Search results for: statistical parametric speech synthesis

Authors: Jana Tchekalarova, Stela Georgieva, Petia Peneva, Petar Todorov

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In the present study, a series of bioconjugates of N-modified hemorphine analogs containing second pharmacophore cinnamic acids (CA) or caffeic (KA) were synthesized by a traditional solid-phase Fmoc chemistry method for peptide synthesis. Electrochemical and fluorimetrical analysis and in vivo anticonvulsant activity in mice were conducted on the compounds. The three CA acids (H4-CA, H5-CA, and H7-CA) and three KA acids (H4-KA, H5-KA, and H7-KA)-conjugated hemorphine derivatives showed dose-dependent anticonvulsant activity in the maximal electroshock test (MES) in mice. The KA-conjugated H5-KA derivate was the only compound that suppressed clonic seizures at the lowest dose of 0.5 µg/mouse in the scPTZ test. The activity against the psychomotor seizures in the 6-Hz test was detected only for the H4-CA (0.5 µg) and H4-KA (0.5 µg and 1 µg), respectively. The peptide derivates did not exhibit neurotoxicity in the rotarod test. Our findings suggest that conjugated CA and KA hemorphine peptides can be used as a background for developing hemorphin-related analogs with anticonvulsant activity. Acknowledgements: This study is funded by the European Union-NextGenerationEU, through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Bulgaria, project № BG-RRP-2.004-0002, "BiOrgaMCT".

Keywords: hemorphins, caffeic/cinnamic acid, anticonvulsant activity, electrochemistry, fluorimetry

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Authors: Masoud Abbasalipour

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In this study, the impact of family status on individuals, involving factors such as parents' literacy level, family size, individuals' blood group, and susceptibility to addiction, was investigated. Statistical tests were employed to scrutinize the relationships among these specified factors. The statistical population of the study consisted of 338 samples divided into two groups: individuals with addiction and those without addiction in the city of Amol. The addicted group was selected from individuals visiting the substance abuse treatment center in Amol, and the non-addicted group was randomly selected from individuals in urban and rural areas. The Chi-square test was used to examine the presence or absence of relationships among the variables, and Kramer's V test was employed to determine the strength of the relationship between them. Excel software facilitated the initial entry of data, and SPSS software was utilized for the desired statistical tests. The research results indicated a significant relationship between the variable of parents' education level and individuals' addiction. The analysis showed that the education level of their parents was significantly lower compared to non-addicted individuals. However, the variables of the number of family members and blood group did not significantly impact individuals' susceptibility to addiction.

Keywords: addiction, blood group, parents' literacy level, family status

Procedia PDF Downloads 67

Authors: M. Sneha, N. Meenakshi Sundaram

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In recent times, magnetic hyperthermia is used for cancer treatment as a tool for active targeting of delivering drugs to the targeted site. It has a potential advantage over other heat treatment because there is no systemic buildup in organs and large doses are possible. The aim of this study is to develop a suitable magnetic biomaterial that can destroy the cancer cells as well as induce bone regeneration. In this work, the composite material was synthesized in two-steps. First, porous iron oxide nano needles were synthesized by hydrothermal process. Second, the hydroxyapatite, were synthesized from natural calcium (i.e., egg shell) and inorganic phosphorous source using wet chemical method. The crystalline nature is confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Thermal analysis and the surface area of the material is studied by Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Brunauer-Emmett and Teller (BET) technique. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images show that the particles have nanoneedle-like morphology. The magnetic property is studied by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) technique which confirms the superparamagnetic behavior. This paper presents a simple and easy method for synthesis of magnetite/hydroxyapatite composites materials.

Keywords: iron oxide nano needles, hydroxyapatite, superparamagnetic, hyperthermia

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Authors: Nazar Hussain, Debaraj Mukherjee

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Carbohydrate-derived chiral intermediates which contain arrays of defined stereocenters have found enormous applications in organic synthesis due to their inherent functional group, stereochemical and structural diversities as well as their ready availability. Stereodiversity of these classes of molecules has motivated synthetic organic chemistry over the years. One major challenge is control of relative configuration during construction of acyclic fragments. Here, we show that The Diels Alder addition of arynes to appropriately substituted vinyl/aryl glycals followed by π-extension via pyran ring opening smoothly furnished meta-disubstituted fused aromatic cores containing a stereo-defined orthogonally protected chiral side chain. The method is broad in terms of aryl homologation affording benzene, naphthalene, and phenanthrene derivatives. Base-induced deprotonation followed by cleavage of the allylic C-O bond appears to be the crucial steps leading to the development of aromaticity, which is the driving force behind the annulative π-extension process. The present protocol can be used for the synthesis of meta-disubstituted naphthalene aldehydes and substrates for aldolases.

Keywords: vinyl/C-2 aryl glycal, arynes, cyclization, ring opening

Procedia PDF Downloads 251

Authors: Mohammad Javad Seddighi, Avar Almukhtar

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Sustainable urban planning and design (SUPD) play a critical role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). While there are many rating systems and standards available to assess the sustainability of the built environment, there is still a lack of a comprehensive framework that can assess the quality of SUPD in a specific context. In this paper, we present a framework for assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities, considering their unique cultural, social, and environmental contexts. The aim of this study is to develop a framework for assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities. To achieve this aim, the following objectives are pursued review and synthesis of relevant literature on SUPD, identification of key indicators and criteria for assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities application of the framework to case studies of Iranian cities and evaluation and refinement of the framework based on the results of the case studies. The framework is developed based on a review and synthesis of relevant literature on SUPD, and the identification of key indicators and criteria for assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities. The framework is then applied to case studies of Iranian cities and the results are evaluated and refined. The data for this study are collected through a review of relevant literature on SUPD, including academic journals, conference proceedings, and books. The case studies of Iranian cities are selected based on their relevance and availability of data. The data are collected through interviews, site visits, and document analysis. This paper presents a framework for assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities. The framework is developed based on a review and synthesis of relevant literature, identification of key indicators and criteria, application to case studies, and evaluation and refinement. The framework provides a comprehensive and context-specific approach to assessing the quality of SUPD in Iranian cities. It can be used by urban planners, designers, and policymakers to improve the sustainability and liveability of Iranian cities, and it can be adapted for use in other contexts.

Keywords: sustainable urban planning and design, framework, quality assessment, Iranian cities, case studies

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Authors: Krittiya Pornmai, Sumaeth Chavadej

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The increasing in global energy demand has affected the climate change caused by the generation of greenhouse gases. Therefore, the objective of this work was to investigate a direct production of synthesis gas from a CO₂-containing natural gas by using gliding arc discharge plasma technology. In this research, the effects of steam reforming, combined steam reforming and partial oxidation, and using multistage gliding arc discharge system on the process performance have been discussed. The simulated natural gas used in this study contains 70% methane, 5% ethane, 5% propane, and 20% carbon dioxide. In comparison with different plasma reforming processes (under their optimum conditions), the steam reforming provides the highest H₂ selectivity resulting from the cracking reaction of steam. In addition, the combined steam reforming and partial oxidation process gives a very high CO production implying that the addition of both oxygen and steam can offer the acceptably highest synthesis gas production. The stage number of plasma reactor plays an important role in the improvement of CO₂ conversion. Moreover, 3 stage number of plasma reactor is considered as an optimum stage number for the reforming of CO₂-containing natural gas with steam and partial oxidation in term of providing low energy consumption as compared with other plasma reforming processes.

Keywords: natural gas, reforming process, gliding arc discharge, plasma technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Y. A. Prada, Fanny Guzman, Rafael Cabanzo, John J. Castillo, Enrique Mejia-Ospino

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In this work, we show the important results about of synthesis of photoluminiscents gold nanoclusters using a small peptide as template for biosensing applications. Interestingly, we design one peptide (NBC2854) homologue to conservative domain from 215 250 residue of a galactolectin protein which can recognize the proteophosphoglycans (PPG) from Leishmania. Peptide was synthetized by multiple solid phase synthesis using FMoc group methodology in acid medium. Finally, the peptide was purified by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography using a Vydac C-18 preparative column and the detection was at 215 nm using a Photo Diode Array detector. Molecular mass of this peptide was confirmed by MALDI-TOF and to verify the α-helix structure we use Circular Dichroism. By means of the methodology used we obtained a novel fluorescents gold nanoclusters (AuNC) using NBC2854 as a template. In this work, we described an easy and fast microsonic method for the synthesis of AuNC with ≈ 3.0 nm of hydrodynamic size and photoemission at 630 nm. The presence of cysteine residue in the C-terminal of the peptide allows the formation of Au-S bond which confers stability to Peptide-based gold nanoclusters. Interactions between the peptide and gold nanoclusters were confirmed by X-ray Photoemission and Raman Spectroscopy. Notably, from the ultrafine spectra shown in the MALDI-TOF analysis which containing only 3-7 KDa species was assigned to Au₈-₁₈[NBC2854]₂ clusters. Finally, we evaluated the Peptide-gold nanocluster as an optical biosensor based on fluorescence spectroscopy and the fluorescence signal of PPG (0.1 µg-mL⁻¹ to 1000 µg-mL⁻¹) was amplified at the same wavelength emission (≈ 630 nm). This can suggest that there is a strong interaction between PPG and Pep@AuNC, therefore, the increase of the fluorescence intensity can be related to the association mechanism that take place when the target molecule is sensing by the Pep@AuNC conjugate. Further spectroscopic studies are necessary to evaluate the fluorescence mechanism involve in the sensing of the PPG by the Pep@AuNC. To our best knowledge the fabrication of an optical biosensor based on Pep@AuNC for sensing biomolecules such as Proteophosphoglycans which are secreted in abundance by parasites Leishmania.

Keywords: biosensing, fluorescence, Leishmania, peptide-gold nanoclusters, proteophosphoglycans

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Authors: Yanmeng Liu

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This article analyzes and compares the linguistic differences between machine translation and manual translation, through a case study of the book Gone with the Wind. As an important carrier of human feeling and thinking, the literature translation poses a huge difficulty for machine translation, and it is supposed to expose distinct translation features apart from manual translation. In order to display linguistic features objectively, tentative uses of computerized and statistical evidence to the systematic investigation of large scale translation corpora by using quantitative methods have been deployed. This study compiles bilingual corpus with four versions of Chinese translations of the book Gone with the Wind, namely, Piao by Chunhai Fan, Piao by Huairen Huang, translations by Google Translation and Baidu Translation. After processing the corpus with the software of Stanford Segmenter, Stanford Postagger, and AntConc, etc., the study analyzes linguistic data and answers the following questions: 1. How does the machine translation differ from manual translation linguistically? 2. Why do these deviances happen? This paper combines translation study with the knowledge of corpus linguistics, and concretes divergent linguistic dimensions in translated text analysis, in order to present linguistic deviances in manual and machine translation. Consequently, this study provides a more accurate and more fine-grained understanding of machine translation products, and it also proposes several suggestions for machine translation development in the future.

Keywords: corpus-based analysis, linguistic deviances, machine translation, statistical evidence

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Dongxu Chen, Yipeng Li

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This paper presents an information geometry NonlocalMeans(NLM) algorithm for Poisson denoising. NLM estimates a noise-free pixel as a weighted average of image pixels, where each pixel is weighted according to the similarity between image patches in Euclidean space. In this work, every pixel is a Poisson distribution locally estimated by Maximum Likelihood (ML), all distributions consist of a statistical manifold. A NLM denoising algorithm is conducted on the statistical manifold where Fisher information matrix can be used for computing distribution geodesics referenced as the similarity between patches. This approach was demonstrated to be competitive with related state-of-the-art methods.

Keywords: image denoising, Poisson noise, information geometry, nonlocal-means

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Authors: Selena Gutiérrez, Araceli Martínez

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One of the most important challenges worldwide, scientific and technological, is to have a sustainable energy source; friendly to the environment and widely available. Currently, the 85% of the energy used comes from the fossil sources. Another important environmental problem is that several rubber products (tires, gloves, hoses, among others) are discarded practically without any treatment. In nature, the degradation of such products will take at least 500 years. In 2009, the worldwide rubber production was about 23.6 million tons. In order to solve this problems, our research focus in an alternative synthesis of biofuels in a two-step approach: The metathesis degradation of industrial rubber (models of rubber waste), and the oligomers transesterification. Thus, cis-1,4-polybutadiene (Mn= 9.1x105, Mw/Mn= 2.2) and styrene-butadiene block copolymers with 30% (Mn= 1.61x105; Mw/Mn= 1.3) and 21% wt styrene (Mn= 1.92x105; Mw/Mn= 1.4) were degraded via metathesis with soybean oil as chain transfer agent (CTA) and green solvent; using [(PCy3)2Cl2Ru=CHPh] and [(1,3-diphenyl-4,5-dihydroimidazol-2-ylidene)(PCy3)Ru=CHPh] catalysts. Afterwards, the products were transesterified by basic homogeneous catalysis. Before transesterification, the polystyrene microblocks (Mn= 16,761; Mw/Mn= 1.2) were isolated. Finally, the biofuels obtained (BO) were purified, characterized and showed similar properties to standards biodiesel (SB) (Norms: EN 14214-03 and ASTM D6751-02), i.e. (SB / BO): molecular weight [Daltons] (570 / 543-596), density [g/cm3] (0.86-0.90 / 0.88), kinematic viscosity [mm2/s] (1.90-6.0 / 3.5-4.5), iodine (97 / 97-98) and cetane number (Min.47 / 56-58).

Keywords: biofuels, industrial rubber, metathesis, vegetable oils

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Authors: Mahmoud Roushdy, Mohamed El Naggar, Ahmed Yehia Abdelaziz

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Anchored sheet pile has been used worldwide as front quay walls for decades. With the increase in vessel drafts and weights, those sheet pile walls need to be upgraded by increasing the depth of the dredging line in front of the wall. A system has recently been used to increase the depth in front of the wall by installing a separated platform supported on a deep foundation (so called Relieving Platform) behind the sheet pile wall. The platform is structurally separated from the front wall. This paper presents a numerical investigation utilizing finite element analysis on the behavior of separated relieve platforms installed within existing anchored sheet pile quay walls. The investigation was done in two steps: a verification step followed by a parametric study. In the verification step, the numerical model was verified based on field measurements performed by others. The validated model was extended within the parametric study to a series of models with different backfill soils, separation gap width, and number of pile rows supporting the platform. The results of the numerical investigation show that using stiff clay as backfill soil (neglecting consolidation) gives better performance for the front wall and the first pile row adjacent to sandy backfills. The degree of compaction of the sandy backfill slightly increases lateral deformations but reduces bending moment acting on pile rows, while the effect is minor on the front wall. In addition, the increase in the separation gap width gradually increases bending moments on the front wall regardless of the backfill soil type, while this effect is reversed on pile rows (gradually decrease). Finally, the paper studies the possibility of reducing the number of pile rows along with the separation to take advantage of the positive separation effect on piles.

Keywords: anchored sheet pile, relieving platform, separation gap, upgrade quay wall

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Authors: Si Chen, Caroline Wiltshire, Bin Li

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This study statistically models the surface f0 contour and the underlying pitch target of a well-studied third sandhi tone of Mandarin Chinese. Although the growth curve analysis on the surface f0 contours indicates non-neutralization of this sandhi tone (T3) and the base T2, their underlying pitch targets do show neutralization. These results in Mandarin are also consistent with the perception of native speakers, where they cannot distinguish the third T3 from the base T2, compensating contextual variation. It is possible to use the proposed statistical procedure of testing underlying pitch targets to verify tone sandhi processes in other tonal languages.

Keywords: growth curve analysis, Mandarin Chinese, tone sandhi, underlying pitch target

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Authors: Supriya, J. K. Basu, S. Sengupta

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Silver nanoparticles have caught a lot of attention because of its unique physical and chemical properties. Silver nanoparticles embedded in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA/Ag) free-standing film have been prepared by microwave irradiation in few minutes. PVA performed as a reducing agent, stabilizing agents as well as support for silver nanoparticles. UV-Vis spectrometry, scanning transmission electron (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques affirmed the reduction of silver ion to silver nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. Effect of irradiation time, the concentration of PVA and concentration of silver precursor on the synthesis of silver nanoparticle has been studied. Particles size of silver nanoparticles decreases with increase in irradiation time. Concentration of silver nanoparticles increases with increase in concentration of silver precursor. Good dispersion of silver nanoparticles in the film has been confirmed by TEM analysis. Particle size of silver nanoparticle has been found to be in the range of 2-10nm. Catalytic property of prepared silver nanoparticles as a heterogeneous catalyst has been studied in the reduction of p-Nitrophenol (a water pollutant) with >98% conversion. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that PVA encapsulated Ag nanoparticles film as a catalyst shows better efficiency and reusability in the reduction of p-Nitrophenol.

Keywords: biopolymer, microwave irradiation, silver nanoparticles, water pollutant

Procedia PDF Downloads 284

Authors: Hakan Gungunes, Ismail A. Auwal, Abdulhadi Baykal, Sagar E. Shirsath

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Barium hexaferrite, BaFe₁₂O₁₉, substituted by Bi³⁺ and La³⁺ (BaBiₓLaₓFe₁₂₋₂ₓO₁₉ where 0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) were prepared by solid state synthesis route. The effect of substituted Bi³⁺ and La³⁺ ions on the structure, morphology, magnetic and cation distributions of barium hexaferrite were investigated by X-ray powder diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. XRD powder patterns were refined by the Rietveld analysis method which confirmed the formation of single phase magneto-plumbite structure and the substitution of La³⁺ and Bi³⁺ ions into the lattice of barium ferrite. These results show that both La³⁺ and Bi³⁺ ions completely enter into barium hexaferrite lattice without disturbing the hexagonal ferrite structure. The EDX spectra confirmed the presence of all the constituents in expected elemental percentage. From 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy data, the variation in line width, isomer shift, quadrupole splitting and hyperfine magnetic field values on Bi and La substitutions have been determined. Cation distribution in the presently investigated hexaferrite system was estimated using the relative area of Mössbauer spectroscopy.

Keywords: hexaferrite, mössbauer, cation distribution, solid state synthesis

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

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

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

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Authors: Abu Yousuf, Maksudur Rahman Khan, Ahasanul Karim, Amirul Islam, Minhaj Uddin Monir, Sharmin Sultana, Domenico Pirozzi

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Traditional biodiesel feedstock like edible oils or plant oils, animal fats and cooking waste oil have been replaced by microbial oil in recent research of biodiesel synthesis. The well-known community of microbial oil producers includes microalgae, oleaginous yeast and seaweeds. Conventional transesterification of microbial oil to produce biodiesel is lethargic, energy consuming, cost-ineffective and environmentally unhealthy. This process follows several steps such as microbial biomass drying, cell disruption, oil extraction, solvent recovery, oil separation and transesterification. Therefore, direct transesterification of biodiesel synthesis has been studying for last few years. It combines all the steps in a single reactor and it eliminates the steps of biomass drying, oil extraction and separation from solvent. Apparently, it seems to be cost-effective and faster process but number of difficulties need to be solved to make it large scale applicable. The main challenges are microbial cell disruption in bulk volume and make faster the esterification reaction, because water contents of the medium sluggish the reaction rate. Several methods have been proposed but none of them is up to the level to implement in large scale. It is still a great challenge to extract maximum lipid from microbial cells (yeast, fungi, algae) investing minimum energy. Electroporation technique results a significant increase in cell conductivity and permeability caused due to the application of an external electric field. Electroporation is required to alter the size and structure of the cells to increase their porosity as well as to disrupt the microbial cell walls within few seconds to leak out the intracellular lipid to the solution. Therefore, incorporation of electroporation techniques contributed in direct transesterification of microbial lipids by increasing the efficiency of biodiesel production rate.

Keywords: biodiesel, electroporation, microbial lipids, transesterification

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Authors: Lee Jeong Min, Lee Mi Hee, Eo Yang Dam

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Geospatial feature extraction is a very important issue in the remote sensing research. In the meantime, the image classification based on statistical techniques, but, in recent years, data mining and machine learning techniques for automated image processing technology is being applied to remote sensing it has focused on improved results generated possibility. In this study, artificial neural network and decision tree technique is applied to classify the high-resolution satellite images, as compared to the MLC processing result is a statistical technique and an analysis of the pros and cons between each of the techniques.

Keywords: remote sensing, artificial neural network, decision tree, maximum likelihood classification

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Authors: Nino Abesadze, Marine Mindorashvili, Nino Paresashvili

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At present actual tourism indicators cannot be calculated in Georgia, making it impossible to perform their quantitative analysis. Therefore, the study conducted by us is highly important from a theoretical as well as practical standpoint. The main purpose of the article is to make complex statistical analysis of tourist expenses of foreign visitors and to calculate statistical attractiveness indices of the tourism potential of Georgia. During the research, the method involving random and proportional selection has been applied. Computer software SPSS was used to compute statistical data for corresponding analysis. Corresponding methodology of tourism statistics was implemented according to international standards. Important information was collected and grouped from major Georgian airports, and a representative population of foreign visitors and a rule of selection of respondents were determined. The results show a trend of growth in tourist numbers and the share of tourists from post-soviet countries are constantly increasing. The level of satisfaction with tourist facilities and quality of service has improved, but still we have a problem of disparity between the service quality and the prices. The design of tourist expenses of foreign visitors is diverse; competitiveness of tourist products of Georgian tourist companies is higher. Attractiveness of popular cities of Georgia has increased by 43%.

Keywords: tourist, expenses, indexes, statistics, analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: Kim Dongwon, Yu Songjin

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This study identifies the business value of VOC (Voice of Customer) on the business. Precisely, we intend to demonstrate how much negative and positive sentiment of VOC has an influence on car sales market share in the unites states. We extract 7 emotions such as sadness, shame, anger, fear, frustration, delight and satisfaction from the VOC data, 23,204 pieces of opinions, that had been posted on car-related on-line community from 2007 to 2009(a part of data collection from 2007 to 2015), and intend to clarify the correlation between negative and positive sentimental keywords and contribution to market share. In order to develop a lexicon for each category of negative and positive sentiment, we took advantage of Corpus program, Antconc 3.4.1.w and on-line sentimental data, SentiWordNet and identified the part of speech(POS) information of words in the customers' opinion by using a part-of-speech tagging function provided by TextAnalysisOnline. For the purpose of this present study, a total of 45,741 pieces of customers' opinions of 28 car manufacturing companies had been collected including titles and status information. We conducted an experiment to examine whether the inclusion, frequency and intensity of terms with negative and positive emotions in each category affect the adoption of customer opinions for vehicle organizations' market share. In the experiment, we statistically verified that there is correlation between customer ideas containing negative and positive emotions and variation of marker share. Particularly, "Anger," a domain of negative domains, is significantly influential to car sales market share. The domain "Delight" and "Satisfaction" increased in proportion to growth of market share.

Keywords: data mining, opinion mining, sentiment analysis, VOC

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Authors: R. Srinivas, K. V. Ramana

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This paper presents a novel method called VESTAL to label vertebrae and inter vertebral discs. Each vertebra has certain statistical features properties. To label vertebrae and discs, a new equation to model the path of spinal cord is derived using statistical properties of the spinal canal. VESTAL uses this equation for labeling vertebrae and discs. For each vertebrae and inter vertebral discs both posterior, interior width, height are measured. The calculated values are compared with real values which are measured using venires calipers and the comparison produced 95% efficiency and accurate results. The VESTAL is applied on 50 patients 350 MR images and obtained 100% accuracy in labeling.

Keywords: spine, vertebrae, inter vertebral disc, labeling, statistics, texture, disc

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Authors: Rino Gubiani, Gianfranco Pergher

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The work focused on the statistical analysis of accidents in the forestry sector (2000-2020) in Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, located in the North-East of Italy. The aim of the work was to analyse the evolution of the casualties throughout time and to evaluate possible improvements in the sector. It was shown that even nowadays the rate of accidents in forestry work is higher compared with all the other sectors, including agriculture; moreover, it was highlighted that some accidents remained present throughout the whole analysed range, such as slipping on the soil, being hit by trees and falling down from the plants. The results showed that an increase in forestry exploitation could even increase the total number of accidents, if advanced technological machines, such as cable cranes, would not implemented, given the fact that there is also a significant number of old people (above 50 years old) working in the sector.

Keywords: safety, forestry work, accidents, risk analysis, casualties, statistical analysis

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Authors: Jun Choi, Bo Ram Lee, Ji Hye Choi, Jung Soo Kim, No-Hyung Park, Dong Hyun Kim

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The synthetic rubber compound, which is widely used as the core material for automobile tire industry, is manufactured by mixing styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and organic/inorganic fillers. It is known that the most important factor for the physical properties of rubber compound is the interaction between the filler and the rubber, which affects the rotational, braking and abrasion resistance. Silica filler has hydrophilic groups such as a silanol group on their surface which has a low affinity with hydrophobic rubbers. In order to solve this problem, researches on an efficient silane coupling agent (SCA) has been continuously carried out. In this study, highly water-soluble SCAs which are expected to show higher hydrolysis efficiency were synthesized. The hydrophobization process of the silica with the prepared SCAs was economical and environment-friendly. The SCAs structures were analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy. In addition, their hydrolysis efficiency and condensation side reaction in SBR wet master batch were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC), respectively.

Keywords: rubber, silane coupling agent, synthesis, water-soluble

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Authors: Alaa Al Hawari, Mohammad Khader, Tarek Zayed, Osama Moselhi

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In this paper, an effective non-destructive, non-invasive approach for leak detection was proposed. The process relies on analyzing thermal images collected by an IR viewer device that captures thermo-grams. In this study a statistical analysis of the collected thermal images of the ground surface along the expected leak location followed by a visual inspection of the thermo-grams was performed in order to locate the leak. In order to verify the applicability of the proposed approach the predicted leak location from the developed approach was compared with the real leak location. The results showed that the expected leak location was successfully identified with an accuracy of more than 95%.

Keywords: thermography, leakage, water pipelines, thermograms

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Authors: Amanda Rithieli Pereira Dos Santos, Rute Quelvia De Faria, Álvaro De Oliveira Cardoso, Anderson Rodrigo Da Silva, Érica Leão Fernandes Araújo

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The study of the kinetics of drying has great importance for the mathematical modeling, allowing to know about the processes of transference of heat and mass between the products and to adjust dryers managing new technologies for these processes. The present work had the objective of studying the kinetics of drying of soybean seeds and adjusting different statistical models to the experimental data varying cultivar and temperature. Soybean seeds were pre-dried in a natural environment in order to reduce and homogenize the water content to the level of 14% (b.s.). Then, drying was carried out in a forced air circulation oven at controlled temperatures of 38, 43, 48, 53 and 58 ± 1 ° C, using two soybean cultivars, BRS 8780 and Sambaíba, until reaching a hygroscopic equilibrium. The experimental design was completely randomized in factorial 5 x 2 (temperature x cultivar) with 3 replicates. To the experimental data were adjusted eleven statistical models used to explain the drying process of agricultural products. Regression analysis was performed using the least squares Gauss-Newton algorithm to estimate the parameters. The degree of adjustment was evaluated from the analysis of the coefficient of determination (R²), the adjusted coefficient of determination (R² Aj.) And the standard error (S.E). The models that best represent the drying kinetics of soybean seeds are those of Midilli and Logarítmico.

Keywords: curve of drying seeds, Glycine max L., moisture ratio, statistical models

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Authors: Ibrahim M. Labouta, Marwa H. El-Wakil, Hayam M. Ashour, Ahmed M. Hassan, Manal N. Saudi

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The receptor tyrosine kinase c-Met is an attractive target for therapeutic treatment of cancers nowadays. Among the wide variety of heterocycles that have been explored for developing c-Met kinase inhibitors, the 1,2,4-triazines have been rarely investigated, although they are well known in the literature to possess antitumor activities. Herein we describe the design and synthesis of a novel series of 1,2,4-triazine derivatives possessing N-acylarylhydrazone moiety and another series combining the 1,2,4-triazine scaffold to the well-known anticancer drug 6-MP in order to explore their “double-drug” effect. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antitumor activity against three c-Met addicted cancer cell lines (A549, HT-29 and MKN-45). Most compounds showed moderate to excellent antiproliferative activity and four compounds showed potent inhibitory activity more than the reference drug Foretinib against one or more cancer cell lines. The obtained results revealed that the potent compounds are highly selective to A549 (lung adenocarcinoma) cancer cell line. The c-Met kinase inhibitory activity of the potent derivatives is still under investigation. The present study clearly demonstrates that the 1,2,4-triazine core ring exhibits promising antitumor activity with potential c-Met kinase inhibitory activity.

Keywords: 1, 2, 4-triazine, antitumor, c-Met inhibitor, double-drug

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Authors: M. N. Nwodo, Y. P. Cheng, N. H. Minh

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In the process of recovering oil in weak sandstone formations, the strength of sandstones around the wellbore is weakened due to the increase of effective stress/load from the completion activities around the cavity. The weakened and de-bonded sandstone may be eroded away by the produced fluid, which is termed sand production. It is one of the major trending subjects in the petroleum industry because of its significant negative impacts, as well as some observed positive impacts. For efficient sand management therefore, there has been need for a reliable study tool to understand the mechanism of sanding. One method of studying sand production is the use of the widely recognized Discrete Element Method (DEM), Particle Flow Code (PFC3D) which represents sands as granular individual elements bonded together at contact points. However, there is limited knowledge of the particle-scale behavior of the weak sandstone, and the parameters that affect sanding. This paper aims to investigate the reliability of using PFC3D and a simple Darcy flow in understanding the sand production behavior of a weak sandstone. An isotropic tri-axial test on a weak oil sandstone sample was first simulated at a confining stress of 1MPa to calibrate and validate the parallel bond models of PFC3D using a 10m height and 10m diameter solid cylindrical model. The effect of the confining stress on the number of bonds failure was studied using this cylindrical model. With the calibrated data and sample material properties obtained from the tri-axial test, simulations without and with fluid flow were carried out to check on the effect of Darcy flow on bonds failure using the same model geometry. The fluid flow network comprised of every four particles connected with tetrahedral flow pipes with a central pore or flow domain. Parametric studies included the effects of confining stress, and fluid pressure; as well as validating flow rate – permeability relationship to verify Darcy’s fluid flow law. The effect of model size scaling on sanding was also investigated using 4m height, 2m diameter model. The parallel bond model successfully calibrated the sample’s strength of 4.4MPa, showing a sharp peak strength before strain-softening, similar to the behavior of real cemented sandstones. There seems to be an exponential increasing relationship for the bigger model, but a curvilinear shape for the smaller model. The presence of the Darcy flow induced tensile forces and increased the number of broken bonds. For the parametric studies, flow rate has a linear relationship with permeability at constant pressure head. The higher the fluid flow pressure, the higher the number of broken bonds/sanding. The DEM PFC3D is a promising tool to studying the micromechanical behavior of cemented sandstones.

Keywords: discrete element method, fluid flow, parametric study, sand production/bonds failure

Procedia PDF Downloads 318

Authors: Amina Sultan, Mohamed Ghonim, Eman Oweida, Aya Abdelaziz

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Objective: To assess the diagnostic reliability of multi-detector CT in pre and post-operative evaluation of cochlear implant candidates. Material and Methods: The study includes 40 patients (18 males and 22 females); mean age 5.6 years. They were classified into two groups: Group A (20 patients): cochlear implant device was Nucleus-22 and Group B (20 patients): the device was MED-EL. Cochlear length (CL) and cochlear height (CH) were measured pre-operatively by 128-multidetector CT. Electrode length (EL) and insertion depth angle (α) were measured post-operatively by MDCT. Results: For Group A mean CL was 9.1 mm ± 0.4 SD; mean CH was 4.1 ± 0.3 SD; mean EL was 18 ± 2.7 SD; mean α angle was 299.05 ± 37 SD. Significant statistical correlation (P < 0.05) was found between preoperative CL and post-operative EL (r²=0.6); as well as EL and α angle (r²=0.7). Group B's mean CL was 9.1 mm ± 0.3 SD; mean CH was 4.1 ± 0.4 SD; mean EL was 27 ± 2.1 SD; mean α angle was 287.6 ± 41.7 SD. Significant statistical correlation was found between CL and EL (r²= 0.6) and α angle (r²=0.5). Also, a strong correlation was found between EL and α angle (r²=0.8). Significant statistical difference was detected between the two devices as regards to the electrode length. Conclusion: Multidetector CT is a reliable tool for preoperative planning and post-operative evaluation of the outcomes of cochlear implant operations. Cochlear length is a valuable prognostic parameter for prediction of the depth of electrode array insertion which can influence criteria of device selection.

Keywords: angle of insertion (α angle), cochlear implant (CI), cochlear length (CL), Multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT)

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Authors: Aneta Oblouková, Eva Vítková

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The article deals with the issue of water and sewerage charge rate prices in the Czech Republic. The research is specifically focused on the analysis of the development of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rate in the Czech Republic in the years 1994-2021 and on the validation of the chosen methodology relevant for the prediction of the development of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rate in the Czech Republic. The research is based on data collection. The data for this research was obtained from the Czech Statistical Office. The aim of the paper is to validate the relevance of the mathematical linear trend estimate technique for the calculation of the predicted average prices of water and sewerage charge rates. The real values of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rates in the Czech Republic in the years 1994-2018 were obtained from the Czech Statistical Office and were converted into a mathematical equation. The same type of real data was obtained from the Czech Statistical Office for the years 2019-2021. Prediction of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rates in the Czech Republic in the years 2019-2021 were also calculated using a chosen method -a linear trend estimation technique. The values obtained from the Czech Statistical Office and the values calculated using the chosen methodology were subsequently compared. The research result is a validation of the chosen mathematical technique to be a suitable technique for this research.

Keywords: Czech Republic, linear trend estimation, price prediction, water and sewerage charge rate

Procedia PDF Downloads 116

Authors: Ayla Roberta Galaco, Juliana Fonseca De Lima, Osvaldo Antonio Serra

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Coordination polymers, also known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) or lanthanoide organic frameworks (LOFs) have been reported due of their promising applications in gas storage, separation, catalysis, luminescence, magnetism, drug delivery, and so on. As a type of organic–inorganic hybrid materials, the properties of coordination polymers could be chosen by deliberately selecting the organic and inorganic components. LOFs have received considerable attention because of their properties such as porosity, luminescence, and magnetism. Methods such as solvothermal synthesis are important as a strategy to control the structural and morphological properties as well as the composition of the target compounds. In this work the first solvothermal synthesis was employed to obtain the compound [Y0.4,Yb0.4,Er0.2(dmf)(for)(H2O)(tft)], by using terephthalic acid (tft) and oxalic acid, decomposed in formate (for), as ligands; Yttrium, Ytterbium and, Erbium as metal centers, in DMF and water for 4 days under 160 °C. The semi-rigid terephthalic acid (dicarboxylic) coordinates with Ln3+ ions and also is possible to form a polyfunctional bridge. On the other hand, oxalate anion has no high-energy vibrational groups, which benefits the excitation of Yb3+ in upconversion process. It was observed that the compounds with water molecules in the coordination sphere of the lanthanoide ions cause lower crystalline properties and change the structure of the LOF (1D, 2D, 3D). In the FTIR, the bands at 1589 and 1500 cm-1 correspond to the asymmetric stretching vibration of –COO. The band at 1383 cm-1 is assigned to the symmetric stretching vibration of –COO. Single crystal X-ray diffraction study reveals an infinite 3D coordination framework that crystalizes in space group P21/c. The other three products, [TR(chel)(ofd)0,5(H2O)2], where TR= Eu3+, Y3, and Yb3+/Er3+ were obtained by using 1, 2-phenylenedioxydiacetic acid (ofd) and chelidonic acid (chel) as organic ligands. Thermal analysis shows that the lanthanoide organic frameworks do not collapse at temperatures below 250 °C. By the polycrystalline X-ray diffraction patterns (PXRD) it was observed that the compounds with Eu3+, Y3+, and Yb3+/Er3+ ions are isostructural. From PXRD patterns, high crystallinity can be noticed for the complexes. The final products were characterized by single X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) is an effective method to investigate crystalline properties of synthesized materials. The solid crystal obtained in the synthesis show peaks at 2θ < 10°, indicating the MOF formation. The chemical composition of LOFs was also confirmed by EDS.

Keywords: isostructural, lanthanoids, lanthanoids organic frameworks (LOFs), metal organic frameworks (MOFs), thermogravimetry, X-Ray diffraction

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Joseph Ampratwum, Yaw Nyadu Offei, Afua Ntoaduro, Frank Twum

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The use of computer assistive technology has captured the attention of individuals with visual impairment. Children with visual impairments who are tactual learners have one unique need which is quite different from all other disability groups. They depend on the use of computer assistive technology for reading, writing, receiving information and sending information as well. The objective of the study was to assess students’ competencies in the use of computer assistive technology at Akropong School for the Blind in Ghana. This became necessary because little research has been conducted to document the competencies and challenges in the use of computer among students with visual impairments in Africa. A case study design with a mixed research strategy was adopted for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to sample 35 students from Akropong School for the Blind in the eastern region of Ghana. The researcher gathered both quantitative and qualitative data to measure students’ competencies in keyboarding skills and Job Access with Speech (JAWS), as well as the other challenges. The findings indicated that comparatively students’ competency in keyboard skills was higher than JAWS application use. Thus students had reached higher stages in the conscious competencies matrix in the former than the latter. It was generally noted that challenges limiting effective use of students’ competencies in computer assistive technology in the School were more personal than external influences. This was because most of the challenges were due to the individual response to the training and familiarity in developing their competencies in using computer assistive technology. Base on this it was recommended that efforts should be made to stock up the laboratory with additional computers. Directly in line with the first recommendation, it was further suggested that more practice time should be created for the students to maximize computer use. Also Licensed JAWS must be acquired by the school to advance students’ competence in using computer assistive technology.

Keywords: computer assistive technology, job access with speech, keyboard, visual impairment

Procedia PDF Downloads 336