Search results for: as-recorded seismic sequences

Authors: Atef Ibrahim, Hamed Elsimary, Abdullah Aljumah, Fayez Gebali

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This paper presents a novel semi-systolic array architecture for an optimized parallel sequence alignment algorithm. This architecture has the advantage that it can be modified to be reused for multiple pass processing in order to increase the number of processing elements that can be packed into a single FPGA and to increase the number of sequences that can be aligned in parallel in a single FPGA. This resolves the potential problem of many FPGA resources left unused for designs that have large values of short read length. When using the previously published conventional hardware design. FPGA implementation results show that, for large values of short read lengths (M>128), the proposed design has a slightly higher speed up and FPGA utilization over the the conventional one.

Keywords: bioinformatics, genome sequence alignment, re-sequencing applications, systolic array

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Authors: B. Kishore Kumar, Rakesh Pogula, T. Kishore Kumar

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The steepness of an audio signal which is produced by the musical instruments, specifically percussive instruments is the perception of how high tone or low tone which can be considered as a frequency closely related to the fundamental frequency. This paper presents a novel method for silence removal and segmentation of music signals produced by the percussive instruments and the performance of proposed method is studied with the help of MATLAB simulations. This method is based on two simple features, namely the signal energy and the spectral centroid. As long as the feature sequences are extracted, a simple thresholding criterion is applied in order to remove the silence areas in the sound signal. The simulations were carried on various instruments like drum, flute and guitar and results of the proposed method were analyzed.

Keywords: percussive instruments, spectral energy, spectral centroid, silence removal

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Authors: K. Passbakhsh

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Determination of reinforcement forces is one of the most important and main discussions in designing retaining walls. By determining these forces we refrain from conservative planning. By numerically modeling the reinforced soil retaining walls under dynamic loading reinforcement forces can be calculated. In this study we try to approach the gained forces by pseudo-static method according to FHWA code and gained forces from numerical modeling by finite element method, by selecting seismic horizontal coefficient for different wall height. PLAXIS software was used for numerical analysis. Then the effect of reinforcement stiffness and soil type on reinforcement forces is examined.

Keywords: reinforced soil, PLAXIS, reinforcement forces, retaining walls

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Authors: Jiahe Liu, HongyangYu, Feng Qian, Miao Luo

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This study aimed to address the problem of improving the confidence of key points by fusing multi-view information, thereby estimating human posture more accurately. We first obtained multi-view image information and then used the MvP algorithm to fuse this multi-view information together to obtain a set of high-confidence human key points. We used these as the input for the Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolution (ST-GCN). ST-GCN is a deep learning model used for processing spatio-temporal data, which can effectively capture spatio-temporal relationships in video sequences. By using the MvP algorithm to fuse multi-view information and inputting it into the spatio-temporal graph convolution model, this study provides an effective method to improve the accuracy of human posture estimation and provides strong support for further research and application in related fields.

Keywords: multi-view, pose estimation, ST-GCN, joint fusion

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Authors: Yavuz Yardim

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FRP systems have been largely used to improve the performance of structural members, due to their high strength to weight ratio and corrosion resistance. Application of this strengthening procedure in circular columns has resulted quite beneficial in increasing their seismic and axial capacity. Whereas in the rectangular ones, strength enhancement was considerably less due to stress concentration in the corner. In this work three anchorage configurations are tested for their efficiency in increasing the uniformity of confinement pressure in the CFRP strengthened non-circular sections. There is a slight increase in the axial strength of specimens as a general trend. More specifically fan anchorage reached an increase of 17.5% compared to the unanchored specimens. The study shows that uniformity of confining pressure has increased by adding anchorage.

Keywords: rectangular columns, FRP, confinement, anchorage

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Authors: H. Sezgin, O. B. Berkalp, R. Mishra, J. Militky

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In the last few decades, due to their advanced properties, there has been an increasing interest in hybrid composite materials. In this study, the effect of different stacking sequences of jute and carbon fabric plies on dynamic mechanical properties of composite laminates were investigated. Vacuum bagging system was used to fabricate the composite samples. Each composite laminate was reinforced with two plies of jute fabric and two plies of carbon fabric by varying the position of layers. Dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) was used to examine the dynamic mechanical properties of composite laminates with increasing temperature. Results showed that the composite sample, which has carbon fabric at the outer layers, has the highest storage and loss modulus. Besides, it was observed that glass transition temperature (T_g) of samples are close to each other and at about 75 °C.

Keywords: differential scanning calorimetry dynamic mechanical analysis, textile reinforced composites, thermogravimetric analysis

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Authors: Yasser M. Saad, Heba El-Sebaie Abd El-Sadek

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Some Metapenaeus monoceros cox1 gene fragments were isolated, purified, sequenced, and comparatively analyzed with some other Crustacean Cox1 gene sequences (obtained from National Center for Biotechnology Information). This work was designed for testing the efficiency of this system in reconstruction of phylogenetic relations among some Crustacean species belonging to four genera (Metapenaeus, Artemia, Daphnia and Calanus). The single nucleotide polymorphism and haplotype diversity were calculated for all estimated mt-DNA fragments. The genetic distance values were 0.292, 0.015, 0.151, and 0.09 within Metapenaeus species, Calanus species, Artemia species, and Daphnia species, respectively. The reconstructed phylogenetic tree is clustered into some unique clades. Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 gene (cox1) was a powerful system in reconstruction of phylogenetic relations among evaluated crustacean species.

Keywords: crustaceans, genetics, Cox1, phylogeny

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Authors: Reem Alajmi, Hind Al Harbi, Tahany Ayaad, Zainab Al Musawi

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Hard ticks Hyalomma spp. (family: Ixodidae) are obligate ectoparasite in their all life stages on some domestic animals mainly camels and cattle. Ticks may lead to many economic and public health problems because of their blood feeding behavior. Also, they act as vectors for many bacterial, viral and protozoan agents which may cause serious diseases such as tick-born encephalitis, Rocky-mountain spotted fever, Q-fever and Lyme disease which can affect human and/or animals. In the present study, molecular identification of ticks that attack camels in Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia based on the partial sequence of mitochondrial 16s rRNA gene was applied. Also, the present study aims to detect natural infections of collected camel ticks with Rickessia spp. and Borelia spp. using PCR/hybridization of Citrate synthase encoding gene present in bacterial cells. Hard ticks infesting camels were collected from different camels located in a farm in Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia. Results of the present study showed that the collected specimens belong to two species: Hyalomma dromedari represent 99% of the identified specimens and Hyalomma marginatum which account for 1 % of identified ticks. The molecular identification was made through blasting the obtained sequence of this study with sequences already present and identified in GeneBank. All obtained sequences of H. dromedarii specimens showed 97-100% identity with the same gene sequence of the same species (Accession # L34306.1) which was used as a reference. Meanwhile, no intraspecific variations of H. marginatum mesured because only one specimen was collected. Results also had shown that the intraspecific variability between individuals of H. dromedarii obtained in 92 % of samples ranging from 0.2- 6.6%, while the remaining 7 % of the total samples of H. dromedarii showed about 10.3 % individual differences. However, the interspecific variability between H. dromedarii and H. marginatum was approximately 18.3 %. On the other hand, by using the technique of PCR/hybridization, we could detect natural infection of camel ticks with Rickettsia spp. and Borrelia spp. Results revealed the natural presence of both bacteria in collected ticks. Rickettsial spp. infection present in 29% of collected ticks, while 35% of collected specimen were infected with Borrelia spp. The valuable results obtained from the present study are a new record for the molecular identification of camel ticks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and their natural infection with both Rickettsia spp. and Borrelia spp. These results may help scientists to provide a good and direct control strategy of ticks in order to protect one of the most important economic animals which are camels. Also results of this project spotlight on the disease that might be transmitted by ticks to put out a direct protective plan to prevent spreading of these dangerous agents. Further molecular studies are needed to confirm the results of the present study by using other mitochondrial and nuclear genes for tick identification.

Keywords: Camel ticks, Rickessia spp. , Borelia spp. , mitochondrial 16s rRNA gene

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Authors: Wan-Hsin Hsieh, Chieh-Fu Chang, Ming-Seng Kao

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In this paper, a novel method termed the Phase Coherence Acquisition (PCA) is proposed for pseudo-random (PN) sequence acquisition. By employing complex phasors, the PCA requires only complex additions in the order of N, the length of the sequence, whereas the conventional method utilizing fast Fourier transform (FFT) requires complex multiplications and additions both in the order of Nlog2N . In order to combat noise, the input and local sequences are partitioned and mapped into complex phasors in PCA. The phase differences between pairs of input and local phasors are utilized for acquisition, and thus complex multiplications are avoided. For more noise-robustness capability, the multi-layer PCA is developed to extract the code phase step by step. The significant reduction of computational loads makes the PCA an attractive method, especially when the sequence length of is extremely large which becomes intractable for the FFT-based acquisition.

Keywords: FFT, PCA, PN sequence, convolution theory

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Authors: Tahir Majeed, Michael Handschuh, René Meier

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Rheumatoid arthritis patients have swelling and pain at the joints of the hand. The regions where the patient feels pain also show increased body temperature. Thermal cameras can be used to detect the rise in temperature of the affected regions. To monitor the disease progression of rheumatoid arthritis patients, they must visit the clinic regularly for scanning and examination. After scanning and evaluation, the dosage of the medicine is regulated accordingly. To monitor the disease progression over time, the correlation between the images between different visits must be established. It has been observed that by using low-cost thermal cameras, the thermal measurements do not remain the same over time, even within a single scanning. In some situations, temperatures can vary as much as 2°C within the same scanning sequence. In this paper, it has been shown that although the absolute temperature varies over time, the relative difference between the different regions remains similar. Results have been computed over four scanning sequences and are presented.

Keywords: relative thermal difference, rheumatoid arthritis, thermal imaging, thermal sensors

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Authors: Khald Anisse, Amina Radgui, Mohammed Rziza

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Tracking objects on video sequences is a very challenging task in many works in computer vision applications. However, there is no article that treats this topic in catadioptric vision. This paper is an attempt that tries to describe a new approach of omnidirectional images processing based on inverse stereographic projection in the half-sphere. We used the spherical model proposed by Gayer and al. For object tracking, our work is based on snake method, with optimization using the Greedy algorithm, by adapting its different operators. The algorithm will respect the deformed geometries of omnidirectional images such as spherical neighborhood, spherical gradient and reformulation of optimization algorithm on the spherical domain. This tracking method that we call "spherical snake" permitted to know the change of the shape and the size of object in different replacements in the spherical image.

Keywords: computer vision, spherical snake, omnidirectional image, object tracking, inverse stereographic projection

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Authors: Ming-Hsiang Shih, Wen-Pei Sung, Shih-Heng Tung

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Semi-active control system for structure under excitation of earthquake provides with the characteristics of being adaptable and requiring low energy. DSHD (Displacement Semi-Active Hydraulic Damper) was developed by our research team. Shake table test results of this DSHD installed in full scale test structure demonstrated that this device brought its energy-dissipating performance into full play for test structure under excitation of earthquake. The objective of this research is to develop a new AIC (Active Interaction Control Device) and apply shake table test to perform its dissipation of energy capability. This new proposed AIC is converting an improved DSHD (Displacement Semi-Active Hydraulic Damper) to AIC with the addition of an accumulator. The main concept of this energy-dissipating AIC is to apply the interaction function of affiliated structure (sub-structure) and protected structure (main structure) to transfer the input seismic force into sub-structure to reduce the structural deformation of main structure. This concept is tested using full-scale multi-degree of freedoms test structure, installed with this proposed AIC subjected to external forces of various magnitudes, for examining the shock absorption influence of predictive control, stiffness of sub-structure, synchronous control, non-synchronous control and insufficient control position. The test results confirm: (1) this developed device is capable of diminishing the structural displacement and acceleration response effectively; (2) the shock absorption of low precision of semi-active control method did twice as much seismic proof efficacy as that of passive control method; (3) active control method may not exert a negative influence of amplifying acceleration response of structure; (4) this AIC comes into being time-delay problem. It is the same problem of ordinary active control method. The proposed predictive control method can overcome this defect; (5) condition switch is an important characteristics of control type. The test results show that synchronism control is very easy to control and avoid stirring high frequency response. This laboratory results confirm that the device developed in this research is capable of applying the mutual interaction between the subordinate structure and the main structure to be protected is capable of transforming the quake energy applied to the main structure to the subordinate structure so that the objective of minimizing the deformation of main structural can be achieved.

Keywords: DSHD (Displacement Semi-Active Hydraulic Damper), AIC (Active Interaction Control Device), shake table test, full scale structure test, sub-structure, main-structure

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Authors: Shahzad Bhattiab, M. Aslamkhana, Sana Abbasbc, Marcella Attimonellid, Kumarasamy Thangaraje, Erica Martinha Silva de Souzaf, Uzay U. Sezen

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The present study was designed to investigate three regions of mitochondrial DNA, HVI, HVII and HVIII, to hold a powwow genetic diversity and affiliations in 115 probands of 6 major ethnic groups, viz., Bijarani, Chandio, Ghallu, Khoso, Nasrani and Solangi, in the province of Sindh of Pakistan. For this purpose 88 haplotypes were scrutinized, defined by particular set of nucleotides (ignoring the C insertions around position 309 and 315). In spite of that 82% sequences were observed once, 12 % twice and 5.2 % thrice. The most common South Asian haplotypes were observed M (42%), N (6.9%) and R (6.9%) whereas west Eurasian haplotypes were J (1.7%), U (23.4%), H (9.5%), W (6.9%) and T (0.86%), in six ethnic groups. A random match probability between two unrelated individuals was found 0.06 %, while genetic diversity was ranged to be 0.991 to 0.999, and nucleotide diversity ranged from 0.0089 to 0.0142 for the whole control region of the population studied.

Keywords: mtDNA haplogroups, control region, Pakistan, Sindh, ethnicity

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Authors: Mustapha Benssalah, Mustapha Djeddou, Karim Drouiche

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The random number generation (RNG) presents a significant importance for the security and the privacy of numerous applications, such as RFID technology and smart cards. Since, the quality of the generated bit sequences is paramount that a weak internal generator for example, can directly cause the entire application to be insecure, and thus it makes no sense to employ strong algorithms for the application. In this paper, we propose a new pseudo random number generator (PRNG), suitable for cryptosystems ECC-based, constructed by randomly selecting points from several elliptic curves randomly selected. The main contribution of this work is the increasing of the generator internal states by extending the set of its output realizations to several curves auto-selected. The quality and the statistical characteristics of the proposed PRNG are validated using the Chi-square goodness of fit test and the empirical Special Publication 800-22 statistical test suite issued by NIST.

Keywords: PRNG, security, cryptosystem, ECC

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Authors: Anastasia V. Kovaleva, Alena A. Ryabova, Vladimir N. Kasatkin

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Background: The most simple form of entrainment to a sensory (typically auditory) rhythmic stimulus involves perceiving and synchronizing movements with an isochronous beat with one level of periodicity, such as that produced by a metronome. Children with pediatric cancer usually treated with chemo- and radiotherapy. Because of such treatment, psychologists and health professionals declare cognitive and motor abilities decline in cancer patients. The purpose of our study was to measure working memory characteristics with association with audio-motor synchronization tasks, also involved some memory resources, in children with different degrees of central nervous system lesions: posterior fossa tumors, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and healthy controls. Methods: Our sample consisted of three groups of children: children treated for posterior fossa tumors (PFT-group, n=42, mean age 12.23), children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL-group, n=11, mean age 11.57) and neurologically healthy children (control group, n=36, mean age 11.67). Participants were tested for working memory characteristics with Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Pattern recognition memory (PRM) and spatial working memory (SWM) tests were applied. Outcome measures of PRM test include the number and percentage of correct trials and latency (speed of participant’s response), and measures of SWM include errors, strategy, and latency. In the synchronization tests, the instruction was to tap out a regular beat (40, 60, 90 and 120 beats per minute) in synchrony with the rhythmic sequences that were played. This meant that for the sequences with an isochronous beat, participants were required to tap into every auditory event. Variations of inter-tap-intervals and deviations of children’s taps from the metronome were assessed. Results: Analysis of variance revealed the significant effect of group (ALL, PFT and control) on such parameters as short-term PRM, SWM strategy and errors. Healthy controls demonstrated more correctly retained elements, better working memory strategy, compared to cancer patients. Interestingly that ALL patients chose the bad strategy, but committed significantly less errors in SWM test then PFT and controls did. As to rhythmic ability, significant associations of working memory were found out only with 40 bpm rhythm: the less variable were inter-tap-intervals of the child, the more elements in memory he/she could retain. The ability to audio-motor synchronization may be related to working memory processes mediated by the prefrontal cortex whereby each sensory event is actively retrieved and monitored during rhythmic sequencing. Conclusion: Our results suggest that working memory, tested with appropriate cognitive methods, is associated with the ability to synchronize movements with rhythmic sounds, especially in sub-second intervals (40 per minute).

Keywords: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), audio-motor synchronization, posterior fossa tumor, working memory

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Authors: Mahtab Abdollahi Sarvi, Siamak Epackachi, Ali Imanpour

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Reinforced concrete shear walls are commonly used as the lateral load-resisting system of mid- to high-rise office or residential buildings around the world. Design of such systems is often governed by wind rather than seismic effects, in particular in low-to-moderate seismic regions. The current design philosophy as per the majority of building codes under wind loads require elastic response of lateral load-resisting systems including reinforced concrete shear walls when subjected to the rare design wind load, resulting in significantly large wall sections needed to meet strength requirements and drift limits. The latter can highly influence the design in upper stories due to stringent drift limits specified by building codes, leading to substantial added costs to the construction of the wall. However, such walls may offer limited to moderate over-strength and ductility due to their large reserve capacity provided that they are designed and detailed to appropriately develop such over-strength and ductility under extreme wind loads. This would significantly contribute to reducing construction time and costs, while maintaining structural integrity under gravity and frequently-occurring and less frequent wind events. This paper aims to investigate the over-strength and ductility capacity of several imaginary office buildings located in Edmonton, Canada with a glance at earthquake design philosophy. Selected models are 10- to 25-story buildings with three types of reinforced concrete shear wall configurations including rectangular, barbell, and flanged. The buildings are designed according to National Building Code of Canada. Then fiber-based numerical models of the walls are developed in Perform 3D and by conducting nonlinear static (pushover) analysis, lateral nonlinear behavior of the walls are evaluated. Ductility and over-strength of the structures are obtained based on the results of the pushover analyses. The results confirmed moderate nonlinear capacity of reinforced concrete shear walls under extreme wind loads. This is while lateral displacements of the walls pass the serviceability limit states defined in Pre standard for Performance-Based Wind Design (ASCE). The results indicate that we can benefit the limited nonlinear response observed in the reinforced concrete shear walls to economize the design of such systems under wind loads.

Keywords: concrete shear wall, high-rise buildings, nonlinear static analysis, response modification factor, wind load

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Authors: Alok Kumar Routa, Priya Ranjan Mohanty

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Complex seismic signatures are generated due to the complexity of the subsurface which is difficult to interpret. In the present study, an attempt has been made to model the complex subsurface using the Ray tracing modeling technique. Add to this, for the imaging of these geological features, Kirchhoff’s prestack depth migration is applied over the synthetic common shot gather dataset. It is found that the Kirchhoff’s migration technique in addition with the Ray tracing modeling concept has the flexibility towards the imaging of various complex geology which gives satisfactory results with proper delineation of the reflectors at their respective true depth position. The entire work has been carried out under the MATLAB environment.

Keywords: Kirchhoff's migration, Prestack depth migration, Ray tracing modelling, velocity model

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Authors: Tanu Aneja, Harsha Malaviya

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Capturing pose information in cricket shots poses several challenges, such as low-resolution videos, noisy data, and joint occlusions caused by the nature of the shots. In response to these challenges, we propose a CondDGConv-based framework specifically for cricket shot prediction. By analyzing the spatial-temporal relationships in batsman shot sequences from an annotated 2D cricket dataset, our model achieves a 97% accuracy in predicting shot types. This performance is made possible by conditioning the graph network on batsman 2D poses, allowing for precise prediction of shot outcomes based on pose dynamics. Our approach highlights the potential for enhancing shot prediction in cricket analytics, offering a robust solution for overcoming pose-related challenges in sports analysis.

Keywords: action recognition, cricket. sports video analytics, computer vision, graph convolutional networks

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Authors: Said Ettaieb, Kamel Hamrouni, Su Ruan

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This paper presents a new method based both on Active Shape Model and a priori knowledge about the spatio-temporal shape variation for tracking deformable structures in medical imaging. The main idea is to exploit the a priori knowledge of shape that exists in ASM and introduce new knowledge about the shape variation over time. The aim is to define a new more stable method, allowing the reliable detection of structures whose shape changes considerably in time. This method can also be used for the three-dimensional segmentation by replacing the temporal component by the third spatial axis (z). The proposed method is applied for the functional and morphological study of the heart pump. The functional aspect was studied through temporal sequences of scintigraphic images and morphology was studied through MRI volumes. The obtained results are encouraging and show the performance of the proposed method.

Keywords: active shape model, a priori knowledge, spatiotemporal shape variation, deformable structures, medical images

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Authors: Noureddine Ben Ayed, Abdelkader Soumaya, Saïd Maouche, Ali Kadri, Mongi Gueddiche, Hayet Khayati-Ammar, Ahmed Braham

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The archaeological monument of Utica, located in north-eastern Tunisia, was founded (8th century BC) By the Phoenicians as a port installed on the trade route connecting Phoenicia and the Straits of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea. The flourishment of this city as an important settlement during the Roman period was followed by a sudden abandonment, disuse and progressive oblivion in the first half of the fifth century AD. This decadence can be attributed to the destructive earthquake of 5 July 408 - 410 AD, affecting this historic city as documented in 1906 by the seismologist Fernand De Montessus De Ballore. The magnitude of the Utica earthquake was estimated at 6.8 by the Tunisian National Institute of Meteorology (INM). In order to highlight the damage caused by this earthquake, a field survey was carried out at the Utica ruins to detect and analyse the earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs) using structural geology methods. This approach allowed us to highlight several structural damages, including: (1) folded mortar pavements, (2) cracks affecting the mosaic and walls of a water basin in the "House of the Grand Oecus", (3) displaced columns, (4) block extrusion in masonry walls, (5) undulations in mosaic pavements, (6) tilted walls. The structural analysis of these EAEs and data measurements reveal a seismic cause for all evidence of deformation in the Utica monument. The maximum horizontal strain of the ground (e.g. SHmax) inferred from the building oriented damage in Utica shows a NNW-SSE direction under a compressive tectonic regime. For the seismogenic source of this earthquake, we propose the active E-W to NE-SW trending Utique - Ghar El Melh reverse fault, passing through the Utica Monument and extending towards the Ghar El Melh Lake, as the causative tectonic structure. The active fault trace is well supported by instrumental seismicity, geophysical data (e.g., gravity, seismic profiles) and geomorphological analyses. In summary, we find that the archaeoseismic records detected at Utica are similar to those observed at many other archaeological sites affected by destructive ancient earthquakes around the world. Furthermore, the calculated orientation of the average maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) closely match the state of the actual stress field, as highlighted by some earthquake focal mechanisms in this region.

Keywords: Tunisia, utica, seimogenic fault, archaeological earthquake effects

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Authors: R. S. Malik, S. K. Madan, V. K. Sehgal

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Reinforced concrete (RCC) buildings with dual system consisting of shear walls and moment resisting frames or braces and moment resisting frames have been widely used to resist lateral forces during earthquakes. The two dual systems are designed to resist the total design lateral force in proportion to their lateral stiffness. The response of the combination of braces and shear walls has not yet been studied therefore has practically no work to refer to. The combination may prove to be more effective in lateral load resistance by employing the peculiar advantages of shear walls and braces simultaneously and may also improve the architectural appearance of structures. This concept has been applied to regular RCC buildings provided with shear walls, braces, and their combinations.

Keywords: dynamic analysis, displacement, pushover analysis, dual structures, storey drift

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Authors: Rhommel Grutas, Ishmael Narag, Harley Lacbawan

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Construction of high-rise buildings is a means to address the increasing population in Metro Manila, Philippines. The existence of the Valley Fault System within the metropolis and other nearby active faults poses threats to a densely populated city. The distant, shallow and large magnitude earthquakes have the potential to generate slow and long-period vibrations that would affect medium-to-high rise buildings. Heavy damage and building collapse are consequences of prolonged shaking of the structure. If the ground and the building have almost the same period, there would be a resonance effect which would cause the prolonged shaking of the building. Microzoning the long-period ground response would aid in the seismic design of medium to high-rise structures. The shear-wave velocity structure of the subsurface is an important parameter in order to evaluate ground response. Borehole drilling is one of the conventional methods of determining shear-wave velocity structure however, it is an expensive approach. As an alternative geophysical exploration, microtremor array measurements can be used to infer the structure of the subsurface. Microtremor array measurement system was used to survey fifty sites around Metro Manila including some municipalities of Rizal and Cavite. Measurements were carried out during the day under good weather conditions. The team was composed of six persons for the deployment and simultaneous recording of the microtremor array sensors. The instruments were laid down on the ground away from sewage systems and leveled using the adjustment legs and bubble level. A total of four sensors were deployed for each site, three at the vertices of an equilateral triangle with one sensor at the centre. The circular arrays were set up with a maximum side length of approximately four kilometers and the shortest side length for the smallest array is approximately at 700 meters. Each recording lasted twenty to sixty minutes. From the recorded data, f-k analysis was applied to obtain phase velocity curves. Inversion technique is applied to construct the shear-wave velocity structure. This project provided a microzonation map of the metropolis and a profile showing the long-period response of the deep sedimentary basin underlying Metro Manila which would be suitable for local administrators in their land use planning and earthquake resistant design of medium to high-rise buildings.

Keywords: earthquake, ground motion, microtremor, seismic microzonation

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Authors: Fatimazahrae Elbakri, Azeddine Ibrahimi, Meryem Lemrani, Dris Belghyti

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Leishmaniasis represents a major public health problem because of the number of cases recorded each year and the wide distribution of the disease. It is a parasitic disease of flagellated protozoa transmitted by the bite of certain species of sandfly, causing a spectrum of clinical pathology in humans ranging from disfiguring skin lesions to fatal visceral leishmaniasis. Cutaneous leishmaniasis due to Leishmania major is a polymorphic disease; in fact, the infection can be asymptomatic, localized, or disseminated. The objective of this work is to determine the genomic diversity that contributes to clinical variability by trying to identify the variation in chromosome number and to extract SNPs and SNPs and InDels; it is based on four sequences (WGS) of Leishmania major available on NCBI in Fastq form, from three countries: Tunisia, Algeria, and Israel, the analysis is set up from a pipeline to facilitate the discovery of genetic diversity, in particular SNP and chromosomal somy.

Keywords: Leshmania major, cutaneous Leishmania, NGS, genomic, somy, variant calling

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Authors: Farid Khosravikia, Patricia Clayton

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The main objective of this study is to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of various machine learning techniques in forecasting ground-motion intensity measures given source characteristics, source-to-site distance, and local site condition. Intensity measures such as peak ground acceleration and velocity (PGA and PGV, respectively) as well as 5% damped elastic pseudospectral accelerations at different periods (PSA), are indicators of the strength of shaking at the ground surface. Estimating these variables for future earthquake events is a key step in seismic hazard assessment and potentially subsequent risk assessment of different types of structures. Typically, linear regression-based models, with pre-defined equations and coefficients, are used in ground motion prediction. However, due to the restrictions of the linear regression methods, such models may not capture more complex nonlinear behaviors that exist in the data. Thus, this study comparatively investigates potential benefits from employing other machine learning techniques as a statistical method in ground motion prediction such as Artificial Neural Network, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine. The algorithms are adjusted to quantify event-to-event and site-to-site variability of the ground motions by implementing them as random effects in the proposed models to reduce the aleatory uncertainty. All the algorithms are trained using a selected database of 4,528 ground-motions, including 376 seismic events with magnitude 3 to 5.8, recorded over the hypocentral distance range of 4 to 500 km in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas since 2005. The main reason of the considered database stems from the recent increase in the seismicity rate of these states attributed to petroleum production and wastewater disposal activities, which necessities further investigation in the ground motion models developed for these states. Accuracy of the models in predicting intensity measures, generalization capability of the models for future data, as well as usability of the models are discussed in the evaluation process. The results indicate the algorithms satisfy some physically sound characteristics such as magnitude scaling distance dependency without requiring pre-defined equations or coefficients. Moreover, it is shown that, when sufficient data is available, all the alternative algorithms tend to provide more accurate estimates compared to the conventional linear regression-based method, and particularly, Random Forest outperforms the other algorithms. However, the conventional method is a better tool when limited data is available.

Keywords: artificial neural network, ground-motion models, machine learning, random forest, support vector machine

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Authors: David Levy

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The newly released Distributed System Interface 3 (DSI3) Bus Standard specification defines 3 modulation levels from which 16 valid symbols are coded. This structure creates power consumption variations depending on the transmitted data of a factor of more than 2 between minimum and maximum. The power generation unit has to consider therefore the worst case maximum consumption all the time and be built accordingly. This paper proposes a method to reduce both the average current consumption and worst case current consumption. The transmitter randomizes the data using several pseudo-random sequences. It then estimates the energy consumption of the generated frames and selects to transmit the one which consumes the least. The transmitter also prepends the index of the pseudo-random sequence, which is not randomized, to allow the receiver to recover the original data using the correct sequence. We show that in the case that the frame occupies most of the DSI3 synchronization period, we achieve average power consumption reduction by up to 13% and the worst case power consumption is reduced by 17.7%.

Keywords: DSI3, energy, power consumption, randomization

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Authors: Divyanshoo Singh, Hemant Kumar Singh, Kumar Nilankar

Abstract:

Major engineering constructions and foundations (e.g., dams, tunnels, bridges, underground caverns, etc.) in and around the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand are not only confined within hard and crystalline rocks but also stretched within weak and anisotropic rocks. While constructing within such anisotropic rocks, engineers more often encounter geotechnical complications such as structural instability, slope failure, and excessive deformation. These severities/complexities arise mainly due to inherent anisotropy such as layering/foliations, preferred mineral orientations, and geo-mechanical anisotropy present within rocks and vary when measured in different directions. Of all the inherent anisotropy present within the rocks, major geotechnical complexities mainly arise due to the inappropriate orientation of weak planes (bedding/foliation). Thus, Orientations of such weak planes highly affect the fracture patterns, failure mechanism, and strength of rocks. This has led to an improved understanding of the physico-mechanical behavior of anisotropic rocks with different orientations of weak planes. Therefore, in this study, block samples of phyllite belonging to the Chandpur Group of Lesser Himalaya were collected from the Srinagar area of Uttarakhand, India, to investigate the effect of foliation angles on physico-mechanical properties of the rock. Further, collected block samples were core drilled of diameter 50 mm at different foliation angles, β (angle between foliation plane and drilling direction), i.e., 0⁰, 30⁰, 60⁰, and 90⁰, respectively. Before the test, drilled core samples were oven-dried at 110⁰C to achieve uniformity. Physical and mechanical properties such as Seismic wave velocity, density, uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), point load strength (PLS), and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) test were carried out on prepared core specimens. The results indicate that seismic wave velocities (P-wave and S-wave) decrease with increasing β angle. As the β angle increases, the number of foliation planes that the wave needs to pass through increases and thus causes the dissipation of wave energy with increasing β. Maximum strength for UCS, PLS, and BTS was found to be at β angle of 90⁰. However, minimum strength for UCS and BTS was found to be at β angle of 30⁰, which differs from PLS, where minimum strength was found at 0⁰ β angle. Furthermore, failure modes also correspond to the strength of the rock, showing along foliation and non-central failure as characteristics of low strength values, while multiple fractures and central failure as characteristics of high strength values. Thus, this study will provide a better understanding of the anisotropic features of phyllite for the purpose of major engineering construction and foundations within the Himalayan Region.

Keywords: anisotropic rocks, foliation angle, Physico-mechanical properties, phyllite, Himalayan region

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Authors: Michele Sinico

Abstract:

In the Giovanelli illusion, some collinear dots appear misaligned, when each dot lies within a circle and the circles are not collinear. In this illusion, the role of the frame of reference, determined by the circles, is considered a crucial factor. Three experiments were carried out to study the influence of directionality of the circles on the misalignment. The adjustment method was used. Participants changed the orthogonal position of each dot, from the left to the right of the sequence, until a collinear sequence of dots was achieved. The first experiment verified the illusory effect of the misalignment. In the second experiment, the influence of two different directionalities of the circles (-0.58° and +0.58°) on the misalignment was tested. The results show an over-normalization on the sequences of the dots. The third experiment tested the misalignment of the dots without any inclination of the sequence of circles (0°). Only a local illusory effect was found. These results demonstrate that the directionality of the circles, as a global factor, can increase the misalignment. The findings also indicate that directionality and the frame of reference are independent factors in explaining the Giovanelli illusion.

Keywords: Giovannelli illusion, visual illusion, directionality, misalignment, the frame of reference

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Authors: Anna Solovyeva, Ivan Levakin, Nickolai Galaktionov, Olga Podgornaya

Abstract:

Animals that reproduce asexually were thought to have the same genotypes within generations for a long time. However, some refuting examples were found, and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) or transposons are considered to be the most probable source of genetic instability. Dispersed nature and the ability to change their genomic localization enables MGEs to be efficient mutators. Hence the study of MGEs genomic impact requires an appropriate object which comprehends both representative amounts of various MGEs and options to evaluate the genomic influence of MGEs. Animals that reproduce asexually seem to be a decent model to study MGEs impact in genomic variability. We found a small marine trematode Himasthla elongata (Himasthlidae) to be a good model for such investigation as it has a small genome size, diverse MGEs and parthenogenetic stages in the lifecycle. In the current work, clonal diversity of cercaria was traced with an AFLP (Amplified fragment length polymorphism) method, diverse zones from electrophoretic patterns were cloned, and the nature of the fragments explored. Polymorphic patterns of individual cercariae AFLP-based fingerprints are enriched with retrotransposons of different families. The bulk of those sequences are represented by open reading frames of non-Long Terminal Repeats containing elements(non-LTR) yet Long-Terminal Repeats containing elements (LTR), to a lesser extent in variable figments of AFLP array. The CR1 elements expose both in polymorphic and conservative patterns are remarkably more frequent than the other non-LTR retrotransposons. This data was confirmed with shotgun sequencing-based on Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform. Individual cercaria of the same clone (i.e., originated from a single miracidium and inhabiting one host) has a various distribution of MGE families detected in sequenced AFLP patterns. The most numerous are CR1 and RTE-Bov retrotransposons, typical for trematode genomes. Also, we identified LTR-retrotransposons of Pao and Gypsy families among DNA transposons of CMC-EnSpm, Tc1/Mariner, MuLE-MuDR and Merlin families. We detected many of them in H. elongata transcriptome. Such uneven MGEs distribution in AFLP sequences’ sets reflects the different patterns of transposons spreading in cercarial genomes as transposons affect the genome in many ways (ectopic recombination, gene structure interruption, epigenetic silencing). It is considered that they play a key role in the origins of trematode clonal polymorphism. The authors greatly appreciate the help received at the Kartesh White Sea Biological Station of the Russian Academy of Sciences Zoological Institute. This work is funded with RSF 19-74-20102 and RFBR 17-04-02161 grants and the research program of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (project number AAAA-A19-119020690109-2).

Keywords: AFLP, clonal polymorphism, Himasthla elongata, mobile genetic elements, NGS

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: Rugang Tian

Abstract:

In this study, we generated whole-genome sequence (WGS) data from110 native cattle. Together with whole-genome sequences from world-wide cattle populations, we estimated the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of different cattle populations. Our findings revealed clustering of cattle groups in line with their geographic locations. We identified noticeable genetic diversity between indigenous cattle breeds and commercial populations. Among all studied cattle groups, lower genetic diversity measures were found in commercial populations, however, high genetic diversity were detected in some local cattle, particularly in Rashoki and Mongolian breeds. Our search for potential genomic regions under selection in native cattle revealed several candidate genes related with immune response and cold shock protein on multiple chromosomes such as TRPM8, NMUR1, PRKAA2, SMTNL2 and OXR1 that are involved in energy metabolism and metabolic homeostasis.

Keywords: cattle, whole-genome, population structure, adaptation

Procedia PDF Downloads 74

Authors: Anuj Tyagi, Balwinder Singh, Naveen Kumar B. T., Niraj K. Singh

Abstract:

Characterization of diverse microbial communities in specific environment plays a crucial role in the better understanding of their functional relationship with the ecosystem. It is now well established that gut microbiome of fish is not the simple replication of microbiota of surrounding local habitat, and extensive species, dietary, physiological and metabolic variations in fishes may have a significant impact on its composition. Moreover, overuse of antibiotics in human, veterinary and aquaculture medicine has led to rapid emergence and propagation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the aquatic environment. Microbial communities harboring specific ARGs not only get a preferential edge during selective antibiotic exposure but also possess the significant risk of ARGs transfer to other non-resistance bacteria within the confined environments. This phenomenon may lead to the emergence of habitat-specific microbial resistomes and subsequent emergence of virulent antibiotic-resistant pathogens with severe fish and consumer health consequences. In this study, gut microbiota of freshwater carp (Labeo rohita) was investigated by shotgun metagenomics to understand its taxonomic composition and functional capabilities. Metagenomic DNA, extracted from the fish gut, was subjected to sequencing on Illumina NextSeq to generate paired-end (PE) 2 x 150 bp sequencing reads. After the QC of raw sequencing data by Trimmomatic, taxonomic analysis by Kraken2 taxonomic sequence classification system revealed the presence of 36 phyla, 326 families and 985 genera in the fish gut microbiome. At phylum level, Proteobacteria accounted for more than three-fourths of total bacterial populations followed by Actinobacteria (14%) and Cyanobacteria (3%). Commonly used probiotic bacteria (Bacillus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, and Lactococcus) were found to be very less prevalent in fish gut. After sequencing data assembly by MEGAHIT v1.1.2 assembler and PROKKA automated analysis pipeline, pathway analysis revealed the presence of 1,608 Metacyc pathways in the fish gut microbiome. Biosynthesis pathways were found to be the most dominant (51%) followed by degradation (39%), energy-metabolism (4%) and fermentation (2%). Almost one-third (33%) of biosynthesis pathways were involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites. Metabolic pathways for the biosynthesis of 35 antibiotic types were also present, and these accounted for 5% of overall metabolic pathways in the fish gut microbiome. Fifty-one different types of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) belonging to 15 antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene families and conferring resistance against 24 antibiotic types were detected in fish gut. More than 90% ARGs in fish gut microbiome were against beta-lactams (penicillins, cephalosporins, penems, and monobactams). Resistance against tetracycline, macrolides, fluoroquinolones, and phenicols ranged from 0.7% to 1.3%. Some of the ARGs for multi-drug resistance were also found to be located on sequences of plasmid origin. The presence of pathogenic bacteria and ARGs on plasmid sequences suggested the potential risk due to horizontal gene transfer in the confined gut environment.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, fish gut, metabolic pathways, microbial diversity

Procedia PDF Downloads 144