Search results for: signal generator-fault indicator

Authors: Helen Zhang

Abstract:

Accurate segmentation of the airways from CT scans is crucial for early diagnosis of lung cancer. However, the existing airway segmentation algorithms often rely on thin-slice CT scans, which can be inconvenient and costly. This paper presents a set of machine learning-based 3D super-resolution algorithms along heterogeneous dimensions to improve the resolution of thicker CT scans to reduce the reliance on thin-slice scans. To evaluate the efficacy of the super-resolution algorithms, quantitative assessments using PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and SSIM (Structural SIMilarity index) were performed. The impact of super-resolution on airway segmentation accuracy is also studied. The proposed approach has the potential to make airway segmentation more accessible and affordable, thereby facilitating early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.

Keywords: 3D super-resolution, airway segmentation, thin-slice CT scans, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: M. R. Kamandar, J. Massah

Abstract:

The information of the impact cutting behavior of plants stalk plays an important role in the design and fabrication of plants cutting equipment. It is difficult to investigate a theoretical method for defining cutting properties of plants stalks because the cutting process is complex. Thus, it is necessary to set up an experimental approach to determine cutting parameters for a single stalk. To measure the shear force, shear energy and shear strength of plant stalk, a special impact cutting tester was fabricated. It was similar to an Izod impact cutting tester for metals but a cutting blade and data acquisition system were attached to the end of pendulum's arm. The apparatus was included four strain gages and a digital indicator to show the real-time cutting force of plant stalk. To measure the shear force and also testing the apparatus, two plants’ stalks, like buxus and privet, were selected. The samples (buxus and privet stalks) were cut under impact cutting process at four loading rates 1, 2, 3 and 4 m.s^-1 and three internodes fifth, tenth and fifteenth by the apparatus. At buxus cutting analysis: the minimum value of cutting energy was obtained at fifth internode and loading rate 4 m.s^-1 and the maximum value of shear energy was obtained at fifteenth internode and loading rate 1 m.s^-1. At privet cutting analysis: the minimum value of shear consumption energy was obtained at fifth internode and loading rate: 4 m.s^-1 and the maximum value of shear energy was obtained at fifteenth internode and loading rate: 1 m.s^-1. The statistical analysis at both plants showed that the increase of impact cutting speed would decrease the shear consumption energy and shear strength. In two scenarios, the results showed that with increase the cutting speed, shear force would decrease.

Keywords: Buxus, Privet, impact cutting, shear energy

Procedia PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Awan A. Zaima, Tanvieer Ayesha, Mirshahi Shahsoltan, Pocard Marc, Mirshahi Massoud

Abstract:

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is described as a factor helping to support the survival of existing neurons by involving the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. Cancer diagnosis impacts the mental health, and in consequences, depression arise eventually hinders recovery and disrupts the quality of life and surviving chances of patients. The focus of this study is to hint upon a prospective biomarker as a promising diagnostic tool for an early indicator/predictor of depression prevalence in cancer patients for better care and treatment options. The study aims to analyze peripheral biomarkers from neuro immune axis (BDNF, IL21 as a NK cell activator) using co-relation approach. Samples were obtained from random non cancer candidates and advanced peritoneum carcinomatosis patients with 25% pseudomyxoma, 21% Colon cancer,19% stomach cancer, 10% ovarian cancer, 8% appendices cancer, and 10% other area of peritoneum cancer patients. Both groups of the study were categorized by gender and age, with a range of 18 to 86 years old. Biomarkers were analyzed in collected plasma by performing multiplex sandwich ELISA system. Data were subjected to statistical analysis for the assessment of the correlation. Our results demonstrate that BNDF and IL 21 down regulated significantly in patient groupas compared to non-cancer candidates (ratio of patients/normalis 2.57 for BNDF and 1.32 for IL21). This preliminary investigation suggested that the neuro immune biomarkers are down regulated in carcinomatosis patients and can be associated with cancer expansion and cancer genesis. Further studies on larger cohort are necessary to validate this hypothesis.

Keywords: biomarkers, depression, peritoneum carcinoma, BNDF, IL21

Procedia PDF Downloads 120

Authors: Mohamed Othmani, Yassine Khlifi

Abstract:

This paper presents a technique for compact three dimensional (3D) object model reconstruction using wavelet networks. It consists to transform an input surface vertices into signals,and uses wavelet network parameters for signal approximations. To prove this, we use a wavelet network architecture founded on several mother wavelet families. POLYnomials WindOwed with Gaussians (POLYWOG) wavelet families are used to maximize the probability to select the best wavelets which ensure the good generalization of the network. To achieve a better reconstruction, the network is trained several iterations to optimize the wavelet network parameters until the error criterion is small enough. Experimental results will shown that our proposed technique can effectively reconstruct an irregular 3D object models when using the optimized wavelet network parameters. We will prove that an accurateness reconstruction depends on the best choice of the mother wavelets.

Keywords: 3d object, optimization, parametrization, polywog wavelets, reconstruction, wavelet networks

Procedia PDF Downloads 288

Authors: Majid Azizi, Payam Ghorbannezhad, Mostafa Amiri, Mohammad Ghofrani

Abstract:

Environmental issues in the furniture industry are of great importance due to the use of natural materials such as wood and chemical substances like adhesives and paints. These issues encompass environmental conservation and managing pollution and waste generated. Improper use of wood resources, along with the use of chemicals and their release, leads to the depletion of natural resources, damage to forests, and the emission of greenhouse gases. Therefore, identifying influential indicators in the life cycle assessment of classic furniture and proposing solutions to reduce environmental impacts becomes crucial. In this study, the life cycle of classic furniture was evaluated using a hierarchical analytical process from cradle to grave. The life cycle assessment was employed to assess the environmental impacts of the furniture industry, ranging from raw material extraction to waste disposal and recycling. The most significant indicators in the furniture industry's production chain were also identified. The results indicated that the wood quality indicator is the most essential factor in the life cycle of classic furniture. Furthermore, the relative contribution of each type of traditional furniture was proposed concerning impact categories in the life cycle assessment. The results showed that among the three proposed types, the design and production of furniture with prefabricated parts had the most negligible impact in categories such as global warming potential and ozone layer depletion compared to furniture design with solid wood and furniture design with recycled components. Among the three suggested types of furniture to reduce environmental impacts, producing furniture with solid wood or other woods was chosen as the most crucial solution.

Keywords: life cycle assessment, analytic hierarchy process, environmental issues, furniture

Procedia PDF Downloads 69

Authors: Yaping Zhao, Yimin Zhang

Abstract:

In the present paper, the stationary random vibration of a uniform cantilever beam is investigated. Two types of damping mechanism, i.e. the external and internal viscous dampings, are taken into account simultaneously. The excitation form is the support motion, and it is ideal white. Because two type of damping mechanism are considered concurrently, the product of the modal damping ratio and the natural frequency is not a constant anymore. As a result, the infinite definite integral encountered in the process of computing the mean square response is more complex than that in the existing literature. One signal progress of this work is to have calculated these definite integrals accurately. The precise solution of the mean square response is thus obtained in the infinite series form finally. Numerical examples are supplied and the numerical outcomes acquired confirm the validity of the theoretical analyses.

Keywords: random vibration, cantilever beam, mean square response, white noise

Procedia PDF Downloads 388

Authors: Yepeng Cheng, Yasuhiko Morimoto

Abstract:

Customer relationship analysis is vital for retail stores, especially for supermarkets. The point of sale (POS) systems make it possible to record the daily purchasing behaviors of customers as an identification point of sale (ID-POS) database, which can be used to analyze customer behaviors of a supermarket. The customer value is an indicator based on ID-POS database for detecting the customer loyalty of a store. In general, there are many supermarkets in a city, and other nearby competitor supermarkets significantly affect the customer value of customers of a supermarket. However, it is impossible to get detailed ID-POS databases of competitor supermarkets. This study firstly focused on the customer value and distance between a customer's home and supermarkets in a city, and then constructed the models based on logistic regression analysis to analyze correlations between distance and purchasing behaviors only from a POS database of a supermarket chain. During the modeling process, there are three primary problems existed, including the incomparable problem of customer values, the multicollinearity problem among customer value and distance data, and the number of valid partial regression coefficients. The improved customer value, Huff’s gravity model, and inverse attractiveness frequency are considered to solve these problems. This paper presents three types of models based on these three methods for loyal customer classification and competitors’ influence analysis. In numerical experiments, all types of models are useful for loyal customer classification. The type of model, including all three methods, is the most superior one for evaluating the influence of the other nearby supermarkets on customers' purchasing of a supermarket chain from the viewpoint of valid partial regression coefficients and accuracy.

Keywords: customer value, Huff's Gravity Model, POS, Retailer

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Yeong-Seop Ahn, Myoung-Jin Kim, Young-Min Ko, Hyoung-Kyu Song

Abstract:

This paper proposes a relay selection scheme utilizing an orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF) code in a cooperative communication. The relay selection scheme influences on the communication performance in the cooperative communication. Conventional relay selection schemes such as the best harmonic mean relay selection scheme or the threshold-based relay selection scheme should know information such as channel state information (CSI) in advance. The proposed relay selection scheme does not require information in advance by using a reference signal utilizing the OVSF code. The simulation result shows that bit error rate (BER) performance of proposed relay selection scheme is similar to the best harmonic mean relay selection scheme that is known as one of the optimal relay selection schemes.

Keywords: cooperative communication, relay selection, OFDM, OVSF code

Procedia PDF Downloads 643

Authors: Amruta D. S. Pathare, Indira Hinduja, Kusum Zaveri

Abstract:

Implantation failure (IF) even after the good-quality embryo transfer (ET) in the physiologically normal endometrium is the main obstacle in in vitro fertilization (IVF). Various microarray studies have been performed worldwide to elucidate the genes requisite for endometrial receptivity. These studies have included the population based on different phases of menstrual cycle during natural cycle and stimulated cycle in normal fertile women. Additionally, the literature is also available in recurrent implantation failure patients versus oocyte donors in natural cycle. However, for the first time, we aim to study the genomics of endometrial receptivity in IF patients under controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) during which ET is generally practised in IVF. Endometrial gene expression profiling in IF patients (n=10) and oocyte donors (n=8) were compared during window of implantation under COS by whole genome microarray (using Illumina platform). Enrichment analysis of microarray data was performed to determine dys-regulated biological functions and pathways using Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery, v6.8 (DAVID). The enrichment mapping was performed with the help of Cytoscape software. Microarray results were validated by real-time PCR. Localization of genes related to immune response (Progestagen-Associated Endometrial Protein (PAEP), Leukaemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF), Interleukin-6 Signal Transducer (IL6ST) was detected by immunohistochemistry. The study revealed 418 genes downregulated and 519 genes upregulated in IF patients compared to healthy fertile controls. The gene ontology, pathway analysis and enrichment mapping revealed significant downregulation in activation and regulation of immune and inflammation response in IF patients under COS. The lower expression of Progestagen Associated Endometrial Protein (PAEP), Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF) and Interleukin 6 Signal Transducer (IL6ST) in cases compared to controls by real time and immunohistochemistry suggests the functional importance of these genes. The study was proved useful to uncover the probable reason of implantation failure being imbalance of immune and inflammatory regulation in our group of subjects. Based on the present study findings, a panel of significant dysregulated genes related to immune and inflammatory pathways needs to be further substantiated in larger cohort in natural as well as stimulated cycle. Upon which these genes could be screened in IF patients during window of implantation (WOI) before going for embryo transfer or any other immunological treatment. This would help to estimate the regulation of specific immune response during WOI in a patient. The appropriate treatment of either activation of immune response or suppression of immune response can be then attempted in IF patients to enhance the receptivity of endometrium.

Keywords: endometrial receptivity, immune and inflammatory response, gene expression microarray, window of implantation

Procedia PDF Downloads 159

Authors: Chang-Bin Ha, Young-Min Ko, Seongjoo Lee, Hyoung-Kyu Song

Abstract:

In this paper, the signaling scheme using phase shifting is proposed for the improved performance of the Wi-Fi backscatter system. Because the communication in the Wi-Fi backscatter system is based on on-off modulation and impedance modulation by unit of packet, the data rate is very low compared to the conventional wireless systems. Also, because the Wi-Fi backscatter system is based on the RF-powered device, the achievement of high reliability is difficult. In order to increase the low data rate, the proposed scheme transmits information of multiple bits during one packet period. Also, in order to increase the reliability, the proposed scheme shifts the phase of signal in according to the transmitting information. The simulation result shows that the proposed scheme has the improved throughput performance.

Keywords: phase shifting, RF-powered device, Wi-Fi backscatter system, IoT

Procedia PDF Downloads 445

Authors: Farshad Kalantari

Abstract:

Tourism industry has gained a progressive trend within the past years, which affect the cultural exchange among different nations. It is obvious that each country has its own culture, heritage and history, which can be manifested in the population lifestyle and pattern of living. the lifestyle can be considered as an indicator for health status, as the culture may affect way of living, which known as lifestyle and its components, including dietary pattern, physical activity status and other social behaviours. As a result, it seems that each culture can transfer the lifestyle to other societies by international communications. Moreover, different regions and countries may benefit from natural resources, which can be a leading cause for tourist attraction, in the other words, natural resources and culture, can affect the tourist turnover in a region, and as a result, it can be hypothesised that it may affect the exchange of lifestyle including dietary pattern and physical activity. In the positive way, this can make a region to health pole for other nationalities to gain benefit from that culture in order to improve their quality of life and health status. In this paper has aimed to assess the effect of culture and heritage on tourism rate and the effect of natural resources along with cultural lifestyle on public health and international exchange between other regions. It was hypothesised that by using culture in a positive manner, positive aspect of lifestyle, including ancient physical activity patter, can be transfer and exchange with other regions, which can improve health status as a result. Moreover, it was focused on how to design and recruit strategies to improve the way of gaining benefits from resources and lifestyle in order to improve tourism industry and its rate, which may bring beneficial outcomes, including financial, cultural and health outcomes.

Keywords: toursim, health, culture, sport, lifestyle

Procedia PDF Downloads 70

Authors: Manjula Sutagundar, B. G. Sheeparamatti, D. S. Jangamshetti

Abstract:

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) resonators have shown the potential of replacing quartz crystal technology for sensing and high frequency signal processing applications because of inherent advantages like small size, high quality factor, low cost, compatibility with integrated circuit chips. This paper presents the optimization and modelling and simulation of the optimized micro cantilever resonator. The objective of the work is to optimize the dimensions of a micro cantilever resonator for a specified range of resonant frequency and specific quality factor. Optimization is carried out using genetic algorithm. The genetic algorithm is implemented using MATLAB. The micro cantilever resonator is modelled in CoventorWare using the optimized dimensions obtained from genetic algorithm. The modeled cantilever is analysed for resonance frequency.

Keywords: MEMS resonator, genetic algorithm, modelling and simulation, optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 554

Authors: Adnan H. M. Al-Helali, Hamza A. Ali

Abstract:

The growth of censorship and pervasive monitoring on the Internet, Steganography arises as a new means of achieving secret communication. Steganography is the art and science of embedding information within electronic media used by common applications and systems. Generally, hiding information of multimedia within images will change some of their properties that may introduce few degradation or unusual characteristics. This paper presents a new image steganography approach for hiding information of multimedia (images, text, and audio) using generated Mandelbrot Fractal image as a cover. The proposed technique has been extensively tested with different images. The results show that the method is a very secure means of hiding and retrieving steganographic information. Experimental results demonstrate that an effective improvement in the values of the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Square Error (MSE), Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC), and Image Fidelity (IF) over the pervious techniques.

Keywords: fractal image, information hiding, Mandelbrot set fractal, steganography

Procedia PDF Downloads 624

Authors: Ali Akbar Attari, Ali Asghar Beheshti Shirazi

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a blind and robust audio watermarking scheme based on spread spectrum in Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) domain. Watermarks are embedded in the low-frequency coefficients, which is less audible. The key idea is dividing the audio signal into small frames, and magnitude of the 6^th level of DWT approximation coefficients is modifying based upon the Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) technique. Also, the psychoacoustic model for enhancing in imperceptibility, as well as Savitsky-Golay filter for increasing accuracy in extraction, is used. The experimental results illustrate high robustness against most common attacks, i.e. Gaussian noise addition, Low pass filter, Resampling, Requantizing, MP3 compression, without significant perceptual distortion (ODG is higher than -1). The proposed scheme has about 83 bps data payload.

Keywords: audio watermarking, spread spectrum, discrete wavelet transform, psychoacoustic, Savitsky-Golay filter

Procedia PDF Downloads 201

Authors: E. M. Hoballah, M. Saber, A. Turky, N. Awad, A. M. Zaghloul

Abstract:

Remediation of cultivated sewage soils in Egypt become an important aspect in last decade for having healthy crops and saving the human health. In this respect, a greenhouse experiment was conducted where contaminated sewage soil was treated with modified forms of 2% bentonite (T1), 2% kaolinite (T2), 1% bentonite+1% kaolinite (T3), 2% probentonite (T4), 2% prokaolinite (T5), 1% bentonite + 0.5% kaolinite + 0.5% rock phosphate (RP) (T6), 2% iron oxide (T7) and 1% iron oxide + 1% RP (T8). These materials were applied as remediative materials. Untreated soil was also used as a control. All soil samples were incubated for 2 months at 25°C at field capacity throughout the whole experiment. Carbon dioxide (CO2) efflux from both treated and untreated soils as a biomass indicator was measured through the incubation time and kinetic parameters of the best fitted models used to describe the phenomena were taken to evaluate the succession of sewaged soils remediation. The obtained results indicated that according to the kinetic parameters of used models, CO2 effluxes from remediated soils was significantly decreased compared to control treatment with variation in rate values according to type of remediation material applied. In addition, analyzed microbial biomass parameter showed that Ni and Zn were the most potential toxic elements (PTEs) that influenced the decreasing order of microbial activity in untreated soil. Meanwhile, Ni was the only influenced pollutant in treated soils. Although all applied materials significantly decreased the hazards of PTEs in treated soil, modified bentonite was the best treatment compared to other used materials. This work discussed different mechanisms taking place between applied materials and PTEs founded in the studied sewage soil.

Keywords: remediation, potential toxic elements, soil biomass, sewage

Procedia PDF Downloads 233

Authors: Amr Amer

Abstract:

Cheeses are among those high-protein-containing foodstuffs in which enzymatic and microbial activities cause the formation of biogenic amines from amino acids decarboxylation. The amount of biogenic amines in cheese may act as a useful indicator of the hygienic quality of the product. In other words, their presence in cheese is related to its spoilage and safety. Formation of biogenic amines during Ras cheese (Egyptian hard cheese) ripening was investigated for 4 months. Three batches of Ras cheese were manufactured using Egyptian traditional method. From each batch, Samples were collected at 1, 7, 15, 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after cheese manufacture. The concentrations of biogenic amines (Tyramine, Histamine, Cadaverine and Tryptamine) were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). There was a significant increased (P<0.05) in Tyramine levels from 4.34± 0.07 mg|100g in the first day of storage till reached 88.77± 0.14 mg|100g at a 120-day of storage. Also, Histamine and Cadaverine levels had the same increased pattern of Tyramine reaching 64.94± 0.10 and 28.28± 0.08 mg|100g in a 120- day of storage, respectively. While, there was a fluctuation in the concentration of Tryptamine level during ripening period as it decreased from 3.24± 0.06 to 2.66± 0.11 mg|100g at 60-day of storage then reached 5.38±0.08 mg|100g in a 120- day of storage. Biogenic amines can be formed in cheese during production and storage: many variables, as pH, salt concentration, bacterial activity as well as moisture, storage temperature and ripening time, play a relevant role in their formation. Comparing the obtained results with the recommended standard by Food and Drug Administration "FDA" (2001), High levels of biogenic amines in various Ras cheeses consumed in Egypt exceeded the permissible value (10 mg%) which seemed to pose a threat to public health. In this study, presence of high concentrations of biogenic amines (Tyramine, Histamine, cadaverine and Tryptamine) in Egyptian Ras cheeses reflects the bad hygienic conditions under which they produced and stored. Accordingly, the levels of biogenic amines in different cheeses should be come in accordance with the safe permissible limit recommended by FDA to ensure human safety.

Keywords: Ras cheese, biogenic amines, tyramine, histamine, cadaverine

Procedia PDF Downloads 439

Authors: Spyridon Nikolaidis

Abstract:

A modeling approach for CMOS gates is presented based on the use of the equivalent inverter. A new model for the inverter has been developed using a simplified transistor current model which incorporates the nanoscale effects for the planar technology. Parametric expressions for the output voltage are provided as well as the values of the output and supply current to be compatible with the CCS technology. The model is parametric according the input signal slew, output load, transistor widths, supply voltage, temperature and process. The transistor widths of the equivalent inverter are determined by HSPICE simulations and parametric expressions are developed for that using a fitting procedure. Results for the NAND gate shows that the proposed approach offers sufficient accuracy with an average error in propagation delay about 5%.

Keywords: CMOS gate modeling, inverter modeling, transistor current mode, timing model

Procedia PDF Downloads 426

Authors: Sara Ataei, Maryam Taghizadeh-Ghehi, Amir Sarayani, Asieh Ashouri, Amirhossein Moslehi, Molouk Hadjibabaie, Kheirollah Gholami

Abstract:

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) patients with an incidence of 21–73%. Prevention and early diagnosis reduces the frequency and severity of this complication. Predictive biomarkers are of major importance to timely diagnosis. Neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin (NGAL) is a widely investigated novel biomarker for early diagnosis of AKI. However, no study assessed NGAL for AKI diagnosis in HSCT patients. Methods: We performed further analyses on gathered data from our recent trial to evaluate the performance of urine NGAL (uNGAL) as an indicator of AKI in 72 allogeneic HSCT patients. AKI diagnosis and severity were assessed using Risk–Injury–Failure–Loss–End-stage renal disease and AKI Network criteria. We assessed uNGAL on days -6, -3, +3, +9 and +15. Results: Time-dependent Cox regression analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between uNGAL and AKI occurrence. (HR=1.04 (1.008-1.07), P=0.01). There was a relation between uNGAL day +9 to baseline ratio and incidence of AKI (unadjusted HR=.1.047(1.012-1.083), P<0.01). The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve for day +9 to baseline ratio was 0.86 (0.74-0.99, P<0.01) and a cut-off value of 2.62 was 85% sensitive and 83% specific in predicting AKI. Conclusions: Our results indicated that increase in uNGAL augmented the risk of AKI and the changes of day +9 uNGAL concentrations from baseline could be of value for predicting AKI in HSCT patients. Additionally uNGAL changes preceded serum creatinine rises by nearly 2 days.

Keywords: acute kidney injury, hemtopoietic stem cell transplantation, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, Receiver-operating characteristic curve

Procedia PDF Downloads 414

Authors: Saad Al-Baddai, Karema Al-Subari, Elmar Lang, Bernd Ludwig

Abstract:

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD), a new data-driven of time-series decomposition, has the advantage of supposing that a time series is non-linear or non-stationary, as is implicitly achieved in Fourier decomposition. However, the EMD suffers of mode mixing problem in some cases. The aim of this paper is to present a solution for a common type of signals causing of EMD mode mixing problem, in case a signal suffers of an intermittency. By an artificial example, the solution shows superior performance in terms of cope EMD mode mixing problem comparing with the conventional EMD and Ensemble Empirical Mode decomposition (EEMD). Furthermore, the over-sifting problem is also completely avoided; and computation load is reduced roughly six times compared with EEMD, an ensemble number of 50.

Keywords: empirical mode decomposition (EMD), mode mixing, sifting process, over-sifting

Procedia PDF Downloads 400

Authors: Lina T. Al Kury, Oleg I. Voitychuk, Ramiz M. Ali, Sehamuddin Galadari, Keun-Hang Susan Yang, Frank Christopher Howarth, Yaroslav M. Shuba, Murat Oz

Abstract:

A role for anandamide (N-arachidonoyl ethanolamide; AEA), a major endocannabinoid, in the cardiovascular system in various pathological conditions has been reported in earlier studies. In the present work, we have hypothesized that the antiarrhythmic effects reported for AEA are due to its negative inotropic effect and altered action potential (AP) characteristics. Therefore, we tested the effects of AEA on contractility and electrophysiological properties of rat ventricular myocytes. Video edge detection was used to measure myocyte shortening. Intracellular Ca2+ was measured in cells loaded with the fluorescent indicator fura-2 AM. Whole-cell patch-clamp technique was employed to investigate the effect of AEA on the characteristics of APs. AEA (1 μM) caused a significant decrease in the amplitudes of electrically-evoked myocyte shortening and Ca2+ transients and significantly decreased the duration of AP. The effect of AEA on myocyte shortening and AP characteristics was not altered in the presence of pertussis toxin (PTX, 2 µg/ml for 4 h), AM251 and SR141716 (cannabinoid type 1 receptor antagonists) or AM630 and SR 144528 (cannabinoid type 2 receptor antagonists). Furthermore, AEA inhibited voltage-activated inward Na+ (INa) and Ca2+ (IL,Ca) currents; major ionic currents shaping the APs in ventricular myocytes, in a voltage and PTX-independent manner. Collectively, the results suggest that AEA depresses ventricular myocyte contractility, by decreasing the action potential duration (APD), and inhibits the function of voltage-dependent Na+ and L-type Ca2+ channels in a manner independent of cannabinoid receptors. This mechanism may be importantly involved in the antiarrhythmic effects of anandamide.

Keywords: action potential, anandamide, cannabinoid receptor, endocannabinoid, ventricular myocytes

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Hajer Rahali, Zied Hajaiej, Noureddine Ellouze

Abstract:

The goal of speech parameterization is to extract the relevant information about what is being spoken from the audio signal. In speech recognition systems Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Relative Spectral Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (RASTA-MFCC) are the two main techniques used. It will be shown in this paper that it presents some modifications to the original MFCC method. In our work the effectiveness of proposed changes to MFCC called Modified Function Cepstral Coefficients (MODFCC) were tested and compared against the original MFCC and RASTA-MFCC features. The prosodic features such as jitter and shimmer are added to baseline spectral features. The above-mentioned techniques were tested with impulsive signals under various noisy conditions within AURORA databases.

Keywords: auditory filter, impulsive noise, MFCC, prosodic features, RASTA filter

Procedia PDF Downloads 431

Authors: Mark Watson, J.-F. Bousquet, Adam Forget

Abstract:

A magnetic induction based underwater communication link is evaluated using an analytical model and a custom Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulation tool. The analytical model is based on the Sommerfeld integral, and a full-wave simulation tool evaluates Maxwell’s equations using the FDTD method in cylindrical coordinates. The analytical model and FDTD simulation tool are then compared and used to predict the system performance for various transmitter depths and optimum frequencies of operation. To this end, the system bandwidth, signal to noise ratio, and the magnitude of the induced voltage are used to estimate the expected channel capacity. The models show that in seawater, a relatively low-power and small coils may be capable of obtaining a throughput of 40 to 300 kbps, for the case where a transmitter is at depths of 1 to 3 m and a receiver is at a height of 1 m.

Keywords: magnetic induction, FDTD, underwater communication, Sommerfeld

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Djendi Mohmaed

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a dual adaptive algorithm, which is based on the combination between the forward blind source separation (FBSS) structure and the affine projection algorithm (APA). This proposed algorithm combines the advantages of the source separation properties of the FBSS structure and the fast convergence characteristics of the APA algorithm. The proposed algorithm needs two noisy observations to provide an enhanced speech signal. This process is done in a blind manner without the need for ant priori information about the source signals. The proposed dual forward blind source separation affine projection algorithm is denoted (DFAPA) and used for the first time in an airplane cockpit context to enhance the communication from- and to- the airplane. Intensive experiments were carried out in this sense to evaluate the performance of the proposed DFAPA algorithm.

Keywords: adaptive algorithm, speech enhancement, system mismatch, SNR

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Joy Ghosh, Debasmita Biswas

Abstract:

The road network of any area is the most important indicator of regional planning. For proper utilization of urban road networks, the structural parameters such as connectivity and accessibility should be analyzed and evaluated. This paper aims to explain the application of GIS on urban road network connectivity and accessibility analysis with a case study of Chandannagar City. This paper has been made to analyze the road network connectivity through various connectivity measurements like the total number of nodes and links, Cyclomatic Number, Alpha Index, Beta Index, Gamma index, Eta index, Pi index, Theta Index, and Aggregated Transport Score, Road Density based on existing road network in Chandannagar city in India. Accessibility is measured through the shortest Path Matrix, associate Number, and Shimbel Index. Various urban services, such as schools, banks, Hospitals, petrol pumps, ATMs, police stations, theatres, parks, etc., are considered for the accessibility analysis for each ward. This paper also highlights the relationship between urban land use/ land cover (LULC) and urban road network and population density using various spatial and statistical measurements. The datasets were collected through a field survey of 33 wards of the Chandannagar Municipal Corporation area, and the secondary data were collected through an open street map and satellite image of LANDSAT8 OLI & TIRS from USGS. Chandannagar was actually once a French colony, and at that time, various sort of planning was applied, but now Chandannagar city continues to grow haphazardly because that city is facing some problems; the knowledge gained from this paper helps to create a more efficient and accessible road network. Therefore, it would be suggested that some wards need to improve their connectivity and accessibility for the future growth and development of Chandannagar.

Keywords: accessibility, connectivity, transport, road network

Procedia PDF Downloads 78

Authors: Rogelio Luck, Yucheng Liu

Abstract:

This paper proposes the continuous-time singular value decomposition (SVD) for the impulse response function, a special kind of Green’s functions e⁻⁽ᵗ⁻ ᵀ⁾, in order to find a set of singular functions and singular values so that the convolutions of such function with the set of singular functions on a specified domain are the solutions to the inhomogeneous differential equations for those singular functions. A numerical example was illustrated to verify the proposed method. Besides the continuous-time SVD, a discrete-time SVD is also presented for the impulse response function, which is modeled using a Toeplitz matrix in the discrete system. The proposed method has broad applications in signal processing, dynamic system analysis, acoustic analysis, thermal analysis, as well as macroeconomic modeling.

Keywords: singular value decomposition, impulse response function, Green’s function , Toeplitz matrix , Hankel matrix

Procedia PDF Downloads 160

Authors: Daniel S. Brox

Abstract:

Starting from earthquake fault dynamic equations, a correspondence between earthquake occurrence statistics in a seismic region before a major earthquake and eigenvalue statistics of a differential operator whose bound state eigenfunctions characterize the distribution of stress in the seismic region is derived. Modeling these eigenvalue statistics with a 2D Coulomb gas statistical physics model, previously reported deviation of seismic activation earthquake occurrence statistics from Gutenberg-Richter statistics in time intervals preceding the major earthquake is derived. It also explains how statistical physics modeling predicts a finite-dimensional nonlinear dynamic system that describes real-time velocity model evolution in the region undergoing seismic activation and how this prediction can be tested experimentally.

Keywords: seismic activation, statistical physics, geodynamics, signal processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 26

Authors: Sujata Mukherjee, Arunavo Mukherjee

Abstract:

Water covers 70 per cent of our planet; however, freshwater is incredibly rare, and scarce has been listed as the highest impact global risk. The problems related to freshwater scarcity multiplies with the human population having more than doubled coupled with climate change, changing water cycles leading to droughts and floods and a rise in water pollution. Businesses, governments, and local communities are constrained by water scarcity and are facing growing challenges to their growth and sustainability. Water foot printing as an indicator for water use was introduced in 2002. Business water footprint measures the total water consumed to produce the goods and services it provides. It is a combination of the water that goes into the production and manufacturing of a product or service and the water used throughout the supply chain, as well as during the use of the product. A case study approach was applied describing the efforts of Tata Steel. It is based on a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews with top executives of the company as well as observation and content analysis of internal and external documents about the company’s efforts in sustainable water management. Tata Steel draws water required for industrial use from surface water sources, primarily perennial rivers and streams, internal reservoirs and water from municipal sources. The focus of the present study was to explore Tata Steel’s engagement in sustainable water management focusing on water foot printing accounting as a tool to account for water use in the steel supply chain at its Jamshedpur plant. The findings enabled the researchers to conclude that no sources of water are adversely affected by the company’s production of steel at Jamshedpur.

Keywords: sustainability, corporate responsibility water management, risk management, business engagement

Procedia PDF Downloads 277

Authors: Ren-Jy Ben, Jo-Chi Jao, Chiu-Ya Liao, Ya-Ru Tsai, Lain-Chyr Hwang, Po-Chou Chen

Abstract:

Cancer is still one of the serious diseases threatening the lives of human beings. How to have an early diagnosis and effective treatment for tumors is a very important issue. The animal carcinoma model can provide a simulation tool for the study of pathogenesis, biological characteristics and therapeutic effects. Recently, drug delivery systems have been rapidly developed to effectively improve the therapeutic effects. Liposome plays an increasingly important role in clinical diagnosis and therapy for delivering a pharmaceutic or contrast agent to the targeted sites. Liposome can be absorbed and excreted by the human body, and is well known that no harm to the human body. This study aimed to compare the therapeutic effects between encapsulated (doxorubicin liposomal, LipoDox) and un-encapsulated (doxorubicin, Dox) anti-tumor drugs using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Twenty-four New Zealand rabbits implanted with VX2 carcinoma at left thigh were classified into three groups: control group (untreated), Dox-treated group and LipoDox-treated group, 8 rabbits for each group. MRI scans were performed three days after tumor implantation. A 1.5T GE Signa HDxt whole body MRI scanner with a high resolution knee coil was used in this study. After a 3-plane localizer scan was performed, Three-Dimensional (3D) Fast Spin Echo (FSE) T2-Weighted Images (T2WI) was used for tumor volumetric quantification. And Two-Dimensional (2D) spoiled gradient recalled echo (SPGR) dynamic Contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI was used for tumor perfusion evaluation. DCE-MRI was designed to acquire four baseline images, followed by contrast agent Gd-DOTA injection through the ear vein of rabbits. Afterwards, a series of 32 images were acquired to observe the signals change over time in the tumor and muscle. The MRI scanning was scheduled on a weekly basis for a period of four weeks to observe the tumor progression longitudinally. The Dox and LipoDox treatments were prescribed 3 times in the first week immediately after VX2 tumor implantation. ImageJ was used to quantitate tumor volume and time course signal enhancement on DCE images. The changes of tumor size showed that the growth of VX2 tumors was effectively inhibited for both LipoDox-treated and Dox-treated groups. Furthermore, the tumor volume of LipoDox-treated group was significantly lower than that of Dox-treated group, which implies that LipoDox has better therapeutic effect than Dox. The signal intensity of LipoDox-treated group is significantly lower than that of the other two groups, which implies that targeted therapeutic drug remained in the tumor tissue. This study provides a radiation-free and non-invasive MRI method for therapeutic monitoring of targeted liposome on an animal tumor model.

Keywords: doxorubicin, dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, lipodox, magnetic resonance imaging, VX2 tumor model

Procedia PDF Downloads 460

Authors: Selcuk Comlekci, Mohammed Aboajmaa

Abstract:

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is promising technique for the modern wireless communications systems due to its robustness against multipath environment. The high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of the transmitted signal is one of the major drawbacks of OFDM system, PAPR degrade the performance of bit error rate (BER) and effect on the linear characteristics of high power amplifier (HPA). In this paper, we proposed DHT-Clipping reduction technique to reduce the high PAPR by the combination between discrete Hartley transform (DHT) and Clipping techniques. From the simulation results, we notified that DHT-Clipping technique offers better PAPR reduction than DHT and Clipping, as well as DHT-Clipping introduce improved BER performance better than clipping.

Keywords: ISI, cyclic prefix, BER, PAPR, HPA, DHT, subcarrier

Procedia PDF Downloads 441

Authors: Soyon Kim, Edward Kim

Abstract:

In order to retrieve information from the massive stream of songs in the music industry, music search by title, lyrics, artist, mood, and genre has become more important. Despite the subjectivity and controversy over the definition of music genres across different nations and cultures, automatic genre classification systems that facilitate the process of music categorization have been developed. Manual genre selection by music producers is being provided as statistical data for designing automatic genre classification systems. In this paper, an automatic music genre classification system utilizing non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is proposed. Short-term characteristics of the music signal can be captured based on the timbre features such as mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), decorrelated filter bank (DFB), octave-based spectral contrast (OSC), and octave band sum (OBS). Long-term time-varying characteristics of the music signal can be summarized with (1) the statistical features such as mean, variance, minimum, and maximum of the timbre features and (2) the modulation spectrum features such as spectral flatness measure, spectral crest measure, spectral peak, spectral valley, and spectral contrast of the timbre features. Not only these conventional basic long-term feature vectors, but also NMF based feature vectors are proposed to be used together for genre classification. In the training stage, NMF basis vectors were extracted for each genre class. The NMF features were calculated in the log spectral magnitude domain (NMF-LSM) as well as in the basic feature vector domain (NMF-BFV). For NMF-LSM, an entire full band spectrum was used. However, for NMF-BFV, only low band spectrum was used since high frequency modulation spectrum of the basic feature vectors did not contain important information for genre classification. In the test stage, using the set of pre-trained NMF basis vectors, the genre classification system extracted the NMF weighting values of each genre as the NMF feature vectors. A support vector machine (SVM) was used as a classifier. The GTZAN multi-genre music database was used for training and testing. It is composed of 10 genres and 100 songs for each genre. To increase the reliability of the experiments, 10-fold cross validation was used. For a given input song, an extracted NMF-LSM feature vector was composed of 10 weighting values that corresponded to the classification probabilities for 10 genres. An NMF-BFV feature vector also had a dimensionality of 10. Combined with the basic long-term features such as statistical features and modulation spectrum features, the NMF features provided the increased accuracy with a slight increase in feature dimensionality. The conventional basic features by themselves yielded 84.0% accuracy, but the basic features with NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV provided 85.1% and 84.2% accuracy, respectively. The basic features required dimensionality of 460, but NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV required dimensionalities of 10 and 10, respectively. Combining the basic features, NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV together with the SVM with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel produced the significantly higher classification accuracy of 88.3% with a feature dimensionality of 480.

Keywords: mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), music genre classification, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), support vector machine (SVM)

Procedia PDF Downloads 303