Search results for: resuscitation response teams

Authors: Jawairia Umar, Tanveer Hussain, Zulfiqar Ali, Muhammad Maqsood

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Different knitted structures and knitted parameters play a vital role in the stretch and recovery management of compression sportswear in addition to the materials use to generate this stretch and recovery behavior of the fabric. The present work was planned to predict the different performance indicators of a compression sportswear fabric with some ground parameters i.e. base yarn stitch length (polyester as base yarn and spandex as plating yarn involve to make a compression fabric) and linear density of the spandex which is a key material of any sportswear fabric. The prediction models were generated by response surface method for performance indicators such as stretch & recovery percentage, compression generated by the garment on body, total elongation on application of high power force and load generated on certain percentage extension in fabric. Certain physical properties of the fabric were also modeled using these two parameters.

Keywords: Compression, sportswear, stretch and recovery, statistical model, kikuhime

Procedia PDF Downloads 362

Authors: Arijit Basuray

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It is well known that if an electrical insulation system is stressed under high voltage then discharge may occur in various form and if the system is made of composite dielectric having interfaces of materials having different dielectric constant discharge may occur due to gross mismatch of dielectric constant causing intense local field in the interfaces. Here author has studied, firstly, behavior of discharges in gaseous dielectric circuit under AC and DC voltages. A gaseous dielectric circuit is made such that a pair of electrode of typical geometry is used to make the discharges occur under application of AC and DC voltages. Later on, composite insulation system with air gap is also studied. Discharge response of the dielectric circuit is measured across a typically designed impedance. The time evolution of the discharge characteristics showed some interesting chaotic behavior. Author here proposed some analysis of such behavior of the discharge pattern and discussed about the possibility of presence of such discharge circuit in lumped electric circuit.

Keywords: electrical insulation system, EIS, composite dielectric, discharge, chaos

Procedia PDF Downloads 164

Authors: Rohan Erasala, Ian McCulloh

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The NFL Draft is a chance for every NFL team to select their next superstar. As a result, teams heavily invest in scouting, and millions of fans partake in the online discourse surrounding the draft. This paper investigates the potential correlations between positive sentiment in individual draft selection threads from the subreddit r/NFL and if this data can be used to make successful player recommendations. It is hypothesized that there will be limited correlations and nonviable recommendations made from these threads. The hypothesis is tested using sentiment analysis of draft thread comments and analyzing correlation and precision at k of top scores. The results indicate weak correlations between the percentage of positive comments in a draft selection thread and a player’s approximate value, but potentially viable recommendations from looking at players whose draft selection threads have the highest percentage of positive comments.

Keywords: national football league, NFL, NFL Draft, sentiment analysis, Reddit, social media, NLP

Procedia PDF Downloads 62

Authors: Anindita Sen

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Oral fluid is a promising diagnostic matrix for drugs of abuse compared to urine and serum. Detection of methamphetamine in oral fluid would pave way for the easy evaluation of impairment in drivers during roadside drug testing as well as ensure safe working environments by facilitating evaluation of impairment in employees at workplaces. A membrane-based point-of-care (POC) friendly pre-treatment technique has been developed which aided elimination of interferences caused by salivary proteins and facilitated the demonstration of methamphetamine detection in saliva using a gold nanoparticle based colorimetric aptasensor platform. It was found that the colorimetric response in saliva was always suppressed owing to the matrix effects. By navigating the challenging interfering issues in saliva, we were successfully able to detect methamphetamine at nanomolar levels in saliva offering immense promise for the translation of these platforms for on-site diagnostic systems. This subsequently motivated the development of a handheld portable light meter device that can reliably transduce the aptasensors colorimetric response into absorbance, facilitating quantitative detection of analyte concentrations on-site. This is crucial due to the prevalent unreliability and sensitivity problems of the conventional drug testing kits. The fabricated light meter device response was validated against a standard UV-Vis spectrometer to confirm reliability. The portable and cost-effective handheld detector device features sensitivity comparable to the well-established UV-Vis benchtop instrument and the easy-to-use device could potentially serve as a prototype for a commercial device in the future.

Keywords: aptasensors, colorimetric gold nanoparticle assay, point-of-care, oral fluid

Procedia PDF Downloads 27

Authors: Tonderai Muchenje, Mkhatshwa Phethile

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Humans living in this current situation know that communication with one another is necessary for themselves. There are many ways to communicate with each other; during unexpected natural disasters and outbreak of epidemics and pandemics, the need for online meeting platforms are considered most important. Apparently, the development in the telecommunication sector also played an important role. Therefore, the epidemic of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the new normal situation resulted in the overwhelming production of online meeting platforms to prevent the situation. This software is commonly used in business communications in the beginning. Rapidly the COVID-19 pandemic changed the situation. At present-day, these virtual meeting applications are not only used to have informal meetings with friends and relatives but also to be used to have formal meetings in the business and education (universities) sector. In this article, an attempt has been made to list out the useful secured ways for using online meeting platforms.

Keywords: virtual background, zoom, secure online algorithm, RingCentral, Pexip Pexip, TeamViewer, microsoft teams

Procedia PDF Downloads 95

Authors: Ramesh Rajagopalan, Adam Dahlstrom

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Noise removal techniques play a vital role in the performance of electrocardiographic (ECG) signal processing systems. ECG signals can be corrupted by various kinds of noise such as baseline wander noise, electromyographic interference, and power-line interference. One of the significant challenges in ECG signal processing is the degradation caused by additive 50 or 60 Hz power-line interference. This work investigates the removal of power line interference and suppression of transient response for filtering noise corrupted ECG signals. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) notch filter with time varying pole radius for improving the transient behavior. The temporary change in the pole radius of the filter diminishes the transient behavior. Simulation results show that the proposed IIR filter with time varying pole radius outperforms traditional IIR notch filters in terms of mean square error and transient suppression.

Keywords: notch filter, ECG, transient, pole radius

Procedia PDF Downloads 364

Authors: Elijah Cavan

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In Major League Sports (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL), it is the Front Office Staff (FOS) who make decisions about who plays for their respective team. The FOS bear the brunt of the responsibility for acquiring players through drafting, trading and signing players in free agency while typically contesting with maximum roster salary constraints. The players themselves are volatile assets of these teams- their value fluctuates with age and performance. A simple comparison can be made when viewing players as assets. The problem here is similar to that of optimizing your investment portfolio. The The goal is ultimately to maximize your periodic returns while tolerating a fixed risk (degree of uncertainty/ potential loss). Each franchise may value assets differently, and some may only tolerate lower risk levels- these are examples of factors that introduce additional constraints into the model. In this talk, we will detail the mathematical formulation of this problem as a constrained optimization problem- which can be solved with classical machine learning methods but is also well posed as a problem to be solved on quantum computers

Keywords: optimization, financial mathematics, sports analytics, simulated annealing

Procedia PDF Downloads 103

Authors: Angkrit Phitchayangkoon, Ar-Aishah Dadeh

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Background: A key aim of triage is to identify the patients with high risk of cardiac arrest because they require intensive monitoring, resuscitation facilities, and early intervention. We aimed to identify the predicting factors such as initial vital signs, serum pH, serum lactate level, initial capillary blood glucose, and Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) which affect the occurrence of cardiac arrest in an emergency department (ED). Methods: We conducted a retrospective data review of ED patients in an emergency department (ED) from 1 August 2014 to 31 July 2016. Significant variables in univariate analysis were used to create a multivariate analysis. Differentiation of predicting factors between cardiac arrest patient and non-cardiac arrest patients for occurrence of cardiac arrest in an emergency department (ED) was the primary outcome. Results: The data of 527 non-trauma patients with Emergency Severity Index (ESI) 1-3 were collected. The factors found to have a significant association (P < 0.05) in the non-cardiac arrest group versus the cardiac arrest group at the ED were systolic BP (mean [IQR] 135 [114,158] vs 120 [90,140] mmHg), oxygen saturation (mean [IQR] 97 [89,98] vs 82.5 [78,95]%), GCS (mean [IQR] 15 [15,15] vs 11.5 [8.815]), normal sinus rhythm (mean 59.8 vs 30%), sinus tachycardia (mean 46.7 vs 21.7%), pH (mean [IQR] 7.4 [7.3,7.4] vs 7.2 [7,7.3]), serum lactate (mean [IQR] 2 [1.1,4.2] vs 7 [5,10.8]), and MEWS score (mean [IQR] 3 [2,5] vs 5 [3,6]). A multivariate analysis was then performed. After adjusting for multiple factors, ESI level 2 patients were more likely to have cardiac arrest in the ER compared with ESI 1 (odds ratio [OR], 1.66; P < 0.001). Furthermore, ESI 2 patients were more likely than ESI 1 patients to have cardiovascular disease (OR, 1.89; P = 0.01), heart rate < 55 (OR, 6.83; P = 0.18), SBP < 90 (OR, 3.41; P = 0.006), SpO2 < 94 (OR, 4.76; P = 0.012), sinus tachycardia (OR, 4.32; P = 0.002), lactate > 4 (OR, 10.66; P = < 0.001), and MEWS > 4 (OR, 4.86; P = 0.028). These factors remained predictive of cardiac arrest at the ED. Conclusion: The factors related to cardiac arrest in the ED are ESI 1 patients, ESI 2 patients, patients diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, SpO2 < 94, lactate > 4, and a MEWS > 4. These factors can be used as markers in the event of simultaneous arrival of many patients and can help as a pre-state for patients who have a tendency to develop cardiac arrest. The hemodynamic status and vital signs of these patients should be closely monitored. Early detection of potentially critical conditions to prevent critical medical intervention is mandatory.

Keywords: cardiac arrest, predicting factor, emergency department, emergency patient

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Cheng Zeng, George Michailidis, Hitoshi Iyatomi, Leo L. Duan

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The conditional density characterizes the distribution of a response variable y given other predictor x and plays a key role in many statistical tasks, including classification and outlier detection. Although there has been abundant work on the problem of Conditional Density Estimation (CDE) for a low-dimensional response in the presence of a high-dimensional predictor, little work has been done for a high-dimensional response such as images. The promising performance of normalizing flow (NF) neural networks in unconditional density estimation acts as a motivating starting point. In this work, the authors extend NF neural networks when external x is present. Specifically, they use the NF to parameterize a one-to-one transform between a high-dimensional y and a latent z that comprises two components [zₚ, zₙ]. The zₚ component is a low-dimensional subvector obtained from the posterior distribution of an elementary predictive model for x, such as logistic/linear regression. The zₙ component is a high-dimensional independent Gaussian vector, which explains the variations in y not or less related to x. Unlike existing CDE methods, the proposed approach coined Augmented Posterior CDE (AP-CDE) only requires a simple modification of the common normalizing flow framework while significantly improving the interpretation of the latent component since zₚ represents a supervised dimension reduction. In image analytics applications, AP-CDE shows good separation of 𝑥-related variations due to factors such as lighting condition and subject id from the other random variations. Further, the experiments show that an unconditional NF neural network based on an unsupervised model of z, such as a Gaussian mixture, fails to generate interpretable results.

Keywords: conditional density estimation, image generation, normalizing flow, supervised dimension reduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 76

Authors: Shinji Ukita, Naohiro Nakamura, Yuji Miyazu

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In considering the dynamic characteristics of structure, natural frequency and damping ratio are useful indicator. When performing dynamic design, it's necessary to select an appropriate initial damping model and hysteretic model. In the linear region, the setting of initial damping model influences the response, and in the nonlinear region, the combination of initial damping model and hysteretic model influences the response. However, the dynamic characteristics of structure in the nonlinear region remain unclear. In this paper, we studied the effect of setting of initial damping model and hysteretic model on the dynamic characteristics of structure. On initial damping model setting, Initial stiffness proportional, Tangent stiffness proportional, and Rayleigh-type were used. On hysteretic model setting, TAKEDA model and Normal-trilinear model were used. As a study method, dynamic analysis was performed using a lumped mass model of base-fixed. During analysis, the maximum acceleration of input earthquake motion was gradually increased from 1 to 600 gal. The dynamic characteristics were calculated using the ARX model. Then, the characteristics of 1st and 2nd natural frequency and 1st damping ratio were evaluated. Input earthquake motion was simulated wave that the Building Center of Japan has published. On the building model, an RC building with 30×30m planes on each floor was assumed. The story height was 3m and the maximum height was 18m. Unit weight for each floor was 1.0t/m2. The building natural period was set to 0.36sec, and the initial stiffness of each floor was calculated by assuming the 1st mode to be an inverted triangle. First, we investigated the difference of the dynamic characteristics depending on the difference of initial damping model setting. With the increase in the maximum acceleration of the input earthquake motions, the 1st and 2nd natural frequency decreased, and the 1st damping ratio increased. Then, in the natural frequency, the difference due to initial damping model setting was small, but in the damping ratio, a significant difference was observed (Initial stiffness proportional≒Rayleigh type>Tangent stiffness proportional). The acceleration and the displacement of the earthquake response were largest in the tangent stiffness proportional. In the range where the acceleration response increased, the damping ratio was constant. In the range where the acceleration response was constant, the damping ratio increased. Next, we investigated the difference of the dynamic characteristics depending on the difference of hysteretic model setting. With the increase in the maximum acceleration of the input earthquake motions, the natural frequency decreased in TAKEDA model, but in Normal-trilinear model, the natural frequency didn’t change. The damping ratio in TAKEDA model was higher than that in Normal-trilinear model, although, both in TAKEDA model and Normal-trilinear model, the damping ratio increased. In conclusion, in initial damping model setting, the tangent stiffness proportional was evaluated the most. In the hysteretic model setting, TAKEDA model was more appreciated than the Normal-trilinear model in the nonlinear region. Our results would provide useful indicator on dynamic design.

Keywords: initial damping model, damping ratio, dynamic analysis, hysteretic model, natural frequency

Procedia PDF Downloads 163

Authors: Markandeya Kunchi

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Usability testing (UT) is one of the vital steps in the User-centred design (UCD) process when designing a product. In an e-commerce ecosystem, UT becomes primary as new products, features, and services are launched very frequently. And, there are losses attached to the company if an unusable and inefficient product is put out to market and is rejected by customers. This paper tries to answer why UT is important in the product life-cycle of an E-commerce ecosystem. Secondary user research was conducted to find out work patterns, development methods, type of stakeholders, and technology constraints, etc. of a typical E-commerce company. Qualitative user interviews were conducted with product managers and designers to find out the structure, project planning, product management method and role of the design team in a mid-level company. The paper tries to address the usual apprehensions of the company to inculcate UT within the team. As well, it stresses upon factors like monetary resources, lack of usability expert, narrow timelines, and lack of understanding of higher management as some primary reasons. Outsourcing UT to vendors is also very prevalent with mid-level e-commerce companies, but it has its own severe repercussions like very little team involvement, huge cost, misinterpretation of the findings, elongated timelines, and lack of empathy towards the customer, etc. The shortfalls of the unavailability of a UT process in place within the team and conducting UT through vendors are bad user experiences for customers while interacting with the product, badly designed products which are neither useful and nor utilitarian. As a result, companies see dipping conversions rates in apps and websites, huge bounce rates and increased uninstall rates. Thus, there was a need for a more lean UT system in place which could solve all these issues for the company. This paper highlights on optimizing the UT process with a collaborative method. The degree of optimization and structure of collaborative method is the highlight of this paper. Collaborative method of UT is one in which the centralised design team of the company takes for conducting and analysing the UT. The UT is usually a formative kind where designers take findings into account and uses in the ideation process. The success of collaborative method of UT is due to its ability to sync with the product management method employed by the company or team. The collaborative methods focus on engaging various teams (design, marketing, product, administration, IT, etc.) each with its own defined roles and responsibility in conducting a smooth UT with users In-house. The paper finally highlights the positive results of collaborative UT method after conducting more than 100 In-lab interviews with users across the different lines of businesses. Some of which are the improvement of interaction between stakeholders and the design team, empathy towards users, improved design iteration, better sanity check of design solutions, optimization of time and money, effective and efficient design solution. The future scope of collaborative UT is to make this method leaner, by reducing the number of days to complete the entire project starting from planning between teams to publishing the UT report.

Keywords: collaborative method, e-commerce, product management method, usability testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 103

Authors: Takaaki Nemoto

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Case presentation: A 69-year-old Japanese man presented with a low-grade fever and fatigue that had persisted for one month. The patient had an aortic dissection on the aortic arch 13 years prior, an abdominal aortic aneurysm seven years prior, and an aortic dissection on the distal aortic arch one year prior, which were all treated with artificial blood-vessel replacement surgery. Laboratory tests revealed an inflammatory response (CRP 7.61 mg/dl), high serum creatinine (Cr 1.4 mg/dL), and elevated transaminase (AST 47 IU/L, ALT 45 IU/L). The patient was admitted to our hospital on suspicion of prosthetic vascular graft infection. Following further workups on the inflammatory response, an enhanced chest computed tomography (CT) and a non-enhanced chest DWI (MRI) were performed. The patient was diagnosed with a pulmonary fistula and a prosthetic vascular graft infection on the distal aortic arch. After admission, the patient was administered Ceftriaxion and Vancomycine for 10 days, but his fever and inflammatory response did not improve. On day 13 of hospitalization, a lung fistula repair surgery and an omental filling operation were performed, and Meropenem and Vancomycine were administered. The fever and inflammatory response continued, and therefore we took repeated blood cultures. M. fortuitum was detected in a blood culture on day 16 of hospitalization. As a result, we changed the treatment regimen to Amikacin (400 mg/day), Meropenem (2 g/day), and Cefmetazole (4 g/day), and the fever and inflammatory response began to decrease gradually. We performed a test of sensitivity for Mycobacterium fortuitum, and found that the MIC was low for fluoroquinolone antibacterial agent. The clinical course was good, and the patient was discharged after a total of 8 weeks of intravenous drug administration. At discharge, we changed the treatment regimen to Levofloxacin (500 mg/day) and Clarithromycin (800 mg/day), and prescribed these two drugs as a long life suppressive therapy. Discussion: There are few cases of prosthetic vascular graft infection caused by mycobacteria, and a standard therapy remains to be established. For prosthetic vascular graft infections, it is ideal to provide surgical and medical treatment in parallel, but in this case, surgical treatment was difficult and, therefore, a conservative treatment was chosen. We attempted to increase the treatment success rate of this refractory disease by conducting a susceptibility test for mycobacteria and treating with different combinations of antimicrobial agents, which was ultimately effective. With our treatment approach, a good clinical course was obtained and continues at the present stage. Conclusion: Although prosthetic vascular graft infection resulting from mycobacteria is a refractory infectious disease, it may be curative to administer appropriate antibiotics based on the susceptibility test in addition to surgical treatment.

Keywords: prosthetic vascular graft infection, lung fistula, Mycobacterium fortuitum, conservative treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Yujie Zhou, Hee-Seong Byun, Sang-In Bak, Eui-Joon Kil, Kyung Joo Min, Vivek Chavan, Won Kyong Cho, Sukchan Lee, Seung-Woo Hong, Tae-Sun Park

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Fast neutron irradiation (FNI) can cause mutations on plant genome but, in the most of cases, these irradiated plants have not shown significant characteristics phenotypically. In this study, we utilized RNA-Seq to generate a high-resolution transcriptome map of the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) genome effected by FNI. To quantify the different transcription levels in tomato irradiated by FNI, tomato seeds were irradiated by using MC-50 cyclotron (KIRAMS, Korea) for 0, 30 and 90 minutes, respectively. To investigate the effects on the pre-soaking condition, experimental groups were divided into dry and soaked seeds, which were soaked for 8 hours before irradiation. There was no noticeable difference in the percentage germination (PG) among dry seeds, while irradiated soaked seeds have about 10 % lower PG compared to the unirradiated control group. Using whole transcriptome sequencing by HiSeq 2000, we analyzed the differential gene expression in response to different time of FNI in dry and soaked seeds. More than 1.4 million base pair reads were mapped onto the tomato reference genome and the expression pattern differences between irradiated and unirradiated seeds were assessed. In 0, 30 and 90 minutes irradiation, 12,135, 28,495 and 28,675 transcripts were generated, respectively. Gene ontology analysis suggested the different enrichment of transcripts involved in response to different FNI. The present study showed that FNI effects on plant gene expression, which can become a new parameters for evaluating the responses against FNI on plants. In addition, the comparative analysis of differentially expressed genes in D and S seeds by FNI will also give us a chance to deep explore novel candidate genes for FNI, which could be a good model system to understand the mechanisms behind the adaption of plant to space biology research.

Keywords: tomato (solanum lycopersicum), fast neutron irradiation, RNA-sequence, transcriptome expression

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Authors: P. R. Prabhu, S. M. Kulkarni, S. S. Sharma, K. Jagannath, Achutha Kini U.

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In the present study, response surface methodology has been used to optimize turn-assisted deep cold rolling process of AISI 4140 steel. A regression model is developed to predict surface hardness and surface roughness using response surface methodology and central composite design. In the development of predictive model, deep cold rolling force, ball diameter, initial roughness of the workpiece, and number of tool passes are considered as model variables. The rolling force and the ball diameter are the significant factors on the surface hardness and ball diameter and numbers of tool passes are found to be significant for surface roughness. The predicted surface hardness and surface roughness values and the subsequent verification experiments under the optimal operating conditions confirmed the validity of the predicted model. The absolute average error between the experimental and predicted values at the optimal combination of parameter settings for surface hardness and surface roughness is calculated as 0.16% and 1.58% respectively. Using the optimal processing parameters, the hardness is improved from 225 to 306 HV, which resulted in an increase in the near surface hardness by about 36% and the surface roughness is improved from 4.84µm to 0.252 µm, which resulted in decrease in the surface roughness by about 95%. The depth of compression is found to be more than 300µm from the microstructure analysis and this is in correlation with the results obtained from the microhardness measurements. Taylor Hobson Talysurf tester, micro Vickers hardness tester, optical microscopy and X-ray diffractometer are used to characterize the modified surface layer.

Keywords: hardness, response surface methodology, microstructure, central composite design, deep cold rolling, surface roughness

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Authors: Tabassum Yasmin, Hamid Pahlevan

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HIV/Hepatitis C co-infection treatments have evolved substantially and they have similar sustained virologic response rates as those of Hepatitis C monoinfected population. There are a few studies on therapy of patients with dual genotypes, especially in HIV/Hepatic C coinfected group. Most studies portrayed case reports of dual genotype chronic Hepatitis C coinfection treatment with Sofosbuvir/Ledipasvir and Ribavirin. A 79-year-old male with a history of HIV on Truvada and Isentress had chronic Hepatitis C with 1a and 2 genotypes. The patient has a history of alcohol intake for 40 years but recently stopped drinking alcohol. He has a history of intravenous drug use in the past and currently is not using any recreational drugs. Patient has Fibro score of 0.7 with Metavir score F2 to F4. AFP is 3.2. The HCV RNA is 493,034 IU/ML. The HBV viral DNA is < 1.30 (not detected). The CD4 is 687CU/MM. The FIB 4 is 3.34 with APRI index 0.717. The HIV viral load is 101 copies/ML. MRI abdomen did not show any liver abnormality. Fixed dose Sofosbuvir/Ledipasvir was used for therapy without Ribavirin. He tolerated medication except for some minor gastrointestinal side effects like abdominal bloating. He demonstrated 100% adherence rate. Patient completed 12 weeks of therapy. HCV RNA was undetectable at 4 and 12 weeks. He achieved SVR at week 12 and subsequently had undetectable RNA for 2 years. Dual genotype prevalence in chronic hepatitis C population is rare, especially in HIV/hepatic coinfection. Our case demonstrates that dual genotypic cases can still be successfully treated with Direct Acting Antiviral agents. The newer agents for therapy for pan genotypes were not available at the time the patient was being treated. We demonstrated that dual agent therapy was still able to maintain SVR in our patient.

Keywords: HIV/Hepatitis C, SVR (sustained virologic response), DAA (direct active antiviral agents, dual genotype

Procedia PDF Downloads 179

Authors: Marcela Capcarova, Adriana Kolesarova, Marina Medvedova, Peter Petruska, Alexander V. Sirotkin

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The aim of this study was to determine the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), total antioxidant status (TAS) and accumulation of Hsp70 in porcine ovarian granulosa cells after deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEA) exposure in vitro. Porcine ovarian granulosa cells were incubated with DON/ZEA administrations as follows: group A (10/10 ng/mL), group B (100/100 ng/mL), group C (1000/1000 ng/mL), and the control group without any additions for 24h. In this study mycotoxins developed stress reaction of porcine ovarian granulosa cells and increased accumulation of Hsp70 what resulted in increasing activities of SOD and GPx in groups with lower doses of mycotoxins. High dose of DON and ZEA had opposite effect on GPx activity than the lower doses. Slight increase in TAS of porcine granulosa cells was observed after mycotoxins exposure. These results contribute towards the understanding of cellular stress and its response.

Keywords: deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, antioxidants, Hsp70, granulosa cells

Procedia PDF Downloads 234

Authors: Ayala Kobo-Greenhut, Amos Notea, Izhar Ben-Shlomo

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In R&D projects, there is no doubt about the need to change a current concept to an alternative one over time (i.e., concept leaping). Concept leaping is required since with most R&D projects uncertainty is present as they take place in dynamic environments. Despite the importance of concept leaping when needed, R&D teams may fail to do so (i.e., frozen concept). This research suggests a possible reason why frozen concept happens in the framework of quality engineering and control engineering. We suggest that frozen concept occurs since concept determines the derived plan and its implementation may be considered as equivalent to a closed-loop process, and is subject to the problem of not recognizing gaps as failures. We suggest that although implementing quality practices into an R&D project’s routine has many advantages, it intensifies the frozen concept problem since working according to quality practices relates to exploitation of learning behavior, while leaping to a new concept relates to exploring learning behavior.

Keywords: closed loop, control engineering, design, leaping, frozen concept, quality engineering, quality practices

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Authors: M. Zaitoun, S. Cumming, A. Purcell

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This study aims to determine if audiologists' experience characteristics in ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) reading is associated with their performance in interpreting ABR results. Fifteen ABR traces with varying degrees of hearing level were presented twice, making a total of 30. Audiologists were asked to determine the hearing threshold for each of the cases after completing a brief survey regarding their experience and training in ABR administration. Sixty-one audiologists completed all tasks. Correlations between audiologists’ performance measures and experience variables suggested significant associations (p < 0.05) between training period in ABR testing and audiologists’ performance in terms of both sensitivity and accuracy. In addition, the number of years conducting ABR testing correlated with specificity. No other correlations approached significance. While there are relatively few significant correlations between ABR performance and experience, accuracy in ABR reading is associated with audiologists’ length of experience and period of training. To improve audiologists’ performance in reading ABR results, an emphasis on the importance of training should be raised and standardized levels and period for audiologists training in ABR testing should also be set.

Keywords: ABR, audiology, performance, training, experience

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Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Andrea Schiffauerova

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Every year, a considerable amount of money is being invested on research, mainly in the form of funding allocated to universities and research institutes. To better distribute the available funds and to set the most proper R&D investment strategies for the future, evaluation of the productivity of the funded researchers and the impact of such funding is crucial. In this paper, using the data on 15 years of journal publications of the NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering research Council of Canada) funded researchers and by means of bibliometric analysis, the scientific development of the funded researchers and their scientific collaboration patterns will be investigated in the period of 1996-2010. According to the results it seems that there is a positive relation between the average level of funding and quantity and quality of the scientific output. In addition, whenever funding allocated to the researchers has increased, the number of co-authors per paper has also augmented. Hence, the increase in the level of funding may enable researchers to get involved in larger projects and/or scientific teams and increase their scientific output respectively.

Keywords: bibliometrics, collaboration, funding, productivity

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Authors: M. R. Akbari, H. Yousefnia, A. Ghasemi

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Al2O3:C,Mg fluorescent nuclear track detector (FNTD) and Al2O3:C optically stimulated luminescence detector (OSLD) are becoming two of the applied detectors in ion dosimetry. Therefore, the response of these detectors to hadron beams is highly of interest in radiation therapy (RT) using ion beams. In this study, these detectors' responses to proton and Helium-4 ion beams were compared using Monte Carlo simulations. The calculated data for proton beams were compared with Markus ionization chamber (IC) measurement (in water phantom) from M.D. Anderson proton therapy center. Monte Carlo simulations were performed via the FLUKA code (version 2011.2-17). The detectors were modeled in cylindrical shape at various depths of the water phantom without shading each other for obtaining relative depth dose in the phantom. Mono-energetic parallel ion beams in different incident energies (100 MeV/n to 250 MeV/n) were collided perpendicularly on the phantom surface. For proton beams, the results showed that the simulated detectors have over response relative to IC measurements in water phantom. In all cases, there were good agreements between simulated ion ranges in the water with calculated and experimental results reported by the literature. For proton, maximum peak to entrance dose ratio in the simulated water phantom was 4.3 compared with about 3 obtained from IC measurements. For He-4 ion beams, maximum peak to entrance ratio calculated by both detectors was less than 3.6 in all energies. Generally, it can be said that FLUKA is a good tool to calculate Al2O3:C,Mg FNTD and Al2O3:C OSLD detectors responses to therapeutic proton and He-4 ion beams. It can also calculate proton and He-4 ion ranges with a reasonable accuracy.

Keywords: comparison, FNTD and OSLD detectors response, light ion beams, Monte Carlo simulations

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Authors: Ionel Zagan, Vasile Gheorghita Gaitan

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Minimizing the response time to asynchronous events in a real-time system is an important factor in increasing the speed of response and an interesting concept in designing equipment fast enough for the most demanding applications. The present article will present the results regarding the validation of the nMPRA (Multi Pipeline Register Architecture) architecture using the FPGA Virtex-7 circuit. The nMPRA concept is a hardware processor with the scheduler implemented at the processor level; this is done without affecting a possible bus communication, as is the case with the other CPU solutions. The implementation of static or dynamic scheduling operations in hardware and the improvement of handling interrupts and events by the real-time executive described in the present article represent a key solution for eliminating the overhead of the operating system functions. The nMPRA processor is capable of executing a preemptive scheduling, using various algorithms without a software scheduler. Therefore, we have also presented various scheduling methods and algorithms used in scheduling the real-time tasks.

Keywords: nMPRA architecture, pipeline processor, preemptive scheduling, real-time system

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Authors: Abrar R. Al-Hasan

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Despite the widespread use of social media by consumers and marketers, empirical research investigating their economic value in the healthcare industry still lags. This study explores the impact of the use of social media marketing efforts on a hospital's brand equity and, ultimately, consumer response. Using social media data from Twitter and Facebook, along with an online and offline survey methodology, data is analyzed using logistic regression models. A random sample of (728) residents of the Kuwaiti population is used. The results of this study found that social media marketing efforts (SMME) in terms of use and validation lead to higher hospital brand equity and in turn, patient loyalty and patient visit. The study highlights the impact of SMME on hospital brand equity and patient response. Healthcare organizations should guide their marketing efforts to better manage this new way of marketing and communicating with patients to enhance their consumer loyalty and financial performance.

Keywords: brand equity, healthcare marketing, patient visit, social media, SMME

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Authors: Siti Rajaah Binti Sayed Sultan

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Managing the code blue event is stressful for nurses, the patient, and the patient's families. The rapid response from the first and second responders in the code blue event will improve patient outcomes and prevent tissue hypoxia that leads to brain injury and other organ failures. Providing 1 minute for the cardiac massage and 2 minutes for defibrillation will significantly improve patient outcomes. As we know, the American Heart Association came out with guidelines for managing cardiac arrest patients. The hospital must provide competent staff to manage this situation. It can be achieved when the staff is well equipped with the skill, attitude, and knowledge to manage this situation with well-planned strategies, i.e., clear guidelines for managing the code blue event, competent staff, and functional equipment. The code blue simulation (CBS) was chosen in the training program for code blue management because it can mimic real scenarios. Having the code blue simulation module will allow the staff to appreciate what they will face during the code blue event, especially since it rarely happens in that area. This CBS module training will help the staff familiarize themselves with the activities that happened during actual events and be able to operate the equipment accordingly. Being challenged and independent in managing the code blue in the early phase gives the patient a better outcome. The CBS module will help the assessor and the hospital management team with the proper tools and guidelines for managing the code blue drill accordingly. As we know, prompt action will benefit the patient and their family. It also indirectly increases the confidence and job satisfaction among the nurses, increasing the standard of care, reducing the complication and hospital burden, and enhancing cost-effective care.

Keywords: code blue simulation module, development of code blue simulation module, code blue response time, code blue drill, cardiorespiratory arrest, managing code blue

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Authors: Ayon Mukherjee

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Covariate-adjusted response-adaptive (CARA) designs use the available responses to skew the treatment allocation in a clinical trial in towards treatment found at an interim stage to be best for a given patient's covariate profile. Extensive research has been done on various aspects of CARA designs with the patient responses assumed to follow a parametric model. However, ranges of application for such designs are limited in real-life clinical trials where the responses infrequently fit a certain parametric form. On the other hand, robust estimates for the covariate-adjusted treatment effects are obtained from the parametric assumption. To balance these two requirements, designs are developed which are free from distributional assumptions about the survival responses, relying only on the assumption of proportional hazards for the two treatment arms. The proposed designs are developed by deriving two types of optimum allocation designs, and also by using a distribution function to link the past allocation, covariate and response histories to the present allocation. The optimal designs are based on biased coin procedures, with a bias towards the better treatment arm. These are the doubly-adaptive biased coin design (DBCD) and the efficient randomized adaptive design (ERADE). The treatment allocation proportions for these designs converge to the expected target values, which are functions of the Cox regression coefficients that are estimated sequentially. These expected target values are derived based on constrained optimization problems and are updated as information accrues with sequential arrival of patients. The design based on the link function is derived using the distribution function of a probit model whose parameters are adjusted based on the covariate profile of the incoming patient. To apply such designs, the treatment allocation probabilities are sequentially modified based on the treatment allocation history, response history, previous patients’ covariates and also the covariates of the incoming patient. Given these information, an expression is obtained for the conditional probability of a patient allocation to a treatment arm. Based on simulation studies, it is found that the ERADE is preferable to the DBCD when the main aim is to minimize the variance of the observed allocation proportion and to maximize the power of the Wald test for a treatment difference. However, the former procedure being discrete tends to be slower in converging towards the expected target allocation proportion. The link function based design achieves the highest skewness of patient allocation to the best treatment arm and thus ethically is the best design. Other comparative merits of the proposed designs have been highlighted and their preferred areas of application are discussed. It is concluded that the proposed CARA designs can be considered as suitable alternatives to the traditional balanced randomization designs in survival trials in terms of the power of the Wald test, provided that response data are available during the recruitment phase of the trial to enable adaptations to the designs. Moreover, the proposed designs enable more patients to get treated with the better treatment during the trial thus making the designs more ethically attractive to the patients. An existing clinical trial has been redesigned using these methods.

Keywords: censored response, Cox regression, efficiency, ethics, optimal allocation, power, variability

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Authors: Xiaoxian Zhang

Abstract:

Guidelines of ecological risk assessment (ERA) and food safety assessment (FSA) used nowadays, based on an S-shaped threshold dose-response curve (SDR), fail to consider hormesis, a reproducible biphasic dose-response model represented as a J-shaped or an inverted U-shaped curve, that occurs in the real-life environment across multitudinous compounds on cells, organisms, populations, and even the ecosystem. Specifically, in SDR-based ERA and FSA practice, predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) is calculated separately for individual substances from no observed effect concentration (NOEC, usually equivalent to 10% effect concentration (EC10) of a contaminant or food condiment) over an assessment coefficient that is bigger than 1. Experienced researchers doubted that hormesis in the real-life environment might lead to a waste of limited human and material resources in ERA and FSA practice, but related data are scarce. In this study, hormetic effects on bioluminescence of Aliivibrio fischeri (A. f) induced by sulfachloropyridazine (SCP) under 40 conditions to simulate the real-life scenario were investigated, and hormetic effects on growth of human MCF-7 cells caused by brown sugar and mascavado sugar were found likewise. After comparison of related parameters, it has for the first time been proved that there is a 50% probability for safe concentration (SC) of contaminants and food condiments to fall within the hormetic-stimulatory range (HSR) or left to HSR, revealing the unreliability of traditional parameters in standardized (eco)toxicological studies, and supporting qualitatively and quantitatively the over-strictness of ERA and FSA resulted from misuse of SDR. This study provides a novel perspective for ERA and FSA practitioners that hormesis should dominate and conditions where SDR works should only be singled out on a specific basis.

Keywords: dose-response relationship, food safety, ecological risk assessment, hormesis

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Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Issa Fofana, Brima Gegbe, Tamba I. Isaac

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Rice grain is Sierra Leone’s staple food and the nation imports over 120,000 metric tons annually due to a shortfall in its cultivation. Thus, the insufficient level of the crop's cultivation in Sierra Leone is caused by many problems and this led to the endlessly widening supply and demand for the crop within the country. Consequently, this has instigated the government to spend huge money on the importation of this grain that would have been otherwise cultivated domestically at a cheaper cost. Hence, this research attempts to explore the response of rice supply with respect to its demand in Sierra Leone within the period 1980-2010. The Nerlovian adjustment model to the Sierra Leone rice data set within the period 1980-2010 was used. The estimated trend equations revealed that time had significant effect on output, productivity (yield) and area (acreage) of rice grain within the period 1980-2010 and this occurred generally at the 1% level of significance. The results showed that, almost the entire growth in output had the tendency to increase in the area cultivated to the crop. The time trend variable that was included for government policy intervention showed an insignificant effect on all the variables considered in this research. Therefore, both the short-run and long-run price response was inelastic since all their values were less than one. From the findings above, immediate actions that will lead to productivity growth in rice cultivation are required. To achieve the above, the responsible agencies should provide extension service schemes to farmers as well as motivating them on the adoption of modern rice varieties and technology in their rice cultivation ventures.

Keywords: Nerlovian adjustment model, price elasticities, Sierra Leone, trend equations

Procedia PDF Downloads 213

Authors: Caixia Gao, Chuanrong Li, Lingli Tang, Lingling Ma, Yaokai Liu, Xinhong Wang, Yongsheng Zhou

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Performances analysis of remote sensing sensor is required to pursue a range of scientific research and application objectives. Laboratory analysis of any remote sensing instrument is essential, but not sufficient to establish a valid inflight one. In this study, with the aid of the in situ measurements and corresponding image of three-gray scale permanent artificial target, the in-flight radiometric performances analyses (in-flight radiometric calibration, dynamic range and response linearity, signal-noise-ratio (SNR), radiometric resolution) of self-developed short-wave infrared (SWIR) camera are performed. To acquire the inflight calibration coefficients of the SWIR camera, the at-sensor radiances (L_i) for the artificial targets are firstly simulated with in situ measurements (atmosphere parameter and spectral reflectance of the target) and viewing geometries using MODTRAN model. With these radiances and the corresponding digital numbers (DN) in the image, a straight line with a formulation of L = G × DN + B is fitted by a minimization regression method, and the fitted coefficients, G and B, are inflight calibration coefficients. And then the high point (L_H) and the low point (L_L) of dynamic range can be described as L_H= (G × DN_H + B) and L_L= B, respectively, where DN_H is equal to 2ⁿ − 1 (n is the quantization number of the payload). Meanwhile, the sensor’s response linearity (δ) is described as the correlation coefficient of the regressed line. The results show that the calibration coefficients (G and B) are 0.0083 W·sr⁻¹m⁻²µm⁻¹ and −3.5 W·sr⁻¹m⁻²µm⁻¹; the low point of dynamic range is −3.5 W·sr⁻¹m⁻²µm⁻¹ and the high point is 30.5 W·sr⁻¹m⁻²µm⁻¹; the response linearity is approximately 99%. Furthermore, a SNR normalization method is used to assess the sensor’s SNR, and the normalized SNR is about 59.6 when the mean value of radiance is equal to 11.0 W·sr⁻¹m⁻²µm⁻¹; subsequently, the radiometric resolution is calculated about 0.1845 W•sr^-1m^-2μm^-1. Moreover, in order to validate the result, a comparison of the measured radiance with a radiative-transfer-code-predicted over four portable artificial targets with reflectance of 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% respectively, is performed. It is noted that relative error for the calibration is within 6.6%.

Keywords: calibration and validation site, SWIR camera, in-flight radiometric calibration, dynamic range, response linearity

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Authors: Petrus Louis Nolte

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University sport in South Africa is not isolated from the complexity of globalization and professionalization of sport, as it forms an integral part of the sport development environment in South Africa. In order to align their sport programmes with global and professional requirements, several universities opted to develop elite sport programmes; recruit specialized personnel such as coaches, administrators and athletes; provide expert coaching; scientific and medical services; sports testing; fitness, technical and tactical expertise; sport psychological and rehabilitation support; academic guidance and career assistance; and student-athlete accommodation. In addition, universities provide administrative support and high-quality physical resources (training facilities) for the benefit of the overall South African sport system. Although it is not compulsory for universities to develop elite sport programmes to prepare their teams for competitions, elite competitions such as the annual Varsity Sport, University Sport South Africa (USSA) and local club competitions and leagues within university international competitions where universities not only compete but also deliver players for representative national netball teams. The aim of this study is therefore to describe the perceptions of players of the university elite netball programmes they were participating in. This study adopted a descriptive design with a quantitative approach, utilizing a self-structured questionnaire as research technique. As this research formed part of a national research project for NSA with a population of 172 national and provincial netball players, a sample of 92 university netball players from the population was selected. Content validity of the self-structured questionnaire was secured through a test-retest process, with construct validity through a member of the Statistical Consultation Services (STATCON) of the University of Johannesburg that provided feedback on the structural format of the questionnaire. Reliability was measured utilising Cronbach Alpha on p<0.005 level of significance. A reliability score of 0.87 was measured. The research was approved by the Board of Netball South Africa and ethical conduct implemented according to the processes and procedures approved by the Ethics Committees of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Johannesburg with clearance number REC-01-30-2019. From the results it is evident that university elite netball programmes are professional, especially with regards to the employment of knowledgeable and competent coaches and technical officials such as team managers and sport sciences staff. These professionals have access to elite training facilities, support staff, and relatively large groups of elite players, all elements of an elite programme that could enhance the national federation’s (Netball South Africa) system. Universities could serve the dual purpose of serving as university netball clubs, as well as providing elite training services and facilities as performance hubs for national players.

Keywords: elite sport programmes, university netball, player experiences, Varsity Sport netball

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Authors: Ju-Hong Lee, Ding-Chen Chung

Abstract:

The paper deals with the optimal design of two-channel linear-phase (LP) quadrature mirror filter (QMF) banks using a metaheuristic based optimization technique. Based on the theory of two-channel QMF banks using two recursive digital all-pass filters (DAFs), the design problem is appropriately formulated to result in an objective function which is a weighted sum of the group delay error of the designed QMF bank and the magnitude response error of the designed low-pass analysis filter. Through a frequency sampling and a weighted least squares approach, the optimization problem of the objective function can be solved by utilizing a particle swarm optimization algorithm. The resulting two-channel QMF banks can possess approximately LP response without magnitude distortion. Simulation results are presented for illustration and comparison.

Keywords: quadrature mirror filter bank, digital all-pass filter, weighted least squares algorithm, particle swarm optimization

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Authors: Najiba Ouled Omar, Azza Harbaoui, Henda Ben Ghezala

Abstract:

Current research practices sentiment analysis with a focus on social networks, DEfi Fouille de Texte (DEFT) (Text Mining Challenge) evaluation campaign focuses on opinion mining and sentiment analysis on social networks, especially social network Twitter. It aims to confront the systems produced by several teams from public and private research laboratories. DEFT offers participants the opportunity to work on regularly renewed themes and proposes to work on opinion mining in several editions. The purpose of this article is to scrutinize and analyze the works relating to opinions mining and sentiment analysis in the Twitter social network realized by DEFT. It examines the tasks proposed by the organizers of the challenge and the methods used by the participants.

Keywords: opinion mining, sentiment analysis, emotion, polarity, annotation, OSEE, figurative language, DEFT, Twitter, Tweet

Procedia PDF Downloads 120