic potential in both electricity and balancing markets. Methodologically, our approach combines data mining techniques with thorough pre-processing, pulling from a rich repository of electricity and balancing market data. Our findings are grounded in the actual operational realities of the bus fleet operator in Darmstadt, Germany. We employ a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) approach, with the bulk of the computations being processed on the High-Performance Computing (HPC) platform ‘Lichtenbergcluster’. Our findings underscore the compelling economic potential of EV fleets in the energy market. With electric buses becoming more prevalent, the considerable size of these fleets, paired with their substantial battery capacity, opens up new horizons for energy market participation. Notably, our research reveals that economic viability is not the sole advantage. Participating actively in the energy market also translates into pronounced positive effects on grid stabilization. Essentially, EV fleet operators can serve a dual purpose: facilitating transport while simultaneously playing an instrumental role in enhancing grid reliability and resilience. This research highlights the symbiotic relationship between the growth of EV fleets and the stabilization of the energy grid. Such systems could lead to both commercial and ecological advantages, reinforcing the value of electric bus fleets in the broader landscape of sustainable energy solutions. In conclusion, the electrification of transport offers more than just a means to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions. By positioning electric vehicle fleet operators as active participants in the energy market, there lies a powerful opportunity to drive forward the energy transition. This study serves as a testament to the synergistic potential of EV fleets in bolstering both economic viability and grid stabilization, signaling a promising trajectory for future sector coupling endeavors.

Keywords: electric vehicle fleet, sector coupling, optimization, electricity market, balancing market

Procedia PDF Downloads 74

Authors: Michela Quadrini

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Chord diagrams occur in mathematics, from the study of RNA to knot theory. They are widely used in theory of knots and links for studying the finite type invariants, whereas in molecular biology one important motivation to study chord diagrams is to deal with the problem of RNA structure prediction. An RNA molecule is a linear polymer, referred to as the backbone, that consists of four types of nucleotides. Each nucleotide is represented by a point, whereas each chord of the diagram stands for one interaction for Watson-Crick base pairs between two nonconsecutive nucleotides. A chord diagram is an oriented circle with a set of n pairs of distinct points, considered up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle. A linear chord diagram (LCD) is a special kind of graph obtained cutting the oriented circle of a chord diagram. It consists of a line segment, called its backbone, to which are attached a number of chords with distinct endpoints. There is a natural fattening on any linear chord diagram; the backbone lies on the real axis, while all the chords are in the upper half-plane. Each linear chord diagram has a natural genus of its associated surface. To each chord diagram and linear chord diagram, it is possible to associate the intersection graph. It consists of a graph whose vertices correspond to the chords of the diagram, whereas the chord intersections are represented by a connection between the vertices. Such intersection graph carries a lot of information about the diagram. Our goal is to define an LCD equivalence class in terms of identity of intersection graphs, from which many chord diagram invariants depend. For studying these invariants, we introduce a new representation of Linear Chord Diagrams based on a set of appropriate topological operators that permits to model LCD in terms of the relations among chords. Such set is composed of: crossing, nesting, and concatenations. The crossing operator is able to generate the whole space of linear chord diagrams, and a multiple context free grammar able to uniquely generate each LDC starting from a linear chord diagram adding a chord for each production of the grammar is defined. In other words, it allows to associate a unique algebraic term to each linear chord diagram, while the remaining operators allow to rewrite the term throughout a set of appropriate rewriting rules. Such rules define an LCD equivalence class in terms of the identity of intersection graphs. Starting from a modelled RNA molecule and the linear chord, some authors proposed a topological classification and folding. Our LCD equivalence class could contribute to the RNA folding problem leading to the definition of an algorithm that calculates the free energy of the molecule more accurately respect to the existing ones. Such LCD equivalence class could be useful to obtain a more accurate estimate of link between the crossing number and the topological genus and to study the relation among other invariants.

Keywords: chord diagrams, linear chord diagram, equivalence class, topological language

Procedia PDF Downloads 201

Authors: Ioanna Garefi, Irene Kalemaki

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Education is not solely about preparing young people for the world of work but also about equipping them with competences that will enable them to become socially proactive, empowered, responsible, and engaged citizens who will collectively contribute to and benefit from an inclusive and sustainable future. Hence, progress assessment towards competence development is an ongoing process where continuous efforts are needed. This paper abstract presents the work of the H2020 NEMESIS project that aims to investigate, experiment and co-create together with schools a model for introducing and embedding social innovation education (SIE henceforth) in European primary and secondary schools. All in all, during the 2018-2019 academic year, 8 schools from 5 European countries involving 56 teachers, 1030 students, and 80 external stakeholders, experimented with different methodologies for embedding SIE in their contexts. This paper captures briefly the impact of these efforts towards the cultivation and progression of students’ social innovation (SI henceforth) competences. As part of the model, 14 SI competences, whose progress was evaluated, have been introduced falling under 3 interrelated categories: competences for identifying opportunities for social and collective value creation, competences for developing collaborations and building meaningful relations and competences for taking action both on an individual and collective level. Methodologically wise, the evaluation strategy employed was informed by a realist approach, enabling the researchers to go beyond synthesizing 'what happened' and towards understanding 'why it happened', delving into ‘what works, for whom and in what circumstances’. The reason for choosing such an approach was because it goes beyond attempting to answer the basic yes or no question of evaluation and focus on an ‘explanatory quest’ tracing the limits of when and where intervention is effective. A rich mix of sources of evidence have been employed, from focus groups with 80 people from the 5 EU countries to an online survey to 206 students, classroom observations, students’ narratives granting them with the opportunity to freely express their opinions, short stories letting students express their feelings through their imagination and also, drawings so that younger children can express their perception of reality. All these evidences offered insights on the impact of SIE on the development of students’ competences. Research findings showed that students progressed in all 14 SI competences through their involvement in the different activities. This positive progression is attributed to the model’s three core principles: 1) the student-centered approach, rendering students active and self-determined producers of their own learning, 2) the co-creation process fostering intergenerational interactions, empowering thus students by making their voices heard and valued and also, 3) the transformative social action whereby through their projects, students are able to witness the impact they are bringing about with their actions. Concluding, these initial findings, together with the forthcoming evaluation research to a pool of 30 schools around Europe, have the potential to raise the dynamics of the under-investigated field of SIE and encourage its embeddedness in more schools around Europe.

Keywords: competence development, education, social innovation, students

Procedia PDF Downloads 99

Authors: Gabrielle Peck, Ryan Hayes

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Current large scale fire tests focus on flammability and heat release measurements. Smoke toxicity isn’t considered despite it being a leading cause of death and injury in unwanted fires. A key reason could be that the practical difficulties associated with quantifying individual toxic components present in a fire effluent often require specialist equipment and expertise. Fire effluent contains a mixture of unreactive and reactive gases, water, organic vapours and particulate matter, which interact with each other. This interferes with the operation of the analytical instrumentation and must be removed without changing the concentration of the target analyte. To mitigate the need for expensive equipment and time-consuming analysis, a portable gas analysis system was designed, constructed and tested for use in large-scale fire tests as a simpler and more robust alternative to online FTIR measurements. The novel equipment aimed to be easily portable and able to run on battery or mains electricity; be able to be calibrated at the test site; be capable of quantifying CO, CO2, O2, HCN, HBr, HCl, NOx and SO2 accurately and reliably; be capable of independent data logging; be capable of automated switchover of 7 bubblers; be able to withstand fire effluents; be simple to operate; allow individual bubbler times to be pre-set; be capable of being controlled remotely. To test the analysers functionality, it was used alongside the ISO/TS 19700 Steady State Tube Furnace (SSTF). A series of tests were conducted to assess the validity of the box analyser measurements and the data logging abilities of the apparatus. PMMA and PA 6.6 were used to assess the validity of the box analyser measurements. The data obtained from the bench-scale assessments showed excellent agreement. Following this, the portable analyser was used to monitor gas concentrations during large-scale testing using the ISO 9705 room corner test. The analyser was set up, calibrated and set to record smoke toxicity measurements in the doorway of the test room. The analyser was successful in operating without manual interference and successfully recorded data for 12 of the 12 tests conducted in the ISO room tests. At the end of each test, the analyser created a data file (formatted as .csv) containing the measured gas concentrations throughout the test, which do not require specialist knowledge to interpret. This validated the portable analyser’s ability to monitor fire effluent without operator intervention on both a bench and large-scale. The portable analyser is a validated and significantly more practical alternative to FTIR, proven to work for large-scale fire testing for quantification of smoke toxicity. The analyser is a cheaper, more accessible option to assess smoke toxicity, mitigating the need for expensive equipment and specialist operators.

Keywords: smoke toxicity, large-scale tests, iso 9705, analyser, novel equipment

Procedia PDF Downloads 77

Authors: Simon Winberg

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The landscape of professional postgraduate education is changing: the focus of these programmes is moving from preparing candidates for a life in academia towards a focus of training in expert knowledge and skills to support industry. This is especially pronounced in engineering disciplines where increasingly more complex products are drawing on a depth of knowledge from multiple fields. This connects strongly with the broader notion of Industry 4.0 – where technology and society are being brought together to achieve more powerful and desirable products, but products whose inner workings also are more complex than before. The changes in what we do, and how we do it, has a profound impact on what industry would like universities to provide. One such change is the increased demand for taught doctoral and Masters programmes. These programmes aim to provide skills and training for professionals, to expand their knowledge of state-of-the-art tools and technologies. This paper investigates one such course, namely a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Master’s degree course. The teaching support for this course had to be drawn from an existing pool of academics, none of who were specialists in this field. The paper focuses on the kind of educator, a ‘hybrid academic’, assembled from available academic staff and bolstered by research. The conceptual framework for this paper combines Activity Theory and Genre Ecology. Activity Theory is used to reason about learning and interactions during the course, and Genre Ecology is used to model building and sharing of technical knowledge related to using tools and artifacts. Data were obtained from meetings with students and lecturers, logs, project reports, and course evaluations. The findings show how the course, which was initially academically-oriented, metamorphosed into a tool-dominant peer-learning structure, largely supported by the sharing of technical tool-based knowledge. While the academic staff could address gaps in the participants’ fundamental knowledge of radio systems, the participants brought with them extensive specialized knowledge and tool experience which they shared with the class. This created a complicated dynamic in the class, which centered largely on engagements with technology artifacts, such as simulators, from which knowledge was built. The course was characterized by a richness of ‘epistemic objects’, which is to say objects that had knowledge-generating qualities. A significant portion of the course curriculum had to be adapted, and the learning methods changed to accommodate the dynamic interactions that occurred during classes. This paper explains the SDR Masters course in terms of conflicts and innovations in its activity system, as well as the continually hybridizing genre ecology to show how the structuring and resource-dependence of the course transformed from its initial ‘traditional’ academic structure to a more entangled arrangement over time. It is hoped that insights from this paper would benefit other educators involved in the design and teaching of similar types of specialized professional postgraduate taught programmes.

Keywords: professional postgraduate education, taught masters, engineering education, software defined radio

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Bello Gonzalez T. D. J., Setten Van M., Essen Van A., Brouwer M., Veldman K. T.

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Resistance to fluoroquinolones (FQ) has evolved increasingly over the years, posing a significant challenge for the treatment of human infections, particularly gastrointestinal tract infections caused by zoonotic bacteria transmitted through the food chain and environment. In broiler chickens, a relatively high proportion of FQ resistance has been observed in Escherichia coli indicator, Salmonella and Campylobacter isolates. We hypothesize that flumequine (Flu), used as a secondary choice for the treatment of poultry infections, could potentially be associated with a high proportion of FQ resistance. To evaluate this hypothesis, we used an in vitro fermentation chicken caeca model. Two continuous single-stage fermenters were used to simulate in real time the physiological conditions of the chicken caeca microbial content (temperature, pH, caecal content mixing, and anoxic environment). A pool of chicken caecal content containing FQ-resistant E. coli obtained from chickens at slaughter age was used as inoculum along with a spiked FQ-susceptible Campylobacter jejuni strain isolated from broilers. Flu was added to one of the fermenters (Flu-fermenter) every 24 hours for two days to evaluate the selection and maintenance of FQ resistance over time, while the other served as a control (C-Fermenter). The experiment duration was 5 days. Samples were collected at three different time points: before, during and after Flu administration. Serial dilutions were plated on Butzler culture media with and without Flu (8mg/L) and enrofloxacin (4mg/L) and on MacConkey culture media with and without Flu (4mg/L) and enrofloxacin (1mg/L) to determine the proportion of resistant strains over time. Positive cultures were identified by mass spectrometry and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). A subset of the obtained isolates were used for Whole Genome Sequencing analysis. Over time, E. coli exhibited positive growth in both fermenters, while C. jejuni growth was detected up to day 3. The proportion of Flu-resistant E. coli strains recovered remained consistent over time after antibiotic selective pressure, while in the C-fermenter, a decrease was observed at day 5; a similar pattern was observed in the enrofloxacin-resistant E. coli strains. This suggests that Flu might play a role in the selection and persistence of enrofloxacin resistance, compared to C-fermenter, where enrofloxacin-resistant E. coli strains appear at a later time. Furthermore, positive growth was detected from both fermenters only on Butzler plates without antibiotics. A subset of C. jejuni strains from the Flu-fermenter revealed that those strains were susceptible to ciprofloxacin (MIC < 0.12 μg/mL). A selection of E. coli strains from both fermenters revealed the presence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) (qnr-B19) in only one strain from the C-fermenter belonging to sequence type (ST) 48, and in all from Flu-fermenter belonged to ST189. Our results showed that Flu selective impact on PMQR-positive E. coli strains, while no effect was observed in C. jejuni. Maintenance of Flu-resistance was correlated with antibiotic selective pressure. Further studies into antibiotic resistance gene transfer among commensal and zoonotic bacteria in the chicken caeca content may help to elucidate the resistance spread mechanisms.

Keywords: fluoroquinolone-resistance, escherichia coli, campylobacter jejuni, in vitro model

Procedia PDF Downloads 62

Authors: Nivedita T. Patil, M. T. Patil, M. S. Shashidhar, R. G. Gonnade

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Cyclitols are cycloalkane polyols which have raise attention since they have numerous biological and pharmaceutical properties. Among these, inositols are important cyclitols, which constitute a group of naturally occurring polyhydric alcohols. Myo, scyllo, allo, neo, D-chiro- are naturally occurring structural isomer of inositol while other four isomers (L-chiro, allo, epi-, and cis-inositol) are derived from myo-inositol by chemical synthesis. Myo-inositol, most abundant isomer, plays an important role in signal transduction process and for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, bacterial infections, stimulation of menstruation, ovulation in polycystic ovary syndrome, improvement of osteogenesis, and in treatment of neurological disorders. Considering the vast application of the derivatives, it becomes important to supply these compounds for further studies in quantitative amounts, but the synthesis of suitably protected chiral inositol derivatives is the key intermediates in most of the synthesis which is difficult. Chiral inositol derivatives could also be of interest to synthetic organic chemists as they could serve as potential starting materials for the synthesis of several natural products and their analogs. Thus, obtaining chiral myo-inositol derivatives in a more eco-friendly way is need for current inositol chemistry. Thus, the resolution of nonracemates by preferential crystallization of enantiomers has not been reported as a method for inositol derivatives. We are optimistic that this work might lead to the development of the two tosylate enantiomers as synthetic chiral pool molecules for organic synthesis. Resolution of racemic 4-O-benzyl 6-O-tosyl myo-inositol 1, 3, 5 orthoformate was successfully achieved on multigram scale by preferential crystallization, which is more scalable, eco-friendly method of separation than other reported methods. The separation of the conglomeric mixture of tosylate was achieved by suspending the mixture in ethyl acetate till the level of saturation is obtained. To this saturated clear solution was added seed crystal of the desired enantiomers. The filtration of the precipitated seed was carried out at its filtration window to get enantiomerically enriched tosylate, and the process was repeated alternatively. These enantiomerically enriched samples were recrystallized to get tosylate as pure enantiomers. The configuration of the resolved enantiomers was determined by converting it to previously reported dibenzyl ether myo-inositol, which is an important precursor for mono- and tetraphosphates. We have also developed a convenient and practical method for the preparation of enantiomeric 4-O and 6-O-allyl myo-inositol orthoesters by resolution of diastereomeric allyl dicamphante orthoesters on multigram scale. These allyl ethers can be converted to other chiral protected myo-inositol derivatives using routine synthetic transformations. The chiral allyl ethers can be obtained in gram quantities, and the methods are amenable to further scale-up due to the simple procedures involved. We believe that the work described enhances the pace of research to understand the intricacies of the myo-inositol cycle as the methods described provide efficient access to enantiomeric phosphoinositols, cyclitols, and their derivatives from the abundantly available myo-inositol as a starting material.

Keywords: cyclitols, diastereomers, enantiomers, myo-inositol, preferential crystallization, signal transduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Mehdi Soula, Yosra Mani, Estelle Saras, Antoine Drapeau, Raoudha Grami, Mahjoub Aouni, Jean-Yves Madec, Marisa Haenni, Wejdene Mansour

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Multi-resistance to antibiotics in gram-negative bacilli and particularly in enterobacteriaceae, has become frequent in hospitals in Tunisia. However, data on antibiotic resistant bacteria in aquatic products are scarce. The aims of this study are to estimate the proportion of ESBL- and carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales in seafood (clams and fish) in Tunisia and to molecularly characterize the collected isolates. Two types of seafood were sampled in unrelated markets in four different regions in Tunisia (641 pieces of farmed fish and 1075 mediterranean clams divided into 215 pools, and each pool contained 5 pieces). Once purchased, all samples were incubated in tubes containing peptone salt broth for 24 to 48h at 37°C. After incubation, overnight cultures were isolated on selective MacConkey agar plates supplemented with either imipenem or cefotaxime, identified using API20E test strips (bioMérieux, Marcy-l’Étoile, France) and confirmed by Maldi-TOF MS. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined by the disk diffusion method on Mueller-Hinton agar plates and results were interpreted according to CA-SFM 2021. ESBL-producing Enterobacterales were detected using the Double Disc Synergy Test (DDST). Carbapenem-resistance was detected using an ertapenem disk and was respectively confirmed using the ROSCO KPC/MBL and OXA-48 Confirm Kit (ROSCO Diagnostica, Taastrup, Denmark). DNA was extracted using a NucleoSpin Microbial DNA extraction kit (Macherey-Nagel, Hoerdt, France), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Resistance genes were determined using the CGE online tools. The replicon content and plasmid formula were identified from the WGS data using PlasmidFinder 2.0.1 and pMLST 2.0. From farmed fishes, nine ESBL-producing strains (9/641, 1.4%) were isolated, which were identified as E. coli (n=6) and K. pneumoniae (n=3). Among the 215 pools of 5 clams analyzed, 18 ESBL-producing isolates were identified, including 14 E. coli and 4 K. pneumoniae. A low isolation rate of ESBL-producing Enterobacterales was detected 1.6% (18/1075) in clam pools. In fish, the ESBL phenotype was due to the presence of the blaCTX-M-15 gene in all nine isolates, but no carbapenemase gene was identified. In clams, the predominant ESBL phenotype was blaCTX-M-1 (n=6/18). blaCPE (NDM1, OXA48) was detected only in 3 isolates ‘K. pneumoniae isolates’. Replicon typing on the strains carring the ESBL and carbapenemase gene revelead that the major type plasmid carried ESBL were IncF (42.3%) [n=11/26]. In all, our results suggest that seafood can be a reservoir of multi-drug resistant bacteria, most probably of human origin but also by the selection pressure of antibiotic. Our findings raise concerns that seafood bought for consumption may serve as potential reservoirs of AMR genes and pose serious threat to public health.

Keywords: BLSE, carbapenemase, enterobacterales, tunisian seafood

Procedia PDF Downloads 108

Authors: Ana Rodrigues, Maria Cadilhe, Filipa Ferreira, Claudia Pereira, Marta Santos

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Professional paths must be understood in the multiplicity of their possible configurations. While some actors tend to represent their path as a harmonious succession of positions in the life cycle, most recognize the existence of unforeseen and uncontrollable bifurcations, caused, for example, by a work accident or by going through a period of unemployment. Considering the intensified challenges posed by the ongoing societal changes (e.g., technological and demographic), and looking at the Portuguese context, where the unemployment rate continues to be more evident in certain age groups, like in individuals aged 45 years or over, it is essential to support those adults by providing strategies capable of supporting them during professional transitions, being this a joint responsibility of governments, employers, workers, educational institutions, among others. Concerned about those issues, Porto City Council launched the challenge of designing and implementing a Lifelong Career Guidance program, which was answered with the presentation of a customized conceptual and operational model: groWing|Lifelong Career Guidance. A pilot project targeting working-age adults (35 or older) who were unemployed was carried out, aiming to support them to reconstruct their professional paths, through the recovery of their past experiences and through a reflection about dimensions such as skills, interests, constraints, and labor market. A research action approach was used to assess the proposed model, namely the perceived relevance of the theme and of the project, by adults themselves (N=44), employment professionals (N=15) and local companies (N=15), in an integrated manner. A set of activities were carried out: a train the trainer course and a monitoring session with employment professionals; collective and individual sessions with adults, including a monitoring session as well; and a workshop with local companies. Support materials for individual/collective reflection about professional paths were created and adjusted for each involved agent. An evaluation model was co-build by different stakeholders. Assessment was carried through a form created for the purpose, completed at the end of the different activities, which allowed us to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Statistical analysis was carried through SPSS software. Results showed that the participants, as well as the employment professionals and the companies involved, considered both the topic and the project as extremely relevant. Also, adults saw the project as an opportunity to reflect on their paths and become aware of the opportunities and the necessary conditions to achieve their goals; the professionals highlighted the support given by an integrated methodology and the existence of tools to assist the process; companies valued the opportunity to think about the topic and the possible initiatives they could implement within the company to diversify their recruitment pool. The results allow us to conclude that, in the local context under study, there is an alignment between different agents regarding the pertinence of supporting adults with work experience in professional transitions, seeing the project as a relevant strategy to address this issue, which justifies that it can be extended in time and to other working-age adults in the future.

Keywords: professional paths, research action, turning points, lifelong career guidance, relevance

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Authors: Marcela De Oliveira, Marina P. Da Silva, Fernando C. G. Da Rocha, Jorge M. Santos, Jaime S. Cardoso, Paulo N. Lisboa-Filho

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Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated disease of the central nervous system characterized by neurodegeneration, inflammation, demyelination, and axonal loss. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), due to the richness in the information details provided, is the gold standard exam for diagnosis and follow-up of neurodegenerative diseases, such as MS. Brain atrophy, the gradual loss of brain volume, is quite extensive in multiple sclerosis, nearly 0.5-1.35% per year, far off the limits of normal aging. Thus, the brain volume quantification becomes an essential task for future analysis of the occurrence atrophy. The analysis of MRI has become a tedious and complex task for clinicians, who have to manually extract important information. This manual analysis is prone to errors and is time consuming due to various intra- and inter-operator variability. Nowadays, computerized methods for MRI segmentation have been extensively used to assist doctors in quantitative analyzes for disease diagnosis and monitoring. Thus, the purpose of this work was to evaluate the brain volume in MRI of MS patients. We used MRI scans with 30 slices of the five patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis according to the McDonald criteria. The computational methods for the analysis of images were carried out in two steps: segmentation of the brain and brain volume quantification. The first image processing step was to perform brain extraction by skull stripping from the original image. In the skull stripper for MRI images of the brain, the algorithm registers a grayscale atlas image to the grayscale patient image. The associated brain mask is propagated using the registration transformation. Then this mask is eroded and used for a refined brain extraction based on level-sets (edge of the brain-skull border with dedicated expansion, curvature, and advection terms). In the second step, the brain volume quantification was performed by counting the voxels belonging to the segmentation mask and converted in cc. We observed an average brain volume of 1469.5 cc. We concluded that the automatic method applied in this work can be used for the brain extraction process and brain volume quantification in MRI. The development and use of computer programs can contribute to assist health professionals in the diagnosis and monitoring of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. In future works, we expect to implement more automated methods for the assessment of cerebral atrophy and brain lesions quantification, including machine-learning approaches. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by a grant from Brazilian agency Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (number 2019/16362-5).

Keywords: brain volume, magnetic resonance imaging, multiple sclerosis, skull stripper

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Authors: Vijay Marisetty, Poonam Singh

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Research on the effect of director's network connections on investor welfare is inconclusive. Some studies suggest that directors' connections are beneficial, in terms of, improving earnings information, firms valuation for new investors. On the other hand, adverse effects of directorial networks are also reported, in terms of higher earnings management, options back dating fraud, reduction in firm performance, lower board monitoring. From regulatory perspective, the role of directorial networks on corporate welfare is crucial. Cognizant of the possible ill effects associated with directorial networks, large investors, for better representation on the boards, are building their own database of prospective directors who are highly qualified, however, sourced from outside the highly connected directorial labor market. For instance, following Dodd-Frank Reform Act, California Public Employees' Retirement Systems (CalPERs) has initiated a database for registering aspiring and highly qualified directors to nominate them for board seats (proxy access). Our paper stems from this background and tries to explore the chances of outside directors getting directorships who lack established network connections. The paper is able to identify such aspiring directors' information by accessing a unique Indian data sourced from an online portal that aims to match the supply of registered aspirants with the growing demand for outside directors in India. The online portal's tie-up with stock exchanges ensures firms to access the new pool of directors. Such direct access to the background details of aspiring directors over a period of 10 years, allows us to examine the chances of aspiring directors without corporate network, to enter directorial network. Using this resume data of 16105 aspiring corporate directors in India, who have no prior board experience in the directorial labor market, the paper analyses the entry dynamics in corporate directors' labor market. The database also allows us to investigate the value of corporate network by comparing non-network new entrants with incumbent networked directors. The study develops measures of network centrality and network degree based on merit, i.e. network of individuals belonging to elite educational institutions, like Indian Institute of Management (IIM) or Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and based on job or company, i.e. network of individuals serving in the same company. The paper then measures the impact of these networks on the appointment of first time directors and subsequent appointment of directors. The paper reports the following main results: 1. The likelihood of becoming a corporate director, without corporate network strength, is only 1 out 100 aspirants. This is inspite of comparable educational background and similar duration of corporate experience; 2. Aspiring non-network directors' elite educational ties help them to secure directorships. However, for post-board appointments, their newly acquired corporate network strength overtakes as their main determinant for subsequent board appointments and compensation. The results thus highlight the limitations in increasing board diversity.

Keywords: aspiring corporate directors, board diversity, director labor market, director networks

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Authors: B. Casper

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The energy transition towards renewable energies and drastically reduced carbon dioxide emissions in Germany drives multiple sectors into a transformation process. Photovoltaic and on-shore wind power are predominantly feeding in the low and medium-voltage grids. The electricity grid is not laid out to allow an increasing feed-in of power in low and medium voltage grids. Electric mobility is currently in the run-up phase in Germany and still lacks a significant amount of charging stations. The additional power demand by e-mobility cannot be supplied by the existing electric grids in most cases. The future demands in heating and cooling of commercial and residential buildings are increasingly generated by heat-pumps. Yet the most important part in the energy transition is the storage of surplus energy generated by photovoltaic and wind power sources. Water electrolysis is one way to store surplus energy known as power-to-gas. With the vehicle-to-grid technology, the upcoming fleet of electric cars could be used as energy storage to stabilize the grid. All these processes use direct current (DC). The demand of bi-directional flow and higher efficiency in the future grids can be met by using DC. The Flexible Electrical Networks (FEN) research campus at RWTH Aachen investigates interdisciplinary about the advantages, opportunities, and limitations of DC grids. This paper investigates the impact of DC grids as a technological innovation on the urban form and urban life. Applying explorative scenario development, analyzation of mapped open data sources on grid networks and research-by-design as a conceptual design method, possible starting points for a transformation to DC medium voltage grids could be found. Several fields of action have emerged in which DC technology could become a catalyst for future urban development: energy transition in urban areas, e-mobility, and transformation of the network infrastructure. The investigation shows a significant potential to increase renewable energy production within cities with DC grids. The charging infrastructure for electric vehicles will predominantly be using DC in the future because fast and ultra fast charging can only be achieved with DC. Our research shows that e-mobility, combined with autonomous driving has the potential to change the urban space and urban logistics fundamentally. Furthermore, there are possible win-win-win solutions for the municipality, the grid operator and the inhabitants: replacing overhead transmission lines by underground DC cables to open up spaces in contested urban areas can lead to a positive example of how the energy transition can contribute to a more sustainable urban structure. The outlook makes clear that target grid planning and urban planning will increasingly need to be synchronized.

Keywords: direct current, e-mobility, energy transition, grid planning, renewable energy, urban planning

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Authors: Sina Kazemi, Farshid Torabi, Todd Peterson

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Drilling in shale formations is frequently time-consuming, challenging, and fraught with mechanical failures such as stuck pipes or hole packing off when the cutting removal rate is not sufficient to clean the bottom hole. Crossing the heavy oil shale and sand reservoirs with active shale and microfractures is generally associated with severe fluid losses causing a reduction in the rate of the cuttings removal. These circumstances compromise a well’s integrity and result in a lower rate of penetration (ROP). This study presents collective results of field studies and theoretical analysis conducted on data from South Pars and North Dome in an Iran-Qatar offshore field. Solutions to complications related to drilling in shale formations are proposed through systemically analyzing and applying modeling techniques to select field mud logging data. Field data measurements during actual drilling operations indicate that in a shale formation where the return flow of polymer mud was almost lost in the upper dolomite layer, the performance of hole cleaning and ROP progressively change when higher string rotations are initiated. Likewise, it was observed that this effect minimized the force of rotational torque and improved well integrity in the subsequent casing running. Given similar geologic conditions and drilling operations in reservoirs targeting shale as the producing zone like the Bakken formation within the Williston Basin and Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, a drill bench dynamic modeling simulation was used to simulate borehole cleaning efficiency and mud optimization. The results obtained by altering RPM (string revolution per minute) at the same pump rate and optimized mud properties exhibit a positive correlation with field measurements. The field investigation and developed model in this report show that increasing the speed of string revolution as far as geomechanics and drilling bit conditions permit can minimize the risk of mechanically stuck pipes while reaching a higher than expected ROP in shale formations. Data obtained from modeling and field data analysis, optimized drilling parameters, and hole cleaning procedures are suggested for minimizing the risk of a hole packing off and enhancing well integrity in shale reservoirs. Whereas optimization of ROP at a lower pump rate maintains the wellbore stability, it saves time for the operator while reducing carbon emissions and fatigue of mud motors and power supply engines.

Keywords: ROP, circulating density, drilling parameters, return flow, shale reservoir, well integrity

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Authors: José M. Carmona, Diana Puigserver, Jofre Herrero

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Chlorinated solvents belong to the group of nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) and have been involved in many contamination episodes. They are carcinogenic and recalcitrant pollutants that may be found in granular aquifers as: i) pools accumulated on low hydraulic conductivity layers; ii) immobile residual phase retained at the pore-scale by capillary forces; iii) dissolved phase in groundwater; iv) sorbed by particulate organic matter; and v) stored into the matrix of low hydraulic conductivity layers where they penetrated by molecular diffusion. The transition zone between granular aquifers and basal aquitards constitute the lowermost part of the aquifer and presents numerous fine-grained interbedded layers that give rise to significant textural contrasts. These layers condition the transport and fate of contaminants and lead to differences from the rest of the aquifer, given that: i) hydraulic conductivity of these layers is lower; ii) DNAPL tends to accumulate on them; iii) groundwater flow is slower in the transition zone and consequently pool dissolution is much slower; iv) sorbed concentrations are higher in the fine-grained layers because of their higher content in organic matter; v) a significant mass of pollutant penetrates into the matrix of these layers; and vi) this contaminant mass back-diffuses after remediation and the aquifer becomes contaminated again. Thus, contamination sources of chlorinated solvents are extremely more recalcitrant in transition zones, which has far-reaching implications for the environment. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatial and temporal differences in the evolution of biogeochemical processes in the transition zone and in the rest of the aquifer. For this, an unconfined aquifer with a transition zone in the lower part was selected at Vilafant (NE Spain). This aquifer was contaminated by perchloroethylene (PCE) in the 80’s. Distribution of PCE and other chloroethenes in groundwater and porewater was analyzed in: a) conventional piezometers along the plume and in two multilevel wells at the source of contamination; and b) porewater of fine grained materials from cores recovered when drilled the two multilevel wells. Currently, the highest concentrations continue to be recorded in the source area in the transition zone. By contrast, the lowest concentrations in this area correspond to the central part of the aquifer, where flow velocities are higher and a greater washing of the residual phase initially retained has occurred. The major findings of the study were: i) PCE metabolites were detected in the transition zone, where conditions were more reducing than in the rest of the aquifer; ii) however, reductive dechlorination was partial since only the formation of cis-dicholoroethylene (DCE) was reached; iii) In the central part of the aquifer, where conditions were predominantly oxidizing, the presence of nitrate significantly hindered the reductive declination of PCE. The remediation strategies to be implemented should be directed to enhance dissolution of the source, especially in the transition zone, where it is more recalcitrant. For example, by combining chemical and bioremediation methods, already tested at the laboratory scale with groundwater and sediments of this site.

Keywords: chlorinated solvents, chloroethenes, DNAPL, partial reductive dechlorination, PCE, transition zone to basal aquitard

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