Search results for: unscented kalman filter

Authors: Ines Kovacic, Dijana Pavicic-Hamer, Petra Buric, Maja Levak Zorinc, Daniel M. Lyons

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Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), owing to their unique physical and chemical properties, have become one of the most widely used nanoparticles in consumer products. Despite the increased use of AgNPs in science and industry over the past twenty years, only relatively recently has concern been raised over their entering brackish and marine environments. However, data on their potential impact on marine organisms, especially invertebrates are very limited. This study aimed to examine the effects of 60 nm AgNPs (10, 100, 500 and 1000 µg/l) and silver ions (100, 1000 µg/l) on the Mediterranean green crab Carcinus aestuarii Nardo, 1847. The crab mortality was assessed during seven days of exposure. After the exposure, total haemocytes (THC) and differential haemocytes number (DHC) were counted (immune response), in addition to histological examination of gills stained with haematoxylin and eosin. The effect of AgNPs and silver ions resulted in a dose dependent mortality and destruction of gills epithelium with haemocytes infiltration in the gills lacuna. Total haemocyte count was greater with increasing concentration of AgNPs, at concentrations from 10 to 500 µg/l. Hyalinocytes were the most common immunological cells noted in the crab hemolymph, while granulocytes and semigranulocytes were suppressed with increasing concentration of AgNPs (500 and 1000 µg/l). Thus, as crabs are filter feeders, they are susceptible to uptake of AgNPs by direct accumulation in gills mucus or indirectly via circulation of haemocytes in their open vascular system. Results of this study on crabs add to knowledge of the effects of AgNPs in the marine environment.

Keywords: crab, immune response, histological alteration, silver nanoparticles

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Authors: Alaeddin Ebrahimi, Narasimman Sundararajan, Bernhard Pracejus

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Development of salt domes, often a rising from depths of some 10 km or more, causes an intense faulting of the surrounding host rocks (salt tectonics). The fractured rocks then present ideal space for oil that can migrate and get trapped. If such moving of hydrocarbons passes uranium-carrying rock units (e.g., shales), uranium is collected and enriched by organic carbon compounds. Brines from the salt body are also ideal carriers for oxidized uranium species and will further dislocate uranium when in contact with uranium-enriched oils. Uranium then has the potential to mineralize in the vicinity of the dome (blue halite is evidence for radiation having affected salt deposits elsewhere in the world). Based on this knowledge, the Qarat Kibrit salt dome was investigated by a well-established geophysical method like very low frequency electromagnetic (VLF-EM) along five traverses approximately 250 m in length (10 m intervals) in order to identify subsurface fault systems. In-phase and quadrature components of the VLF-EM signal were recorded at two different transmitter frequencies (24.0 and 24.9 kHz). The images of Fraser filtered response of the in-phase components indicate a conductive zone (fault) in the southeast and southwest of the study area. The Karous-Hjelt current density pseudo section delineates subsurface faults at depths between 10 and 40 m. The stacked profiles of the Fraser filtered responses brought out two plausible trends/directions of faults. However, there seems to be no evidence for uranium enrichment has been recorded in this area.

Keywords: salt dome, uranium, fault, in-phase component, quadrature component, Fraser filter, Karous-Hjelt current density

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Authors: Arundhuti Devi, Gitumani Devi, Krishna G. Bhattacharyya

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The goal of this study was to assess the characteristics of the airborne dust created by opencast coal mining and its relation to population hospitalization risk for skin and lung diseases in Margherita Coalfield, Assam, India. Air samples were collected for 24 h in three 8-h periods. For the collection of particulate matter (PM10) and total suspended particulate matter (SPM) samples, respiratory dust samplers with glass microfiber filter papers were used. PM10 was analyzed for Cu, Cd, Cr, Mn, Zn, Ni, Fe and Pb with Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (FAAS). SPM and PM10 concentrations were respectively found to be as high as 1,035 and 265.85 μg/m³ in work zone air. The concentration of metals associated with PM10 showed values higher than the permissible limits. It was observed that the average concentrations of the metals Fe, Pb, Ni, Zn, and Cu were very high during the winter month of December, those of Cd and Cr were high during the month of May and Mn was high during February. The morphology of the particles studied with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) gave significant results. Due to opencast coal mining, the air in the work zone, as well as the general ambient air, was found to be highly polluted with respect to dust. More than 8000 patient records maintained by the hospital authority were collected from three hospitals in the area. The highest percentage of people suffering from lung diseases are found in Margherita Civil Hospital (~26.77%) whereas most people suffering from skin diseases reported for treatment in the ESIC hospital (47.47%). Both PM10 and SPM were alarmingly high, and the results were in conformity with the high incidence of lung and other respiratory diseases in the study area.

Keywords: heavy metals, open cast coal mining, PM10, respiratory diseases

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Authors: G. Pelozo, N. Quaranta

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The assessment of environmental hazard and ecotoxicological potential of industrial wastes has become an issue of concern in many countries. Therefore, the aim of this work is to develop a methodology, adapting an Argentinian standard, which allows analyze the ecotoxicological effect of various metallurgical and steel wastes. Foundry sand, white mud, red mud, electric arc furnace dust, converter slag, among others, are the studied wastes. The species used to analyze the ecotoxicological effects of wastes is rye grass (Lolium Perenne). The choice of this kind lies, among other things, in its easy and rapid germination making it possible to develop the test in a few days. Moreover, since the processes involved are general for most seeds, the obtained results with this kind are representative, in general, of the effects on seeds or seedlings. Since the studied residues are solids, prior to performing the assay, an eluate is obtained by stirring for 2 hours and subsequent filtration of a solution of waste in water in a relationship of 1:4. This represents 100% of eluate from which two dilutions in water (25% and 50%) are prepared. A sample with untreated solid waste and water is also performed. The test is performed by placing two filter papers in a Petri dish that are saturated with 3.5ml of the prepared dilutions. After that 20 rye grass seeds are placed, and the Petri dishes are covered and the seeds are incubated for 120 hours at 24 °C. Reference controls are carried out by distilled water. Three replicates are performed for each concentration. Once the exposure period is finished, inhibiting elongation of the root is measured (IR). The results of this test show that all the studied wastes produce an unfavorable effect on the development of the seedlings, being the electric arc furnace dust which more affects the germination.

Keywords: ecotoxicity, industrial wastes, environmental hazard, seeds

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Authors: Yanrong Song, Zikai Dong, Runqin Xu, Jinrong Tian, Kexuan Li

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Nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) technique has become one of the main techniques to achieve mode-locked fiber lasers for its compactness, implementation, and low cost. In this paper, we demonstrate a compact mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser based on NPR technique in the all normal dispersion (ANDi) regime. In the laser cavity, there are no physical filter and polarization controller in laser cavity. Mode-locked pulse train is achieved in ANDi regime based on NPR technique. The fiber birefringence induced filtering effect is the mainly reason for mode-locking. After that, an extra 20 m long single-mode fiber is inserted in two different positions, dissipative soliton operation and noise like pulse operations are achieved correspondingly. The nonlinear effect is obviously enhanced in the noise like pulse regime and broadband spectrum generated owing to enhanced stimulated Raman scattering effect. When the pump power is 210 mW, the central wavelength is 1030 nm, and the corresponding 1st order Raman scattering stokes wave generates and locates at 1075 nm. When the pump power is 370 mW, the 1st and 2nd order Raman scattering stokes wave generate and locate at 1080 nm, 1126 nm respectively. When the pump power is 600 mW, the Raman continuum is generated with cascaded multi-order stokes waves, and the spectrum extends to 1188 nm. The total flat spectrum is from 1000nm to 1200nm. The maximum output average power and pulse energy are 18.0W and 14.75nJ, respectively.

Keywords: fiber laser, mode-locking, nonlinear polarization rotation, Raman scattering

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Authors: Hong-Min Kim, Da-Som Han, Myong-Hoon Lee

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CLCs (Cholesteric liquid crystals) draw tremendous interest due to their potential in various applications such as cholesteric color filters in LCD devices. CLC possesses helical molecular orientation which is induced by a chiral dopant molecules mixed with nematic liquid crystals. The efficiency of a chiral dopant is quantified by the HTP (helical twisting power). In this work, we designed and synthesized a series of new chiral dopants having a Schiff’s base imine structure with different alkyl chain lengths (butyl, hexyl and octyl) from chiral naphthyl amine by two-step reaction. The structures of new chiral dopants were confirmed by 1H-NMR and IR spectroscopy. The properties were investigated by DSC (differential scanning calorimetry calorimetry), POM (polarized optical microscopy) and UV-Vis spectrophotometer. These solid state chiral dopants showed excellent solubility in nematic LC (MLC-6845-000) higher than 17wt%. We prepared the CLC(Cholesteric Liquid Crystal) cell by mixing nematic LC (MLC-6845-000) with different concentrations of chiral dopants and injecting into the sandwich cell of 5μm cell gap with antiparallel alignment. The cholesteric liquid crystal phase was confirmed from POM, in which all the samples showed planar phase, a typical phase of the cholesteric liquid crystals. The HTP (helical twisting power) is one of the most important properties of CLC. We measured the HTP values from the UV-Vis transmittance spectra of CLC cells with varies chiral dopant concentration. The HTP values with different alkyl chains are as follows: butyl chiral dopant=29.8μm-1; hexyl chiral dopant= 31.8μm-1; octyl chiral dopant=27.7μm-1. We obtained the red, green and blue reflection color from CLC cells, which can be used as color filters in LCDs applications.

Keywords: cholesteric liquid crystal, color filter, display, HTP

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Authors: Belgherbi Aicha, Bessaid Abdelhafid

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In the recent years a great deal of research work has been devoted to the development of semi-automatic and automatic techniques for the analysis of abdominal CT images. The first and fundamental step in all these studies is the semi-automatic liver and spleen segmentation that is still an open problem. In this paper, a semi-automatic liver and spleen segmentation method by the mathematical morphology based on watershed algorithm has been proposed. Our algorithm is currency in two parts. In the first, we seek to determine the region of interest by applying the morphological to extract the liver and spleen. The second step consists to improve the quality of the image gradient. In this step, we propose a method for improving the image gradient to reduce the over-segmentation problem by applying the spatial filters followed by the morphological filters. Thereafter we proceed to the segmentation of the liver, spleen. The aim of this work is to develop a method for semi-automatic segmentation liver and spleen based on watershed algorithm, improve the accuracy and the robustness of the liver and spleen segmentation and evaluate a new semi-automatic approach with the manual for liver segmentation. To validate the segmentation technique proposed, we have tested it on several images. Our segmentation approach is evaluated by comparing our results with the manual segmentation performed by an expert. The experimental results are described in the last part of this work. The system has been evaluated by computing the sensitivity and specificity between the semi-automatically segmented (liver and spleen) contour and the manually contour traced by radiological experts. Liver segmentation has achieved the sensitivity and specificity; sens Liver=96% and specif Liver=99% respectively. Spleen segmentation achieves similar, promising results sens Spleen=95% and specif Spleen=99%.

Keywords: CT images, liver and spleen segmentation, anisotropic diffusion filter, morphological filters, watershed algorithm

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Authors: M. Hanif Irsyada, Rifaldy, Arif Lutfi Namury, Syahreza S. Angkasa, Khalid Rizky, Ricky Aryanto, M. Alfiyan Bagus, Excobar Arman, Fahri Septianto, Firman Najib Wibisana

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Galunggung Mountain is an active volcano in Indonesia, precisely on the island of Java. This area is included in the Sunda Sunda arc formed by the tendency of the Australian oceanic plate to Eurasian continental plate. This research was conducted to determine the characteristics and document the mineralogical composition of the Galunggung eruption of the second phase 1982-1983. In fragment samples, petrographic analysis is carried out under a qualitative and quantitative polarizing microscope. This sample was obtained from the second phase eruption in the Cibanjanj formation. Based on the analysis results obtained filter texture characteristics, olivine parallel growth, lamellar structure, glass inclusion, plagioclase zonation and obtained special texture in the gabbroic cummulate. The mineral composition consists of phenocryst plagioclase (41vol%), pyroxene (26vol%), olivin (4vol%) and mineral opaque (29vol%). Microlite minerals consist of plagioclase (31.95vol%), pyroxene (12.09vol%), opaque minerals (55.96vol%). This research is expected to be developed by further researchers to be able to explain in more detail related to Galunggung mountain with 3 phases of eruption that are so intense. Also, it is expected to explain the structural characteristics and mineralogical composition that can be used to determine the origin of all the results of the Galunggung eruption 1982-1983.

Keywords: Galunggung eruption, mineralogical composition, texture characterization, gabbroic cumulate

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Authors: Bo Wang

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The geometric processing of multi-source remote sensing data using control data of different scale and different accuracy is an important research direction of multi-platform system for earth observation. In the existing block bundle adjustment methods, as the controlling information in the adjustment system, the approach using single observation scale and precision is unable to screen out the control information and to give reasonable and effective corresponding weights, which reduces the convergence and adjustment reliability of the results. Referring to the relevant theory and technology of quotient space, in this project, several subjects are researched. Multi-layer quotient space of multi-geometric features is constructed to describe and filter control data. Normalized granularity merging mechanism of multi-layer control information is studied and based on the normalized scale factor, the strategy to optimize the weight selection of control data which is less relevant to the adjustment system can be realized. At the same time, geometric positioning experiment is conducted using multi-source remote sensing data, aerial images, and multiclass control data to verify the theoretical research results. This research is expected to break through the cliché of the single scale and single accuracy control data in the adjustment process and expand the theory and technology of photogrammetry. Thus the problem to process multi-source remote sensing data will be solved both theoretically and practically.

Keywords: multi-source image geometric process, high precision geometric positioning, quotient space of multi-geometric features, optimized weight selection

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Authors: Afifa Hafidh, Hedia Chaabane

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This work mainly focused on the synthetic strategies and biological activities associated with pyrazoles. Pyrazole derivatives have been successfully synthesized by simple and facile method and studied for their antibacterial activity. These compounds were prepared from pyrazolic difunctional compounds as starting materials, by reaction with salicylic acid, paracetamol and thiosemicarbazide respectively. Structure of all the prepared compounds confirmation were proved using (FT-IR), (1H-NMR) and (13C-NMR) spectra in addition to melting points. The screening of the antimicrobial activity of the pyrazolic derivatives was examined against different microorganisms in the present study. They were screened for their antimicrobial activities against gram positive bacteria, gram negative bacteria and Candida albicans. The synthesized compounds were found to exhibit high antibacterial and antifungal efficiency against several tested bacterial strains, using agar diffusion method and filter paper disc-diffusion method. Ampicillin was used as positive control for all strains except Candida albicans for which Nystatin was used. The obtained results reveal that the antibacterial activity of some pyrazolic derivatives is comparable to that observed for the control samples (Ampicilin and Nystatin), suggesting a strong antibacterial activity. The analysis of these results shows that synthesized products react on the surfaces cell walls that are disrupted. When these products are in contact with the bacteria, they damage the membrane, leading to the perturbation of different cellular processes and then leakage of cytoplasm, resulting in the death of the cells. The results will be presented in details. The obtained products constitute effective antibacterial agents and important compounds for biological systems.

Keywords: salicylic acid, antimicrobial activities, antioxidant activity, paracetamol, pyrazole, thiosemicarbazide

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Authors: Revalin Herdianto

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Recent climate changes increase uncertainties in vegetation conditions such as health and biomass globally and locally. The detection is, however, difficult due to the spatial and temporal scale of vegetation coverage. Due to unique vegetation response to its environmental conditions such as water availability, the interplay between vegetation dynamics and hydrologic conditions leave a signature in their feedback relationship. Vegetation indices (VI) depict vegetation biomass and photosynthetic capacity that indicate vegetation dynamics as a response to variables including hydrologic conditions and microclimate factors such as rainfall characteristics and land surface temperature (LST). It is hypothesized that the signature may be depicted by VI in its relationship with other variables. To study this signature, several catchments in Asia, Australia, and Indonesia were analysed to assess the variations in hydrologic characteristics with vegetation types. Methods used in this study includes geographic identification and pixel marking for studied catchments, analysing time series of VI and LST of the marked pixels, smoothing technique using Savitzky-Golay filter, which is effective for large area and extensive data. Time series of VI, LST, and rainfall from satellite and ground stations coupled with digital elevation models were analysed and presented. This study found that the hydrologic response of vegetation to rainfall variations may be shown in one hydrologic year, in which a drought event can be detected a year later as a suppressed growth. However, an annual rainfall of above average do not promote growth above average as shown by VI. This technique is found to be a robust and tractable approach for assessing catchment dynamics in changing climates.

Keywords: vegetation indices, land surface temperature, vegetation dynamics, catchment

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Authors: Eldar Mammadov, Konul Mammadova, Aytaj Ilyaszada

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Background: According to many studies, it is known that H. pylori transform into the coccoid form, which cannot be cultured and has poor metabolic activity.In this study, we succeeded in preserving the spiral shape of H.pylori for a long time by preparing a biphase transport medium with a hard bottom (Muller Hinton with 7% HRBC (horse red blood cells) agar 5ml) and liquid top part (BH (brain heart) broth + HS (horse serum)+7% HRBC+antibiotics (Vancomycin 5 mg, Trimethoprim lactate 25 mg, Polymyxin B 1250 I.U.)) in cell culture flasks with filter caps. For comparison, we also used a BH broth medium with 7% HRBC used for the transport of H.pylori. Methods: Rapid urease test positive 7 biopsy specimens were also inoculated into biphasic and BH broth medium with 7% HRBC, then put in CO2 Gaspak packages and sent to the laboratory. Then both mediums were kept in the thermostat at 37 °C for 1 day. After microscopic, PCR and urease test diagnosis, they were transferred to Columbia Agar with 7% HRBC. Incubated at 37°C for 5-7 days, cultures were examined for colony characteristics and bacterial morphology. E-test antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed. Results: There were 3 growths from biphasic transport medium passed to Columbia agar with 7% HRBC and only 1 growth from BH broth medium with 7% HRBC. It was also observed that after the first 3 days in BH broth medium with 7%, H.pylori passed into coccoid form and its biochemical activity weakened, while its spiral shape did not change for 2-3 weeks in the biphase transport medium. Conclusions: By using the biphase transport medium we have prepared; we can culture the bacterium by preventing H.pylori from spiraling into the coccoid form. In our opinion, this may result in the wide use of culture method for diagnosis of H.pylori, study of antibiotic susceptibility and molecular genetic analysis.

Keywords: clinical trial, H.pylori, coccoid form, transport medium

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Authors: Chi-Ching Lee, Po-Jung Huang, Kuo-Yang Huang, Petrus Tang

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Background: Recent advances in high-throughput research technologies such as new-generation sequencing and multi-dimensional liquid chromatography makes it possible to dissect the complete transcriptome and proteome in a single run for the first time. However, it is almost impossible for many laboratories to handle and analysis these “BIG” data without the support from a bioinformatics team. We aimed to provide a web-based analysis platform for users with only limited knowledge on bio-computing to study the functional genomics and proteomics. Method: We use NCI-60 as an example dataset to demonstrate the power of the web-based analysis platform and data delivering system: C-eXpress takes a simple text file that contain the standard NCBI gene or protein ID and expression levels (rpkm or fold) as input file to generate a distribution map of gene/protein expression levels in a heatmap diagram organized by color gradients. The diagram is hyper-linked to a dynamic html table that allows the users to filter the datasets based on various gene features. A dynamic summary chart is generated automatically after each filtering process. Results: We implemented an integrated database that contain pre-defined annotations such as gene/protein properties (ID, name, length, MW, pI); pathways based on KEGG and GO biological process; subcellular localization based on GO cellular component; functional classification based on GO molecular function, kinase, peptidase and transporter. Multiple ways of sorting of column and rows is also provided for comparative analysis and visualization of multiple samples.

Keywords: cancer, visualization, database, functional annotation

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Authors: Oyebade K. Oyedotun

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The cardiotocogram is a technical recording of the heartbeat rate and uterine contractions of a fetus during pregnancy. During pregnancy, several complications can occur to both the mother and the fetus; hence it is very crucial that medical experts are able to find technical means to check the healthiness of the mother and especially the fetus. It is very important that the fetus develops as expected in stages during the pregnancy period; however, the task of monitoring the health status of the fetus is not that which is easily achieved as the fetus is not wholly physically available to medical experts for inspection. Hence, doctors have to resort to some other tests that can give an indication of the status of the fetus. One of such diagnostic test is to obtain cardiotocograms of the fetus. From the analysis of the cardiotocograms, medical experts can determine the status of the fetus, and therefore necessary medical interventions. Generally, medical experts classify examined cardiotocograms into ‘normal’, ‘suspect’, or ‘pathological’. This work presents an artificial neural network based decision support system which can filter cardiotocograms data, producing the corresponding statuses of the fetuses. The capability of artificial neural network to explore the cardiotocogram data and learn features that distinguish one class from the others has been exploited in this research. In this research, feedforward and radial basis neural networks were trained on a publicly available database to classify the processed cardiotocogram data into one of the three classes: ‘normal’, ‘suspect’, or ‘pathological’. Classification accuracies of 87.8% and 89.2% were achieved during the test phase of the trained network for the feedforward and radial basis neural networks respectively. It is the hope that while the system described in this work may not be a complete replacement for a medical expert in fetus status evaluation, it can significantly reinforce the confidence in medical diagnosis reached by experts.

Keywords: decision support, cardiotocogram, classification, neural networks

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Authors: Lamees Nasser, Yago Diez, Robert Martí, Joan Martí, Ibrahim Sadek

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Automated 3D breast ultrasound (ABUS) screening is a novel modality in medical imaging because of its common characteristics shared with other ultrasound modalities in addition to the three orthogonal planes (i.e., axial, sagittal, and coronal) that are useful in analysis of tumors. In the literature, few automatic approaches exist for typical tasks such as segmentation or registration. In this work, we deal with two problems concerning ABUS images: nipple and rib detection. Nipple and ribs are the most visible and salient features in ABUS images. Determining the nipple position plays a key role in some applications for example evaluation of registration results or lesion follow-up. We present a nipple detection algorithm based on color and shape of the nipple, besides an automatic approach to detect the ribs. In point of fact, rib detection is considered as one of the main stages in chest wall segmentation. This approach consists of four steps. First, images are normalized in order to minimize the intensity variability for a given set of regions within the same image or a set of images. Second, the normalized images are smoothed by using anisotropic diffusion filter. Next, the ribs are detected in each slice by analyzing the eigenvalues of the 3D Hessian matrix. Finally, a breast mask and a probability map of regions detected as ribs are used to remove false positives (FP). Qualitative and quantitative evaluation obtained from a total of 22 cases is performed. For all cases, the average and standard deviation of the root mean square error (RMSE) between manually annotated points placed on the rib surface and detected points on rib borders are 15.1188 mm and 14.7184 mm respectively.

Keywords: Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound, Eigenvalues of Hessian matrix, Nipple detection, Rib detection

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Authors: Farhana Arefeen Mila, Luis Emilio Morales, Nam Hoang, Sujana Adapa, Garry Griffith

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This study investigates the existence of price transmission asymmetries and imperfections among the coastal and freshwater fish species in Bangladesh. Using a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model, we explore how price changes in one fish species impact the prices of others in the retail market. Monthly data from the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) covering the period from 2012 to 2023 was analyzed. Price series were detrended using the Hodrick-Prescott filter, and unit root tests confirmed stationarity after detrending. The findings indicate that there are significant interdependencies and asymmetries in price transmission, particularly the strong influence of Hilsha on the broader fish market. Hilsha’s price shocks generate immediate responses across other species, reflecting its cultural and economic importance. Silver Pomfret demonstrates some independence but is still affected by broader market fluctuations, particularly those involving Hilsha. Meanwhile, Rohu and Catla exhibit high interdependence, where price changes in one species closely impact the other, underscoring their substitutable nature in consumer preferences. These findings emphasize the need for joint interventions and market monitoring to stabilize prices effectively. Stakeholders are encouraged to monitor Hilsha’s market, consider coordinated interventions for Rohu and Catla, and establish data-sharing partnerships to enhance market stability. Additionally, promoting consumer awareness of price trends and sustainable practices can further support market resilience and long-term sustainability in the fisheries sector.

Keywords: price transmission, cross commodity, fish, Bangladesh, CCF, SVAR, IRF

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Authors: Saeed Yazdani, Sima Mohamadi Amidabadi, Amir Mohamadi Nejad, Farahnaz Nekoofar

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As a result of uncertainty and doubts about the quantity of agricultural products, greater significance has been attached to risk management in the agricultural sector. Normally, farmers seek to minimize risks, and crop diversity has always been a means to reduce risk. The study at hand seeks to explore the long-term impact of crop diversity on income risk reduction. The timeframe of the study is 1998 to 2018. Initially, the Herfindahl index was used to estimate crop diversity in different periods, and next, the Hodrick-Prescott filter was applied to estimate income risk both in nominal and real terms. Finally, using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), the long-term impact of crop diversity on two modes of risk for the farmer's income has been estimated. Given the long-term pattern’s results, it is evident that in the long-run, crop diversity can reduce income fluctuations in two nominal and real terms. Moreover, results showed that in case the fluctuation shock affects the agricultural income in the short run, to balance out the shock in nominal and real terms, 4 and 3 cycles are needed respectively. In other words, in each cycle, 25% and 33% of the shock impact can be removed, respectively. Thus, as the results of the error correction coefficient showed, policies need to be put in place to prevent income shocks. In case of a shock, they need to be balanced out in a four-year period, taking inflation into account, and in a three-year period irrespective of the inflation and reparative policies such as insurance services should be developed.

Keywords: risk, long-term model, Herfindahl index, time series model, vector error correction model

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Authors: Kai-Jui Kou, Tzu-Ling Shen, Ying-Fang Wang

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The objectives of the present study are to characterize nanoparticles generated from the different working type in 3D printing room and the stack flue during 3D printing process. The studied laboratory (10.5 m× 7.2 m × 3.2 m) with a ventilation rate of 500 m³/H is installed a 3D metal printing machine. Direct-reading instrument of a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS, Model 3082, TSI Inc., St. Paul, MN, USA) was used to conduct static sampling for nanoparticle number concentration and particle size distribution measurements. The SMPS obtained particle number concentration at every 3 minutes, the diameter of the SMPS ranged from 11~372 nm when the aerosol and sheath flow rates were set at 0.6 and 6 L/min, respectively. The concentrations of background, printing process, clearing operation, and screening operation were performed in the laboratory. On the other hand, we also conducted nanoparticle measurement on the 3D printing machine's stack flue to understand its emission characteristics. Results show that the nanoparticles emitted from the different operation process were the same distribution in the form of the uni-modal with number median diameter (NMD) as approximately 28.3 nm to 29.6 nm. The number concentrations of nanoparticles were 2.55×10³ count/cm³ in laboratory background, 2.19×10³ count/cm³ during printing process, 2.29×10³ count/cm³ during clearing process, 3.05×10³ count/cm³ during screening process, 2.69×10³ count/cm³ in laboratory background after printing process, and 6.75×10³ outside laboratory, respectively. We found that there are no emission nanoparticles during the printing process. However, the number concentration of stack flue nanoparticles in the ongoing print is 1.13×10⁶ count/cm³, and that of the non-printing is 1.63×10⁴ count/cm³, with a NMD of 458 nm and 29.4 nm, respectively. It can be confirmed that the measured particle size belongs to easily penetrate the filter in theory during the printing process, even though the 3D printer has a high-efficiency filtration device. Therefore, it is recommended that the stack flue of the 3D printer would be equipped with an appropriate dust collection device to prevent the operators from exposing these hazardous particles.

Keywords: nanoparticle, particle emission, 3D printing, number concentration

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Authors: Enyia James Diwa, Dodeye Ina Igbong, Archibong Archibong Eso

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Gas turbine operators have been faced with the dramatic financial setback resulting from compressor fouling. In a highly deregulated power industry where there is stiffness in the market competition, has made it imperative to improvise means of reducing maintenance cost in other to yield maximum profit. Compressor fouling results from the deposition of contaminants in the presence of oil and moisture on the compressor blade or annulus surfaces, which leads to a loss in flow capacity and compressor efficiency. These combined effects reduce power output, increase heat rate and cause creep life reduction. This paper also contains a model of two gas turbine engines via Cranfield University software known as TURBOMATCH, which is simulation software for detecting engine fouling rate. The model engines are of different configurations and capacities, and are operating in two different modes of constant output power and turbine inlet temperature for a two and three stage filter system. The idea is to investigate the more economically viable filtration systems by gas turbine users based on performance only. It has been demonstrated in the results that the two spool engine is a little more beneficial compared to the single spool. This is as a result of a higher pressure ratio of the two spools as well as the deceleration of the high-pressure compressor and high-pressure turbine speed in a constant TET. Meanwhile, the inlet filtration system was properly designed and balanced with a well-timed and economical compressor washing regime/scheme to control compressor fouling. The different technologies of inlet air filtration and compressor washing are considered and an attempt at optimization with respect to the cost of a combination of both control measures are made.

Keywords: inlet filtration, pressure loss, single spool, two spool

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Authors: Jinsiang Shaw, Sheng-Xiang Xu

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This paper presents the development of an autonomous automated guided vehicle (AGV) with a robot arm attached on top of it within the framework of robot operation system (ROS). ROS can provide libraries and tools, including hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, etc. For this reason, this AGV can provide automatic navigation and parts transportation and pick-and-place task using robot arm for typical industrial production line use. More specifically, this AGV will be controlled by an on-board host computer running ROS software. Command signals for vehicle and robot arm control and measurement signals from various sensors are transferred to respective microcontrollers. Users can operate the AGV remotely through the TCP / IP protocol and perform SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). An RGBD camera and LIDAR sensors are installed on the AGV, using these data to perceive the environment. For SLAM, Gmapping is used to construct the environment map by Rao-Blackwellized particle filter; and AMCL method (Adaptive Monte Carlo localization) is employed for mobile robot localization. In addition, current AGV position and orientation can be visualized by ROS toolkit. As for robot navigation and obstacle avoidance, A* for global path planning and dynamic window approach for local planning are implemented. The developed ROS AGV with a robot arm on it has been experimented in the university factory. A 2-D and 3-D map of the factory were successfully constructed by the SLAM method. Base on this map, robot navigation through the factory with and without dynamic obstacles are shown to perform well. Finally, pick-and-place of parts using robot arm and ensuing delivery in the factory by the mobile robot are also accomplished.

Keywords: automated guided vehicle, navigation, robot operation system, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

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Authors: Jinan Fiaidhi, Sabah Mohammed, Petros Zezos

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Capsule endoscopy (CE) is an established noninvasive diagnostic modality in investigating small bowel disease. CE has a pivotal role in assessing patients with suspected bleeding or identifying evidence of active Crohn's disease in the small bowel. However, CE produces lengthy videos with at least eighty thousand frames, with a frequency rate of 2 frames per second. Gastroenterologists cannot dedicate 8 to 15 hours to reading the CE video frames to arrive at a diagnosis. This is why the issue of analyzing CE videos based on modern artificial intelligence techniques becomes a necessity. However, machine learning, including deep learning, has failed to report robust results because of the lack of large samples to train its neural nets. In this paper, we are describing a thick data approach that learns from a few anchor images. We are using sound datasets like KVASIR and CrohnIPI to filter candidate frames that include interesting anomalies in any CE video. We are identifying candidate frames based on feature extraction to provide representative measures of the anomaly, like the size of the anomaly and the color contrast compared to the image background, and later feed these features to a decision tree that can classify the candidate frames as having a condition like the Crohn's Disease. Our thick data approach reported accuracy of detecting Crohn's Disease based on the availability of ulcer areas at the candidate frames for KVASIR was 89.9% and for the CrohnIPI was 83.3%. We are continuing our research to fine-tune our approach by adding more thick data methods for enhancing diagnosis accuracy.

Keywords: thick data analytics, capsule endoscopy, Crohn’s disease, siamese neural network, decision tree

Procedia PDF Downloads 156

Authors: Andrea Tonoli, Nicola Amati, Maria Cavatorta, Reza Mirsanei, Behzad Mozaffari, Hamed Ahani, Akbar Karamihafshejani, Mohammad Ghazivakili, Mohammad Abuabiah

Abstract:

The vibrations transmitted to the drivers and passengers through vehicle seat seriously effect on the level of their attention, fatigue and physical health and reduce the comfort and efficiency of the occupants. Recently, some researchers have focused on vibrations at low excitation frequency(0.5-5 Hz) which are considered to be the main risk factors for lumbar part of the backbone but they were not applicable to A and B-segment cars regarding to the size and weight. A semi-active system with two symmetric negative stiffness structures (NSS) in parallel to a positive stiffness structure and actuators has been proposed to attenuate low frequency excitation and makes system flexible regarding to different weight of passengers which is applicable for A and B-Segment cars. Here, the 3 degree of freedom system is considered, dynamic equation clearly is presented, then simulated in MATLAB in order to analysis of performance of the system. The design procedure is derived so that the resonance peak of frequency–response curve shift to the left, the isolating range is increased and especially, the peak of the frequency–response curve is minimized. According to ISO standard different class of road profile as an input is applied to the system to evaluate the performance of the system. To evaluate comfort issues, we extract the RMS value of the vertical acceleration acting on the passenger's body. Then apply the band-pass filter, which takes into account the human sensitivity to acceleration. According to ISO, this weighted acceleration is lower than 0.315 m/s^2, so the ride is considered as comfortable.

Keywords: low frequency excitation, negative stiffness, seat vehicle, vibration isolation

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Authors: Syed Asif Hassan, Syed Atif Hassan

Abstract:

Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is an infection caused by the resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that do not respond either to isoniazid or rifampicin, which are the most important anti-TB drugs. The increase in the occurrence of a drug-resistance strain of MTB calls for an intensive search of novel target-based therapeutics. In this context LprG (Rv1411c) a lipoprotein from MTB plays a pivotal role in the immune evasion of Mtb leading to survival and propagation of the bacterium within the host cell. Therefore, a machine learning method will be developed for generating a computational model that could predict for a potential anti LprG activity of the novel antituberculosis compound. The present study will utilize dataset from PubChem database maintained by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The dataset involves compounds screened against MTB were categorized as active and inactive based upon PubChem activity score. PowerMV, a molecular descriptor generator, and visualization tool will be used to generate the 2D molecular descriptors for the actives and inactive compounds present in the dataset. The 2D molecular descriptors generated from PowerMV will be used as features. We feed these features into three different classifiers, namely, random forest, a deep neural network, and a recurring neural network, to build separate predictive models and choosing the best performing model based on the accuracy of predicting novel antituberculosis compound with an anti LprG activity. Additionally, the efficacy of predicted active compounds will be screened using SMARTS filter to choose molecule with drug-like features.

Keywords: antituberculosis drug, classifier, machine learning, molecular descriptors, prediction

Procedia PDF Downloads 391

Authors: T. Obateru, Samuel Olaniran

Abstract:

In an era when the new media is affording easy access to packaging and dissemination of information, the social media have become a popular avenue for sharing information for good or ill. It is evident that the traditional role of journalists as ‘news breakers’ is fast being eroded. People now share information on happenings via the social media like Facebook, Twitter and the rest, such that journalists themselves now get leads on happenings from such sources. Beyond the access to information provided by the new media is the erosion of the gatekeeping role of journalists who by their training and calling, are supposed to handle information with responsibility. Thus, sensitive information that journalists would normally filter is randomly shared by social media activists. This was the experience of journalists in Jos, Plateau State in January 2010 when another of the recurring ethnoreligious crisis that engulfed the state resulted in another widespread killing, vandalism, looting, and displacements. Considered as one of the high points of crises in the state, journalists who had the duty of covering the crisis also relied on some of these sources to get their bearing on the violence. This paper examined the role of Facebook in the work of journalists who covered the 2010 crisis. Taking the gatekeeping perspective, it interrogated the extent to which Facebook impacted their professional duty positively or negatively vis-à-vis the peace journalism model. It employed survey to elicit information from 50 journalists who covered the crisis using questionnaire as instrument. The paper revealed that the dissemination of hate information via mobile phones and social media, especially Facebook, aggravated the crisis situation. Journalists became news followers rather than news breakers because a lot of them were put on their toes by information (many of which were inaccurate or false) circulated on Facebook. It recommended that journalists must remain true to their calling by upholding their ‘gatekeeping’ role of disseminating only accurate and responsible information if they would remain the main source of credible information on which their audience rely.

Keywords: crisis, ethnoreligious, Facebook, journalists

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Authors: Ammarah Irum, Muhammad Ali Tahir

Abstract:

Document-level sentiment analysis in Urdu is a challenging Natural Language Processing (NLP) task due to the difficulty of working with lengthy texts in a language with constrained resources. Deep learning models, which are complex neural network architectures, are well-suited to text-based applications in addition to data formats like audio, image, and video. To investigate the potential of deep learning for Urdu sentiment analysis, we implemented five different deep learning models, including Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BiLSTM), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Convolutional Neural Network with Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (CNN-BiLSTM), and Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformer (BERT). In this study, we developed a hybrid deep learning model called BiLSTM-Single Layer Multi Filter Convolutional Neural Network (BiLSTM-SLMFCNN) by fusing BiLSTM and CNN architecture. The proposed and baseline techniques are applied on Urdu Customer Support data set and IMDB Urdu movie review data set by using pre-trained Urdu word embedding that are suitable for sentiment analysis at the document level. Results of these techniques are evaluated and our proposed model outperforms all other deep learning techniques for Urdu sentiment analysis. BiLSTM-SLMFCNN outperformed the baseline deep learning models and achieved 83%, 79%, 83% and 94% accuracy on small, medium and large sized IMDB Urdu movie review data set and Urdu Customer Support data set respectively.

Keywords: urdu sentiment analysis, deep learning, natural language processing, opinion mining, low-resource language

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Authors: Lidija Trandafilovic, Kirsten Leistner, Marie Stenfeldt, Louise Olsson

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Ammonia Selective Catalytic Reduction (NH3 SCR), is one of the most efficient post combustion abatement technologies for removing NOx from diesel engines. In order to remove soot, diesel particulate filters (DPF) are used. Recently, SCR coated filters have been introduced, which captures soot and simultaneously is active for ammonia SCR. There are large advantages with using SCR coated filters, such as decreased volume and also better light off characteristics, since both the SCR function as well as filter function is close to the engine. The objective of this work was to examine the effect of soot, produced using an engine bench, on Cu/SSZ-13 catalysts. The impact of soot on Cu/SSZ-13 in standard SCR, NH3 oxidation, NH3 temperature programmed desorption (TPD), as well as soot oxidation (with and without water) was examined using flow reactor measurements. In all experiments, prior to the soot loading, the fresh activity of Cu/SSZ-13 was recorded with stepwise increasing the temperature from 100°C till 600°C. Thereafter, the sample was loaded with soot and the experiment was repeated in the temperature range from 100°C till 700°C. The amount of CO and CO2 produced in each experiment is used to calculate the soot oxidized at each steady state temperature. The soot oxidized during the heating to next temperature step is included, e.g. the CO+CO2 produced when increasing the temperature to 600°C is added to the 600°C step. The influence of the two factors seem to be of the most importance to soot oxidation: ammonia and water. The influence of water on soot oxidation shift the maximum of CO2 and CO production towards lower temperatures, thus water increases the soot oxidation. Moreover, when adding ammonia to the system it is clear that the soot oxidation is lowered in the presence of ammonia, resulting in larger integrated COx at 500°C for O2+H2O, while opposite results at 600 °C was received where more was oxidised for O2+H2O+NH3 case. To conclude the presence of ammonia reduces the soot oxidation, which is in line with the ammonia TPD results where we found ammonia storage on the soot. Interestingly, during ammonia SCR conditions the activity for soot oxidation is regained at 500°C. At this high temperature the SCR zone is very short, thus the majority of the catalyst is not exposed to ammonia and therefore the inhibition effect of ammonia is not observed.

Keywords: NH3-SCR, Cu/SSZ-13, soot, zeolite

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Authors: A. Aljohani, D. Burke, D. Clarke, M. Gormally, M. Byrne, G. Fleming

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Introduction: House Dust Mites (HDMs) are a source of allergen particles embedded in textiles and furnishings. Vacuum sampling is commonly used to recover and determine the abundance of HDMs but the efficiency of this method is less than standardized. Here, the efficiency of recovery of HDMs was evaluated from home-associated textiles using vacuum sampling protocols.Methods/Approach: Living Mites (LMs) or dead Mites (DMs) House Dust Mites (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus: FERA, UK) were separately seeded onto the surfaces of Smooth Cotton, Denim and Fleece (25 mites/10x10cm2 squares) and left for 10 minutes before vacuuming. Fabrics were vacuumed (SKC Flite 2 pump) at a flow rate of 14 L/min for 60, 90 or 120 seconds and the number of mites retained by the filter (0.4μm x 37mm) unit was determined. Vacuuming was carried out in a linear direction (Protocol 1) or in a multidirectional pattern (Protocol 2). Additional fabrics with LMs were also frozen and then thawed, thereby euthanizing live mites (now termed EMs). Results/Findings: While there was significantly greater (p=0.000) recovery of mites (76% greater) in fabrics seeded with DMs than LMs irrespective of vacuuming protocol or fabric type, the efficiency of recovery of DMs (72%-76%) did not vary significantly between fabrics. For fabrics containing EMs, recovery was greatest for Smooth Cotton and Denim (65-73% recovered) and least for Fleece (15% recovered). There was no significant difference (p=0.99) between the recovery of mites across all three mite categories from Smooth Cotton and Denim but significantly fewer (p=0.000) mites were recovered from Fleece. Scanning Electron Microscopy images of HMD-seeded fabrics showed that live mites burrowed deeply into the Fleece weave which reduced their efficiency of recovery by vacuuming. Research Implications: Results presented here have implications for the recovery of HDMs by vacuuming and the choice of fabric to ameliorate HDM-dust sensitization.

Keywords: allergy, asthma, dead, fabric, fleece, live mites, sampling

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Mansoor Soomro

Abstract:

The evolution of power electronic equipment has been pivotal in making industrial processes productive, efficient and safe. Despite its attractive features, it has been due to nonlinear loads which make it vulnerable to power quality conditions. Harmonics is one of the power quality problem in which the harmonic frequency is integral multiple of supply frequency. Therefore, the supply voltage and supply frequency do not last within their tolerable limits. As a result, distorted current and voltage waveform may appear. Attributes of low power quality confirm that an electrical device or equipment is likely to malfunction, fail promptly or unable to operate under all applied conditions. The electrical power system is designed for delivering power reliably, namely maximizing power availability to customers. However, power quality events are largely untracked, and as a result, can take out a process as many as 20 to 30 times a year, costing utilities, customers and suppliers of load equipment, a loss of millions of dollars. The ill effects of current harmonics reduce system efficiency, cause overheating of connected equipment, result increase in electrical power and air conditioning costs. With the passage of time and the rapid growth of power electronic converters has highlighted the damages of current harmonics in the electrical power system. Therefore, it has become essential to address the bad influence of current harmonics while planning any suitable changes in the electrical installations. In this paper, an effort has been made to mitigate the effects of dominant 3rd order current harmonics. Passive filtering technique with six pulse multiplication converter has been employed to mitigate them. Since, the standards of power quality are to maintain the supply voltage and supply current within certain prescribed standard limits. For this purpose, the obtained results are validated as per specifications of IEEE 519-1992 and IEEE 519-2014 performance standards.

Keywords: current harmonics, power quality, passive filters, power electronic converters

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Authors: Tafadzwa Makonese, Harold Annegarn, Patricia Forbes

Abstract:

Residential coal combustion is one of the largest sources of carbonaceous aerosols in the Highveld region of South Africa, significantly affecting the local and regional climate. In this study, we investigated single coal burning particles emitted when using different fire-ignition techniques (top-lit up-draft vs bottom-lit up-draft) and air ventilation rates (defined by the number of air holes above and below the fire grate) in selected informal braziers. Aerosol samples were collected on nucleopore filters at the SeTAR Centre Laboratory, University of Johannesburg. Individual particles (~700) were investigated using a scanning electron microscope equipped with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Two distinct forms of spherical organic particles (SOPs) were identified, one less oxidized than the other. The particles were further classified into "electronically" dark and bright, according to China et al. [2014]. EDS analysis showed that 70% of the dark spherical organic particles balls had higher (~60%) relative oxygen content than in the bright SOPs. We quantify the morphology of spherical organic particles and classify them into four categories: ~50% are bare single particles; ~35% particles are aggregated and form diffusion accretion chains; 10% have inclusions; and 5% are deformed due to impaction on filter material during sampling. We conclude that there are two distinct kinds of coal burning spherical organic particles and that dark SOPs are less volatile than bright SOPs. We also show that these spherical organic particles are similar in nature and characteristics to tar balls observed in biomass combustion, and that they have the potential to absorb sunlight thereby affecting the earth’s radiative budget and climate. This study provides insights on the mixing states, morphology, and possible formation mechanisms of these organic particles from residential coal combustion in informal stoves.

Keywords: spherical organic particles, residential coal combustion, fixed-bed, aerosols, morphology, stoves

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Authors: Kashif Habib, Zeeshan Ayyub

Abstract:

ZnO voltage dependent resistor was widely used as components of the electrical system for over-voltage protection. It has a wide application prospect in superconducting energy-removal, generator de-excitation, overvoltage protection of electrical & electronics equipment. At present, the research for the application of ZnO voltage dependent resistor stop, it uses just in the field of its nonlinear voltage current characteristic and overvoltage protection areas. There is no further study over the over-voltage breakdown characteristics, such as the combustion phenomena and the measure of the voltage/current when it breakdown, and the affect to its surrounding equipment. It is also a blind spot in its application. So, when we do the feature test of ZnO voltage dependent resistor, we need to design a reasonable test power supply, making the terminal voltage keep for sine wave, simulating the real use of PF voltage in power supply conditions. We put forward the solutions of using inverter to generate a controllable power. The paper mainly focuses on the breakdown characteristic test power supply of nonlinear ZnO voltage dependent resistor. According to the current mature switching power supply technology, we proposed power control system using the inverter as the core. The power mainly realize the sin-voltage output on the condition of three-phase PF-AC input, and 3 control modes (RMS, Peak, Average) of the current output. We choose TMS320F2812M as the control part of the hardware platform. It is used to convert the power from three-phase to a controlled single-phase sin-voltage through a rectifier, filter, and inverter. Design controller produce SPWM, to get the controlled voltage source via appropriate multi-loop control strategy, while execute data acquisition and display, system protection, start logic control, etc. The TMS320F2812M is able to complete the multi-loop control quickly and can be a good completion of the inverter output control.

Keywords: ZnO, multi-loop control, SPWM, non-linear load

Procedia PDF Downloads 325