Search results for: reliable

Authors: Rajesh Karki, Safal Bhattarai, Saket Adhikari

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Reliable and economic operation of power systems are becoming extremely challenging with large scale integration of renewable energy sources due to the intermittency and uncertainty associated with renewable power generation. It is, therefore, important to make a quantitative risk assessment and explore the potential resources to mitigate such risks. Probabilistic models for different energy storage systems (ESS), such as the flywheel energy storage system (FESS) and the compressed air energy storage (CAES) incorporating specific charge/discharge performance and failure characteristics suitable for probabilistic risk assessment in power system operation and planning are presented in this paper. The proposed methodology used in FESS modelling offers flexibility to accommodate different configurations of plant topology. It is perceived that CAES has a high potential for grid-scale application, and a hybrid approach is proposed, which embeds a Monte-Carlo simulation (MCS) method in an analytical technique to develop a suitable reliability model of the CAES. The proposed ESS models are applied to a test system to investigate the economic and reliability benefits of the energy storage technologies in system operation and planning, as well as to assess their contributions in facilitating wind integration during different operating scenarios. A comparative study considering various storage system topologies are also presented. The impacts of failure rates of the critical components of ESS on the expected state of charge (SOC) and the performance of the different types of ESS during operation are illustrated with selected studies on the test system. The paper also applies the proposed models on the test system to investigate the economic and reliability benefits of the different ESS technologies and to evaluate their contributions in facilitating wind integration during different operating scenarios and system configurations. The conclusions drawn from the study results provide valuable information to help policymakers, system planners, and operators in arriving at effective and efficient policies, investment decisions, and operating strategies for planning and operation of power systems with large penetrations of renewable energy sources.

Keywords: flywheel energy storage, compressed air energy storage, power system reliability, renewable energy, system planning, system operation

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Authors: Oxana Lukoshus

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The methods of corpus linguistics, a well-established field of research, are being increasingly applied in cognitive linguistics. Corpora data are especially useful for different quantitative studies of grammatical and other aspects of language. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate how present-day corpora can be applied in semantic studies in general and in semantic studies of adjectives in particular. Polysemantic adjectives have been the subject of numerous studies. But most of them have been carried out on dictionaries. Undoubtedly, dictionaries are viewed as one of the basic data sources, but only at the initial steps of a research. The author usually starts with the analysis of the lexicographic data after which s/he comes up with a hypothesis. In the research conducted three polysemantic synonyms true, loyal, faithful have been analyzed in terms of differences and similarities in their semantic structure. A corpus-based approach in the study of the above-mentioned adjectives involves the following. After the analysis of the dictionary data there was the reference to the following corpora to study the distributional patterns of the words under study – the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). These corpora are continually updated and contain thousands of examples of the words under research which make them a useful and convenient data source. For the purpose of this study there were no special needs regarding genre, mode or time of the texts included in the corpora. Out of the range of possibilities offered by corpus-analysis software (e.g. word lists, statistics of word frequencies, etc.), the most useful tool for the semantic analysis was the extracting a list of co-occurrence for the given search words. Searching by lemmas, e.g. true, true to, and grouping the results by lemmas have proved to be the most efficient corpora feature for the adjectives under the study. Following the search process, the corpora provided a list of co-occurrences, which were then to be analyzed and classified. Not every co-occurrence was relevant for the analysis. For example, the phrases like An enormous sense of responsibility to protect the minds and hearts of the faithful from incursions by the state was perceived to be the basic duty of the church leaders or ‘True,’ said Phoebe, ‘but I'd probably get to be a Union Official immediately were left out as in the first example the faithful is a substantivized adjective and in the second example true is used alone with no other parts of speech. The subsequent analysis of the corpora data gave the grounds for the distribution groups of the adjectives under the study which were then investigated with the help of a semantic experiment. To sum it up, the corpora-based approach has proved to be a powerful, reliable and convenient tool to get the data for the further semantic study.

Keywords: corpora, corpus-based approach, polysemantic adjectives, semantic studies

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Authors: Ursula D. C. Resende, Yan G. Santos, Lucas M. de O. Andrade

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The recent and fast development of the internet, wireless, telecommunication technologies and low-power electronic devices has led to an expressive amount of electromagnetic energy available in the environment and the smart applications technology expansion. These applications have been used in the Internet of Things devices, 4G and 5G solutions. The main feature of this technology is the use of the wireless sensor. Although these sensors are low-power loads, their use imposes huge challenges in terms of an efficient and reliable way for power supply in order to avoid the traditional battery. The radio frequency based energy harvesting technology is especially suitable to wireless power sensors by using a rectenna since it can be completely integrated into the distributed hosting sensors structure, reducing its cost, maintenance and environmental impact. The rectenna is an equipment composed of an antenna and a rectifier circuit. The antenna function is to collect as much radio frequency radiation as possible and transfer it to the rectifier, which is a nonlinear circuit, that converts the very low input radio frequency energy into direct current voltage. In this work, a set of rectennas, mounted on a paper substrate, which can be used for the inner coating of buildings and simultaneously harvest electromagnetic energy from the environment, is proposed. Each proposed individual rectenna is composed of a 2.45 GHz patch antenna and a voltage doubler rectifier circuit, built in the same paper substrate. The antenna contains a rectangular radiator element and a microstrip transmission line that was projected and optimized by using the Computer Simulation Software (CST) in order to obtain values of S11 parameter below -10 dB in 2.45 GHz. In order to increase the amount of harvested power, eight individual rectennas, incorporating metamaterial cells, were connected in parallel forming a system, denominated Electromagnetic Wall (EW). In order to evaluate the EW performance, it was positioned at a variable distance from the internet router, and a 27 kΩ resistive load was fed. The results obtained showed that if more than one rectenna is associated in parallel, enough power level can be achieved in order to feed very low consumption sensors. The 0.12 m2 EW proposed in this work was able to harvest 0.6 mW from the environment. It also observed that the use of metamaterial structures provide an expressive growth in the amount of electromagnetic energy harvested, which was increased from 0. 2mW to 0.6 mW.

Keywords: electromagnetic energy harvesting, metamaterial, rectenna, rectifier circuit

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Ambika Perisamy, Asyriawati binte Mohd Hamzah

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The focus of this presentation is to discuss teacher professional development (TPD) through the use of technology. TPD is necessary to prepare teachers for future challenges they will face throughout their careers and to develop new skills and good teaching practices. We will also be discussing current issues in embracing technology in the field of early childhood education and the impact on the professional development of teachers. Participants will also learn to apply teaching and learning practices through the use of technology. One major objective of this presentation is to coherently fuse practical, technology and theoretical content. The process begins by concretizing a set of preconceived ideas which need to be joined with theoretical justifications found in the literature. Technology can make observations fairer and more reliable, easier to implement, and more preferable to teachers and principals. Technology will also help principals to improve classroom observations of teachers and ultimately improve teachers’ continuous professional development. Video technology allows the early childhood teachers to record and keep the recorded video for reflection at any time. This will also provide opportunities for her to share with her principals for professional dialogues and continuous professional development plans. A total of 10 early childhood teachers and 4 principals were involved in these efforts which identified and analyze the gaps in the quality of classroom observations and its co relation to developing teachers as reflective practitioners. The methodology used involves active exploration with video technology recordings, conversations, interviews and authentic teacher child interactions which forms the key thrust in improving teaching and learning practice. A qualitative analysis of photographs, videos, transcripts which illustrates teacher’s reflections and classroom observation checklists before and after the use of video technology were adopted. Arguably, although PD support can be magnanimously strong, if teachers could not connect or create meaning out of the opportunities made available to them, they may remain passive or uninvolved. Therefore, teachers must see the value of applying new ideas such as technology and approaches to practice while creating personal meaning out of professional development. These video recordings are transferable, can be shared and edited through social media, emails and common storage between teachers and principals. To conclude the importance of reflective practice among early childhood teachers and addressing the concerns raised before and after the use of video technology, teachers and principals shared the feasibility, practical and relevance use of video technology.

Keywords: early childhood education, reflective, improve teaching and learning, technology

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Authors: Daniela Brioschi, Rovilson Mafalda, Silvia Titotto

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In the present days, packages are considered a fundamental element in the commercialization of products and services. A good package is capable of helping to attract new customers and also increasing a product’s purchase intent. In this scenario, packaging design emerges as an important tool, since products and design of their packaging are so interconnected that they are no longer seen as separate elements. Packaging design is, in fact, capable of generating desire for a product. The packaging market for cosmetics, especially makeup market, has also been experiencing an increasing level of sophistication and requirements. Considering packaging represents an important link of communication with the final user and plays a significant role on the sales process, it is of great importance that packages accomplish not only with functional requirements but also with the visual appeal. One of the possibilities for the design of packages and, in this context, packages for make-up, is the bioinspired design – or biomimicry. The bio-inspired design presents a promising paradigm for innovation in both design and sustainable design, by using biological system analogies to develop solutions. It has gained importance as a widely diffused movement in design for environmentally conscious development and is also responsible for several useful and innovative designs. As eye mascara packages are also part of the constant evolution on the design for cosmetics area and the traditional packages present the disadvantage of product drying along time, this project aims to develop a new and innovative package for this product, by using a selected bioinspired design methodology during the development process and also suitable computational tools. In order to guide the development process of the package, it was chosen the spiral methodology, conceived by The Biomimicry Institut, which consists of a reliable tool, since it was based on traditional design methodologies. The spiral design comprises identification, translation, discovery, abstraction, emulation and evaluation steps, that can work iteratively as the process develops as a spiral. As support tool for packaging, 3D modelling is being used by the software Inventor Autodesk Inventor 2018. Although this is an ongoing research, first results showed that spiral methodology design, together with Autodesk Inventor, consist of suitable instruments for the bio-inspired design process, and also nature proved itself to be an amazing and inexhaustible source of inspiration.

Keywords: bio-inspired design, design methodology, packaging, cosmetics

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Thiago Ribeiro de Alencar, Jacyro Gramulia Junior, Patricia Teixeira Leite

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The area of the electricity sector that deals with energy needs by the hydroelectric in a coordinated manner is called Operation Planning of Hydrothermal Power Systems (OPHPS). The purpose of this is to find a political operative to provide electrical power to the system in a given period, with reliability and minimal cost. Therefore, it is necessary to determine an optimal schedule of generation for each hydroelectric, each range, so that the system meets the demand reliably, avoiding rationing in years of severe drought, and that minimizes the expected cost of operation during the planning, defining an appropriate strategy for thermal complementation. Several optimization algorithms specifically applied to this problem have been developed and are used. Although providing solutions to various problems encountered, these algorithms have some weaknesses, difficulties in convergence, simplification of the original formulation of the problem, or owing to the complexity of the objective function. An alternative to these challenges is the development of techniques for simulation optimization and more sophisticated and reliable, it can assist the planning of the operation. Thus, this paper presents the development of a computational tool, namely Hydro-IA for solving optimization problem identified and to provide the User an easy handling. Adopted as intelligent optimization technique is Genetic Algorithm (GA) and programming language is Java. First made the modeling of the chromosomes, then implemented the function assessment of the problem and the operators involved, and finally the drafting of the graphical interfaces for access to the User. The results with the Genetic Algorithms were compared with the optimization technique nonlinear programming (NLP). Tests were conducted with seven hydroelectric plants interconnected hydraulically with historical stream flow from 1953 to 1955. The results of comparison between the GA and NLP techniques shows that the cost of operating the GA becomes increasingly smaller than the NLP when the number of hydroelectric plants interconnected increases. The program has managed to relate a coherent performance in problem resolution without the need for simplification of the calculations together with the ease of manipulating the parameters of simulation and visualization of output results.

Keywords: energy, optimization, hydrothermal power systems, artificial intelligence and genetic algorithms

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Authors: Perizat Balkhimbekova

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Evolutionary changes in cognitive world view taking place in the last decades are followed by changes in perception of the key concepts which are related to the certain lingua-cultural sphere. Also, such concepts reflect the person’s attitude to essential processes in the sphere of concepts, e.g. the opposite operations like creation and destruction. These changes in people’s life and thinking are displayed in a language world view. In order to open the maintenance of mental structures and concepts we should use language means as observable results of people’s cognitive activity. Semantics of words, free phrases and idioms should be considered as an authoritative source of information concerning concepts. The regularized set of concepts in people consciousness forms the sphere of concepts. Cognitive linguistics widely discusses the sphere of concepts as its crucial category defining it as the field of knowledge which is made of concepts. It is considered that a sphere of concepts comprises the various types of association and forms conceptual fields. As a material for the given research, the data from Russian National Corpus and British National Corpus were used. In is necessary to point out that data provided by computational studies, are intrinsic and verifiable; so that we have used them in order to get the reliable results. The procedure of study was based on such techniques as extracting of the context containing concepts of creation|destruction from the Russian National Corpus (RNC), and British National Corpus (BNC); analyzing and interpreting of those context on the basis of cognitive approach; finding of correspondence between the given concepts in the Russian and English world view. The key problem of our study is to find the correspondence between the elements of world view represented by opposite concepts such as creation and destruction. Findings: The concept of "destruction" indicates a process which leads to full or partial destruction of an object. In other words, it is a loss of the object primary essence: structures, properties, distinctive signs and its initial integrity. The concept of "creation", on the contrary, comprises positive characteristics, represents the activity aimed at improvement of the certain object, at the creation of ideal models of the world. On the other hand, destruction is represented much more widely in RNC than creation (1254 cases of the first concept by comparison to 192 cases for the second one). Our hypothesis consists in the antinomy represented by the aforementioned concepts. Being opposite both in respect of semantics and pragmatics, and from the point of view of axiology, they are at the same time complementary and interrelated concepts.

Keywords: creation, destruction, concept, world view

Procedia PDF Downloads 327

Authors: Richard Okyere Boadu, Judith Obiri-Yeboah, Kwame Adu Okyere Boadu, Nathan Kumasenu Mensah, Grace Amoh-Agyei

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Routine health information system (RHIS) quality assurance has become an important issue, not only because of its significance in promoting a high standard of patient care but also because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services. A routine health information system comprises healthcare data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, report generation, and dissemination on a routine basis in various healthcare settings. The data from RHIS give a representation of health status, health services, and health resources. The sources of RHIS data are normally individual health records, records of services delivered, and records of health resources. Using reliable information from routine health information systems is fundamental in the healthcare delivery system. Quality assurance practices are measures that are put in place to ensure the health data that are collected meet required quality standards. Routine health information system quality assurance practices ensure that data that are generated from the system are fit for use. This study considered quality assurance practices in the RHIS processes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in eight health facilities in Tarkwa Sub-Municipal Health Service in the western region of Ghana. The study involved routine quality assurance practices among the 90 health staff and management selected from facilities in Tarkwa Sub-Municipal who collected or used data routinely from 24th December 2019 to 20th January 2020. Results: Generally, Tarkwa Sub-Municipal health service appears to practice quality assurance during data collection, compilation, storage, analysis and dissemination. The results show some achievement in quality control performance in report dissemination (77.6%), data analysis (68.0%), data compilation (67.4%), report compilation (66.3%), data storage (66.3%) and collection (61.1%). Conclusions: Even though the Tarkwa Sub-Municipal Health Directorate engages in some control measures to ensure data quality, there is a need to strengthen the process to achieve the targeted percentage of performance (90.0%). There was a significant shortfall in quality assurance practices performance, especially during data collection, with respect to the expected performance.

Keywords: quality assurance practices, assessment of routine health information system quality, routine health information system, data quality

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Authors: Siddharth Jain, Abhenil Mittal, Surendra Kumar Sharma

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Background: With its recent emergence and re-emergence, dengue has become a major international public health concern, imposing significant financial burden especially in developing countries. Despite aggressive control measures in place, India experienced one of its largest outbreaks in 2015 with Delhi being most severely affected. There is a lack of reliable predictors of disease severity and mortality in dengue. The present study was carried out to identify these predictors during the 2015 outbreak. Methods: This prospective observational study conducted at an apex tertiary care center in Delhi, India included confirmed adult dengue patients admitted between August-November 2015. Patient demographics, clinical details, and laboratory findings were recorded in a predesigned proforma. Appropriate statistical tests were used to summarize and compare the clinical and laboratory characteristics and derive predictors of mortality and severe disease, while developing a clinical risk score for mortality. Serotype analysis was also done for 75 representative samples to identify the dominant serotypes. Results: Data of 369 patients were analyzed (mean age 30.9 years; 67% males). Of these, 198 (54%) patients had dengue fever, 125 (34%) had dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF Grade 1,2)and 46 (12%) developed dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Twenty two (6%) patients died. Late presentation to the hospital (≥5 days after onset) and dyspnoea at rest were identified as independent predictors of severe disease. Age ≥ 24 years, dyspnoea at rest and altered sensorium were identified as independent predictors of mortality. A clinical risk score was developed (12*age + 14*sensorium + 10*dyspnoea) which, if ≥ 22, predicted mortality with a high sensitivity (81.8%) and specificity (79.2%). The predominant serotypes in Delhi (2015) were DENV-2 and DENV-4. Conclusion: Age ≥ 24 years, dyspnoea at rest and altered sensorium were identified as independent predictors of mortality. Platelet counts did not determine the outcome in dengue patients. Timely referral/access to health care is important. Development and use of validated predictors of disease severity and simple clinical risk scores, which can be applied in all healthcare settings, can help minimize mortality and morbidity, especially in resource limited settings.

Keywords: dengue, mortality, predictors, severity

Procedia PDF Downloads 287

Authors: Razul Ikmal Ramli

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Successful implementation of innovation is a key success formula of a great organization. Innovation will ensure competitive advantages as well as sustainability of organization in the long run. In public sector context, the role of innovation is crucial to resolve dynamic challenges of public services such as operating in economic uncertainty with limited resources, increasing operating expenditure and growing expectation among citizens towards high quality, swift and reliable public services. Acknowledging the prospect of innovation as a tool for achieving high-performance public sector, the Malaysian New Economic Model launched in the year 2011 intensified government commitment to foster innovation in the public sector. Since 2011 various initiatives have been implemented, however little is known about the performance of public sector innovation in Malaysia. Hence, by applying the national innovation system theory as a pillar, the formulated research objectives were focused on measuring the level of innovation capabilities, wider public sector condition for innovation, innovation activity, and innovation performance as well as to examine the relationship between the four constructs with innovation performance as a dependent variable. For that purpose, 1,000 sets of self-administrated survey questionnaires were distributed to heads of units and divisions of 22 Federal Ministry and Central Agencies in the administrative, security, social and economic sector. Based on 456 returned questionnaires, the descriptive analysis found that innovation capabilities, wider sector condition, innovation activities and innovation performance were rated by respondents at moderately high level. Based on Structural Equation Modelling, innovation performance was found to be influenced by innovation capability, wider sector condition for innovation and innovation activity. In addition, the analysis also found innovation activity to be the most important construct that influences innovation performance. The implication of the study concluded that the innovation policy implemented in the public sector of Malaysia sparked motivation to innovate and resulted in various forms of innovation. However, the overall achievements were not as well as they were expected to be. Thus, the study suggested for the formulation of a dedicated policy to strengthen innovation capability, wider public sector condition for innovation and innovation activity of the Malaysian public sector. Furthermore, strategic intervention needs to be focused on innovation activity as the construct plays an important role in determining the innovation performance. The success of public sector innovation implementation will not only benefit the citizens, but will also spearhead the competitiveness and sustainability of the country.

Keywords: public sector, innovation, performance, innovation policy

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Authors: Kasun U. G. Palihakkara

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Although vaccine coverage in Sri Lanka is close to 100%, with the widely spreading vaccine rejection trend reaching South Asian regions, it is essential to catch on whether Sri Lankans are being misinformed from the common misconceptions regarding vaccines. As the rates of target diseases decrease, parents become less accepting of even minor common adverse events. It is essential to preserve the integrity of immunization programs and protect public health by finding out the prevalence of anti-immunization trends. The primary objective of this study was to assess the immunization practices and prevalence of trends related to anti-immunization among urban community in Sri Lanka. A descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study on 323 participants using convenient sampling with 213 self-administered questionnaires. Additionally, 110 online questionnaires were distributed. 31% of the study population does not maintain immunization records for their children. While majority seek information regarding immunization from reliable sources such as the family physician or specialist pediatricians, 30% also refer to unreliable sources such as online communities for their opinion. 31% of study population had not vaccinated for Japanese encephalitis. 73% of the study population had encountered with side effects of vaccination such as fever & 47% believed that such side effects are rare. 52% of the population had hostile attitude regarding the administration of several doses multiple vaccines within a child’s first year. Diseases like polio had been successfully eradicated from Sri Lanka with the help of vigorous vaccination programs. However, majority of the study population believe that there’s no need to keep vaccinating the children for those eradicated diseases and exposing the child for adverse effects of such vaccines. Majority of the population were aware of the existing misconceptions regarding immunization. The most popular misconceptions about vaccines popular among the study population were the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine being a possible cause leading to autism and bowel disease and children getting infected with the disease even after they get vaccinated, may be due to the inactivated vaccine. Disturbingly 22% of the study population believed that vaccines are useless in preventing diseases nowadays. These data obtained from the urban study population reveals that even though statistically Sri Lankan immunization coverage is 100%, there is a possibility of anti-vaccination trend arising in Sri Lanka due to the prevalence of various misconceptions and rumors related to it. Therefore these data recommend the need for thorough awareness among the mothers.

Keywords: anti-vaccination, immunization, infectious diseases, pediatric health

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Authors: Kalyan Sundar Som, Ghanshyam Prasad Jhariya

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Population growth is an important pervasive phenomenon in the world. Its survival depends upon many daily needs and food is one of them. Population factors play a decisive role in the human endeavor to attain food. Nutrition and health status compose integral part of human development and progress of a society. Therefore, the neglect any one of these components may leads to the deterioration of the quality of life. Food is also intimately related with economic growth and social progress as well as with political stability and peace. It refers to the availability of food and its access to it. It can be observed from global to local level. Food scarcity has emerged as a matter of great concern all over the world due to uncontrolled and unregulated growth of population .For this purpose this study try to find out the deficit or surplus production of food availability in terms of their total population in the study area. It also ascertains the population pressure, demand and supply of food stuff and demarcation of insecure areas.The data base of the study under discussion includes government published data regarding agriculture production, yield and cropped area in 2005-06 to 2011-12 available at commissioner land record Madhya Pradesh, Gwalior. It also includes the census of India for population data. For measuring food security or insecurity regions is based on the consumption of net food available in terms caloric value minus the consumption by the weighted total population. This approach has been adopted because the direct estimate of production and consumption is the only reliable way to ascertain food security in a unit area and to compare one area with another (Noor Mohammad, dec. 2002). The scenario in 2005-06 is 57.78 percent district has food insufficient in terms of their population. On the other hand after 5 years, there are only 22 % districts are deficit in term of food availability where Burhanpur is the most deficit (56 percent) district. While 20% district are highly surplus district in the state where Harda and Hoshangabad districts are very high surplus district (5 times and 3.95 times) in term of food availability(2011). The drastic change (agriculture transformation) is happen due government good intervention in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: agriculture transformation, caloric value method, deficit or surplus region, population pressure

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Authors: C. M. Choi, H. C. Tsang, W. K. Fong, Y. K. Cheng, T. K. Chui, L. Y. Chan, K. W. Lee, C. K. Yuen, P. W. Lau, Y. L. To, K. C. Chow

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Six-minute walk test (6MWT) is a sub-maximal exercise test to assess aerobic capacity and exercise tolerance of patients with chronic respiratory disease and heart failure. This has been proven to be a reliable and valid tool and commonly used in clinical situations. Traditional 6MWT is labour-intensive and time-consuming especially for patients who require assistance in ambulation and oxygen use. When performing the test with these patients, one staff will assist the patient in walking (with or without aids) while another staff will need to manually record patient’s oxygen saturation, heart rate and walking distance at every minute and/or carry oxygen cylinder at the same time. Physiotherapist will then have to document the test results in bed notes in details. With the use of electronic 6MWT (E-6MWT), patients wear a wireless oximeter that transfers data to a tablet PC via Bluetooth. Real-time recording of oxygen saturation, heart rate, and distance are displayed. No manual work on recording is needed. The tablet will generate a comprehensive report which can be directly attached to the patient’s bed notes for documentation. Data can also be saved for later patient follow up. This study was carried out in North District Hospital. Patients who followed commands and required 6MWT assessment were included. Patients were assigned to study or control groups. In the study group, patients adopted the E-6MWT while those in control group adopted the traditional 6MWT. Manpower and time consumed were recorded. Physiotherapists also completed a questionnaire about the use of E-6MWT. Total 12 subjects (Study=6; Control=6) were recruited during 11-12/2017. An average number of staff required and time consumed in traditional 6MWT were 1.67 and 949.33 seconds respectively; while in E-6MWT, the figures were 1.00 and 630.00 seconds respectively. Compared to traditional 6MWT, E-6MWT required 67.00% less manpower and 50.10% less in time spent. Physiotherapists (n=7) found E-6MWT is convenient to use (mean=5.14; satisfied to very satisfied), requires less manpower and time to complete the test (mean=4.71; rather satisfied to satisfied), has better data management (mean=5.86; satisfied to very satisfied) and is recommended to be used clinically (mean=5.29; satisfied to very satisfied). It is proven that E-6MWT requires less manpower input with higher efficiency and better data management. It is welcomed by the clinical frontline staff.

Keywords: electronic, physiotherapy, six-minute walk test, 6MWT

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: Lakshmi Sujeesh, Aaron Ramzeen, Ricky Ziming Guo, Abhishek Agrawal

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Introduction: Range of motion (ROM) is often measured by physiotherapists using hand-held goniometer as part of mobility assessment for diagnosis. Due to the nature of hand-held goniometer measurement procedure, readings often tend to have some variations depending on the physical therapist taking the measurements (Riddle et al.). This study aims to validate computer vision software readings against goniometric measurements for quick and consistent ROM measurements to be taken by clinicians. The use of this computer vision software hopes to improve the future of musculoskeletal space with more efficient diagnosis from recording of patient’s ROM with minimal human error across different physical therapists. Methods: Using the hand-held long arm goniometer measurements as the “gold-standard”, healthy study participants (n = 20) were made to perform 4 exercises: Front elevation, Abduction, Internal Rotation, and External Rotation, using both arms. Assessment of active ROM using computer vision software at different angles set by goniometer for each exercise was done. Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) using 2-way random effects model, Box-Whisker plots, and Root Mean Square error (RMSE) were used to find the degree of correlation and absolute error measured between set and recorded angles across the repeated trials by the same rater. Results: ICC (2,1) values for all 4 exercises are above 0.9, indicating excellent reliability. Lowest overall RMSE was for external rotation (5.67°) and highest for front elevation (8.00°). Box-whisker plots showed have showed that there is a potential zero error in the measurements done by the computer vision software for abduction, where absolute error for measurements taken at 0 degree are shifted away from the ideal 0 line, with its lowest recorded error being 8°. Conclusion: Our results indicate that the use of computer vision software is valid and reliable to use in clinical settings by physiotherapists for measuring shoulder ROM. Overall, computer vision helps improve accessibility to quality care provided for individual patients, with the ability to assess ROM for their condition at home throughout a full cycle of musculoskeletal care (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) without the need for a trained therapist.

Keywords: physiotherapy, frozen shoulder, joint range of motion, computer vision

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Authors: Kirill Filianin, Satu-Pia Reinikainen, Tuomo Sainio

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Frequent measurements of product steam quality create a data overload that becomes more and more difficult to handle. In the current study, plant history data with multiple variables was successfully treated by principal component analysis to detect abnormal process behavior, particularly, in copper solvent extraction. The multivariate model is based on the concentration levels of main process metals recorded by the industrial on-stream x-ray fluorescence analyzer. After mean-centering and normalization of concentration data set, two-dimensional multivariate model under principal component analysis algorithm was constructed. Normal operating conditions were defined through control limits that were assigned to squared score values on x-axis and to residual values on y-axis. 80 percent of the data set were taken as the training set and the multivariate model was tested with the remaining 20 percent of data. Model testing showed successful application of control limits to detect abnormal behavior of copper solvent extraction process as early warnings. Compared to the conventional techniques of analyzing one variable at a time, the proposed model allows to detect on-line a process failure using information from all process variables simultaneously. Complex industrial equipment combined with advanced mathematical tools may be used for on-line monitoring both of process streams’ composition and final product quality. Defining normal operating conditions of the process supports reliable decision making in a process control room. Thus, industrial x-ray fluorescence analyzers equipped with integrated data processing toolbox allows more flexibility in copper plant operation. The additional multivariate process control and monitoring procedures are recommended to apply separately for the major components and for the impurities. Principal component analysis may be utilized not only in control of major elements’ content in process streams, but also for continuous monitoring of plant feed. The proposed approach has a potential in on-line instrumentation providing fast, robust and cheap application with automation abilities.

Keywords: abnormal process behavior, failure detection, principal component analysis, solvent extraction

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Authors: Zane Brough, Claudio Paoloni

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Modern low earth orbit (LEO) satellites that require multi-mission flexibility are highly likely to be repositioned between different operational orbits. While executing this process the satellite may experience high levels of vibration and environmental hazards, exposing the deployed solar panel to dangerous stress levels, fatigue and space debris, hence it is desirable to retract the solar array before satellite repositioning to avoid damage or failure. Furthermore, to accommodate for today's technological world, the power demand of a modern LEO satellite is rapidly increasing, which consequently provides pressure upon the design of the satellites solar array system to conform to the strict volume and mass limitations. A novel concept of deployable/retractable hybrid solar array system, aimed to provide a greater power to volume ratio while dramatically reducing the disadvantages of system mass and cost is proposed. Taking advantage of the new lightweight technology in solar panels, a mechanical system composed of both rigid and flexible solar panels arranged within a petal formation is proposed to yield a stowed to deployment area ratio up to at least 1:7, which improves the power density dramatically. The system consists of five subsystems, the outer ones based on a novel eight-petal configuration that provides a large surface and supports the flexible solar panels. A single cable and spool based hinge mechanism were designed to synchronously deploy/retract the panels in a safe, simple and efficient manner while the mass compared to the previous systems is considerably reduced. The relevant challenge to assure a smooth movement is resolved by a proper minimization of the gearing system and the use of a micro-controller system. A prototype was designed by 3D simulators and successfully constructed and tested. Further design works are in progress to implement an epicyclical gear hinge mechanism, which will further reduce the volume, mass and complexity of the system significantly. The proposed system due to an effective and reliable mechanism provides a large active surface, whilst being very compact. It could be extremely advantageous for use as ground portable solar panel system.

Keywords: mechatronic engineering, satellite, solar panel, deployable/retractable mechanism

Procedia PDF Downloads 354

Authors: Pradeep Kumar Singh Chauhan, Gayatri Devi, Zamir Ahmad, Komal Chauhan, Abha Mittal

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The application of geophysical methods to study the subsurface profile for site investigation is becoming popular globally. These methods are non-destructive and provide the image of subsurface at shallow depths. Seismic refraction method is one of the most common and efficient method being used for civil engineering site investigations particularly for knowing the seismic velocity of the subsurface layers. Resistivity imaging technique is a geo-electrical method used to image the subsurface, water bearing zone, bedrock and layer thickness. Integrated approach combining seismic refraction and 2-D resistivity imaging will provide a better and reliable picture of the subsurface. These are economical and less time-consuming field survey which provide high resolution image of the subsurface. Geophysical surveys carried out in this study include seismic refraction and 2D resistivity imaging method for delineation of sub-surface strata in different parts of Srinagar, Garhwal Himalaya, India. The aim of this survey was to map the shallow subsurface in terms of geological and geophysical properties mainly P-wave velocity, resistivity, layer thickness, and lithology of the area. Both sides of the river, Alaknanda which flows through the centre of the city, have been covered by taking two profiles on each side using both methods. Seismic and electrical surveys were carried out at the same locations to complement the results of each other. The seismic refraction survey was carried out using ABEM TeraLoc 24 channel Seismograph and 2D resistivity imaging was performed using ABEM Terrameter LS equipment. The results show three distinct layers on both sides of the river up to the depth of 20 m. The subsurface is divided into three distinct layers namely, alluvium extending up to, 3 m depth, conglomerate zone lying between the depth of 3 m to 15 m, and compacted pebbles and cobbles beyond 15 m. P-wave velocity in top layer is found in the range of 400 – 600 m/s, in second layer it varies from 700 – 1100 m/s and in the third layer it is 1500 – 3300 m/s. The resistivity results also show similar pattern and were in good agreement with seismic refraction results. The results obtained in this study were validated with an available exposed river scar at one site. The study established the efficacy of geophysical methods for subsurface investigations.

Keywords: 2D resistivity imaging, P-wave velocity, seismic refraction survey, subsurface

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Authors: Ella Tyuryumina, Alexey Neznanov

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Finding algorithms to predict the growth of tumors has piqued the interest of researchers ever since the early days of cancer research. A number of studies were carried out as an attempt to obtain reliable data on the natural history of breast cancer growth. Mathematical modeling can play a very important role in the prognosis of tumor process of breast cancer. However, mathematical models describe primary tumor growth and metastases growth separately. Consequently, we propose a mathematical growth model for primary tumor and primary metastases which may help to improve predicting accuracy of breast cancer progression using an original mathematical model referred to CoM-IV and corresponding software. We are interested in: 1) modelling the whole natural history of primary tumor and primary metastases; 2) developing adequate and precise CoM-IV which reflects relations between PT and MTS; 3) analyzing the CoM-IV scope of application; 4) implementing the model as a software tool. The CoM-IV is based on exponential tumor growth model and consists of a system of determinate nonlinear and linear equations; corresponds to TNM classification. It allows to calculate different growth periods of primary tumor and primary metastases: 1) ‘non-visible period’ for primary tumor; 2) ‘non-visible period’ for primary metastases; 3) ‘visible period’ for primary metastases. The new predictive tool: 1) is a solid foundation to develop future studies of breast cancer models; 2) does not require any expensive diagnostic tests; 3) is the first predictor which makes forecast using only current patient data, the others are based on the additional statistical data. Thus, the CoM-IV model and predictive software: a) detect different growth periods of primary tumor and primary metastases; b) make forecast of the period of primary metastases appearance; c) have higher average prediction accuracy than the other tools; d) can improve forecasts on survival of BC and facilitate optimization of diagnostic tests. The following are calculated by CoM-IV: the number of doublings for ‘nonvisible’ and ‘visible’ growth period of primary metastases; tumor volume doubling time (days) for ‘nonvisible’ and ‘visible’ growth period of primary metastases. The CoM-IV enables, for the first time, to predict the whole natural history of primary tumor and primary metastases growth on each stage (pT1, pT2, pT3, pT4) relying only on primary tumor sizes. Summarizing: a) CoM-IV describes correctly primary tumor and primary distant metastases growth of IV (T1-4N0-3M1) stage with (N1-3) or without regional metastases in lymph nodes (N0); b) facilitates the understanding of the appearance period and manifestation of primary metastases.

Keywords: breast cancer, exponential growth model, mathematical modelling, primary metastases, primary tumor, survival

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Authors: Ayse Ozturk Samur, Gozde Inal Kiziltepe

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No matter what level of education it is, starting a school is an exciting process as it includes new experiences. In this process, child steps into a different environment and institution except from the family institution which he was born into and feels secure. That new environment is different from home; it is a social environment which has its own rules, and involves duties and responsibilities that should be fulfilled and new vital experiences. The children who have a positive attitude towards school and like school are more enthusiastic and eager to participate in classroom activities. Moreover, a close relationship with the teacher enables the child to have positive emotions and ideas about the teacher and school and helps children adapt to school easily. In this study, it is aimed to identify children’s perceptions of academic competence, attitudes towards school and ideas about their teachers. In accordance with the aim a mixed method that includes both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods are used. The study is supported with qualitative data after collecting quantitative data. The study group of the research consists of randomly chosen 250 children who are 60-72 month old and attending a preschool institution in a city center located West Anatolian region of Turkey. Quantitative data was collected using Feelings about School scale. The scale consists of 12 items and 4 dimensions; school, teacher, mathematic, and literacy. Reliability and validity study for the scale used in the study was conducted by the researchers with 318 children who were 60-72 months old. For content validity experts’ ideas were asked, for construct validity confirmatory factor analysis was utilized. Reliability of the scale was examined by calculating internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach alpha). At the end of the analyses it was found that FAS is a valid and reliable instrument to identify 60-72 month old children’ perception of their academic competency, attitude toward school and ideas about their teachers. For the qualitative dimension of the study, semi-structured interviews were done with 30 children aged 60-72 month. At the end of the study, it was identified that children’s’ perceptions of their academic competencies and attitudes towards school was medium-level and their ideas about their teachers were high. Based on the semi structured interviews done with children, it is identified that they have a positive perception of school and teacher. That means quantitatively gathered data is supported by qualitatively collected data.

Keywords: feelings, preschool education, school, teacher, thoughts

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Authors: Nikolai N. Bogolubov, Andrey V. Soldatov

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Terahertz radiation occupies a range of frequencies somewhere from 100 GHz to approximately 10 THz, just between microwaves and infrared waves. This range of frequencies holds promise for many useful applications in experimental applied physics and technology. At the same time, reliable, simple techniques for generation, amplification, and modulation of electromagnetic radiation in this range are far from been developed enough to meet the requirements of its practical usage, especially in comparison to the level of technological abilities already achieved for other domains of the electromagnetic spectrum. This situation of relative underdevelopment of this potentially very important range of electromagnetic spectrum is known under the name of the 'terahertz gap.' Among other things, technological progress in the terahertz area has been impeded by the lack of compact, low energy consumption, easily controlled and continuously radiating terahertz radiation sources. Therefore, development of new techniques serving this purpose as well as various devices based on them is of obvious necessity. No doubt, it would be highly advantageous to employ the simplest of suitable physical systems as major critical components in these techniques and devices. The purpose of the present research was to show by means of conventional methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and the theory of open quantum systems, that a thoroughly studied two-level quantum system, also known as an one-electron two-level 'atom', being driven by external classical monochromatic high-frequency (e.g. laser) field, can radiate continuously at much lower (e.g. terahertz) frequency in the fluorescent regime if the transition dipole moment operator of this 'atom' possesses permanent non-equal diagonal matrix elements. This assumption contradicts conventional assumption routinely made in quantum optics that only the non-diagonal matrix elements persist. The conventional assumption is pertinent to natural atoms and molecules and stems from the property of spatial inversion symmetry of their eigenstates. At the same time, such an assumption is justified no more in regard to artificially manufactured quantum systems of reduced dimensionality, such as, for example, quantum dots, which are often nicknamed 'artificial atoms' due to striking similarity of their optical properties to those ones of the real atoms. Possible ways to experimental observation and practical implementation of the predicted effect are discussed too.

Keywords: terahertz gap, two-level atom, resonant fluorescence, quantum dot, resonant fluorescence, two-level atom

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Authors: Muteeb Ulhaq, Rizwan Latif, Sayed Adnan Qasim, Imran Shafi

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Diesel engines are most efficient and reliable in terms of efficiency, reliability and adaptability. Most of the research and development up till now have been directed towards High-Speed Diesel Engine, for Commercial use. In these engines objective is to optimize maximum acceleration by reducing exhaust emission to meet international standards. In high torque low-speed engines the requirement is altogether different. These types of Engines are mostly used in Maritime Industry, Agriculture industry, Static Engines Compressors Engines etc. Unfortunately due to lack of research and development, these engines have low efficiency and high soot emissions and one of the most effective way to overcome these issues is by efficient combustion in an engine cylinder, the fuel spray atomization process plays a vital role in defining mixture formation, fuel consumption, combustion efficiency and soot emissions. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the fuel spray characteristics and atomization process is of a great importance. In this research, we will examine the effects of primary breakup modeling on the spray characteristics under diesel engine conditions. KH-ACT model is applied to cater the effect of aerodynamics in an engine cylinder and also cavitations and turbulence generated inside the injector. It is a modified form of most commonly used KH model, which considers only the aerodynamically induced breakup based on the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. Our model is extensively evaluated by performing 3-D time-dependent simulations on Open FOAM, which is an open source flow solver. Spray characteristics like Spray Penetration, Liquid length, Spray cone angle and Souter mean diameter (SMD) were validated by comparing the results of Open Foam and Matlab. Including the effects of cavitation and turbulence enhances primary breakup, leading to smaller droplet sizes, decrease in liquid penetration, and increase in the radial dispersion of spray. All these properties favor early evaporation of fuel which enhances Engine efficiency.

Keywords: Kelvin–Helmholtz instability, open foam, primary breakup, souter mean diameter, turbulence

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Authors: Ahmed E. Hodaib, Mohamed A. Hashem

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In engineering applications, a design has to be as fully perfect as possible in some defined case. The designer has to overcome many challenges in order to reach the optimal solution to a specific problem. This process is called optimization. Generally, there is always a function called “objective function” that is required to be maximized or minimized by choosing input parameters called “degrees of freedom” within an allowed domain called “search space” and computing the values of the objective function for these input values. It becomes more complex when we have more than one objective for our design. As an example for Multi-Objective Optimization Problem (MOP): A structural design that aims to minimize weight and maximize strength. In such case, the Pareto Optimal Frontier (POF) is used, which is a curve plotting two objective functions for the best cases. At this point, a designer should make a decision to choose the point on the curve. Engineers use algorithms or iterative methods for optimization. In this paper, we will discuss the Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) which are widely used with Multi-objective Optimization Problems due to their robustness, simplicity, suitability to be coupled and to be parallelized. Evolutionary algorithms are developed to guarantee the convergence to an optimal solution. An EA uses mechanisms inspired by Darwinian evolution principles. Technically, they belong to the family of trial and error problem solvers and can be considered global optimization methods with a stochastic optimization character. The optimization is initialized by picking random solutions from the search space and then the solution progresses towards the optimal point by using operators such as Selection, Combination, Cross-over and/or Mutation. These operators are applied to the old solutions “parents” so that new sets of design variables called “children” appear. The process is repeated until the optimal solution to the problem is reached. Reliable and robust computational fluid dynamics solvers are nowadays commonly utilized in the design and analyses of various engineering systems, such as aircraft, turbo-machinery, and auto-motives. Coupling of Computational Fluid Dynamics “CFD” and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms “MOEA” has become substantial in aerospace engineering applications, such as in aerodynamic shape optimization and advanced turbo-machinery design.

Keywords: mathematical optimization, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms "MOEA", computational fluid dynamics "CFD", aerodynamic shape optimization

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Authors: Tausif A. Ishtiaque, Zarrin T. Tasin, Kazi S. Akter

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Current trend of urban expansion, especially in the developing countries has caused significant changes in land cover, which is generating great concern due to its widespread environmental degradation. Energy consumption of the cities is also increasing with the aggravated heat island effect. Distribution of land surface temperature (LST) is one of the most significant climatic parameters affected by urban land cover change. Recent increasing trend of LST is causing elevated temperature profile of the built up area with less vegetative cover. Gradual change in land cover, especially decrease in vegetative cover is enhancing the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in the developing cities around the world. Increase in the amount of urban vegetation cover can be a useful solution for the reduction of UHI intensity. LST and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) have widely been accepted as reliable indicators of UHI and vegetation abundance respectively. Chittagong, the second largest city of Bangladesh, has been a growth center due to rapid urbanization over the last several decades. This study assesses the intensity of UHI in Chittagong city by analyzing the relationship between LST and NDVI based on the type of land use/land cover (LULC) in the study area applying an integrated approach of Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and regression analysis. Land cover map is prepared through an interactive supervised classification using remotely sensed data from Landsat ETM+ image along with NDVI differencing using ArcGIS. LST and NDVI values are extracted from the same image. The regression analysis between LST and NDVI indicates that within the study area, UHI is directly correlated with LST while negatively correlated with NDVI. It interprets that surface temperature reduces with increase in vegetation cover along with reduction in UHI intensity. Moreover, there are noticeable differences in the relationship between LST and NDVI based on the type of LULC. In other words, depending on the type of land usage, increase in vegetation cover has a varying impact on the UHI intensity. This analysis will contribute to the formulation of sustainable urban land use planning decisions as well as suggesting suitable actions for mitigation of UHI intensity within the study area.

Keywords: land cover change, land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, urban heat island

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Authors: Ahmeda Ali, Mary Codd, Susan Brundage

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Importance: This research focuses on devising and improving Health Service Executive (HSE) policy and legislation and therefore improving patient trauma care and outcomes in Ireland. Objectives: The study measures components of the Trauma System in the district hospital setting of the Cavan/Monaghan Hospital Group (CMHG), HSE, Ireland, and uses the collected data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the CMHG Trauma System organisation, to include governance, injury data, prevention and quality improvement, scene care and facility-based care, and rehabilitation. The information will be made available to local policy makers to provide objective situational analysis to assist in future trauma service planning and service provision. Design, setting and participants: From 28 April to May 28, 2016 a cross-sectional survey using World Health Organisation (WHO) Trauma System Assessment Tool (TSAT) was conducted among healthcare professionals directly involved in the level III trauma system of CMHG. Main outcomes: Identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the Trauma System of CMHG. Results: The participants who reported inadequate funding for pre hospital (62.3%) and facility based trauma care at CMHG (52.5%) were high. Thirty four (55.7%) respondents reported that a national trauma registry (TARN) exists but electronic health records are still not used in trauma care. Twenty one respondents (34.4%) reported that there are system wide protocols for determining patient destination and adequate, comprehensive legislation governing the use of ambulances was enforced, however, there is a lack of a reliable advisory service. Over 40% of the respondents reported uncertainty of the injury prevention programmes available in Ireland; as well as the allocated government funding for injury and violence prevention. Conclusions: The results of this study contributed to a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system organisation. The major findings of the study identified three fundamental areas: the inadequate funding at CMHG, the QI techniques and corrective strategies used, and the unfamiliarity of existing prevention strategies. The findings direct the need for further research to guide future development of the trauma system at CMHG (and in Ireland as a whole) in order to maximise best practice and to improve functional and life outcomes.

Keywords: trauma, education, management, system

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Authors: A. P. Pashkov

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The number of environmental factors that adversely affect children's health is growing every year; their combination in each territory is different. The contribution of socio-economic factors to the health status of the younger generation is increasing. It is the child’s body that is most sensitive to changes in environmental conditions, responding to this with a deterioration in health. Over the past years, scientists have determined the influence of environmental factors and the incidence of children. Currently, there is a tendency to study regional characteristics of the interaction of a combination of environmental factors with the child's body. The aim of the work was to identify trends in the primary non-infectious morbidity of the children of the Altai Territory as a unique region that combines territories with different levels of environmental quality indicators, as well as to assess the effect of atmospheric air, drinking water and socio-economic indicators on the incidence of children in the region. An unfavorable tendency has been revealed in the region for incidence of such nosological groups as neoplasms, including malignant ones, diseases of the endocrine system, including obesity and thyroid disease, diseases of the circulatory system, digestive diseases, diseases of the genitourinary system, congenital anomalies, and respiratory diseases. Between some groups of diseases revealed a pattern of geographical distribution during mapping and a significant correlation. Some nosologies have a relationship with socio-economic indicators for an integrated assessment: circulatory system diseases, respiratory diseases (direct connection), endocrine system diseases, eating disorders, and metabolic disorders (feedback). The analysis of associations of the incidence of children with average annual concentrations of substances that pollute the air and drinking water showed the existence of reliable correlation in areas of critical and intense degree of environmental quality. This fact confirms that the population living in contaminated areas is subject to the negative influence of environmental factors, which immediately affects the health status of children. The results obtained indicate the need for a detailed assessment of the influence of environmental factors on the incidence of children in the regional aspect, the formation of a database, and the development of automated programs that can predict the incidence in each specific territory. This will increase the effectiveness, including economic of preventive measures.

Keywords: incidence of children, regional features, socio-economic factors, environmental factors

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Authors: Hayder H. Kareem, Shunqi Pan

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The geological environment where the groundwater is collected represents the most important element that affects the behaviour of groundwater aquifer. As groundwater is a worldwide vital resource, it requires knowing the parameters that affect this source accurately so that the conceptualized mathematical models would be acceptable to the broadest ranges. Therefore, groundwater models have recently become an effective and efficient tool to investigate groundwater aquifer behaviours. Groundwater aquifer may contain aquitards, aquicludes, or interfaces within its geological formations. Aquitards and aquicludes have geological formations that forced the modellers to include those formations within the conceptualized groundwater models, while interfaces are commonly neglected from the conceptualization process because the modellers believe that the interface has no effect on aquifer behaviour. The current research highlights the impact of an interface existing in a real unconfined groundwater aquifer called Dibdibba, located in Al-Najaf City, Iraq where it has a river called the Euphrates River that passes through the eastern part of this city. Dibdibba groundwater aquifer consists of two types of soil layers separated by an interface soil layer. A groundwater model is built for Al-Najaf City to explore the impact of this interface. Calibration process is done using PEST 'Parameter ESTimation' approach and the best Dibdibba groundwater model is obtained. When the soil interface is conceptualized, results show that the groundwater tables are significantly affected by that interface through appearing dry areas of 56.24 km² and 6.16 km² in the upper and lower layers of the aquifer, respectively. The Euphrates River will also leak water into the groundwater aquifer of 7359 m³/day. While these results are changed when the soil interface is neglected where the dry area became 0.16 km², the Euphrates River leakage became 6334 m³/day. In addition, the conceptualized models (with and without interface) reveal different responses for the change in the recharge rates applied on the aquifer through the uncertainty analysis test. The aquifer of Dibdibba in Al-Najaf City shows a slight deficit in the amount of water supplied by the current pumping scheme and also notices that the Euphrates River suffers from stresses applied to the aquifer. Ultimately, this study shows a crucial need to represent the interface soil layer in model conceptualization to be the intended and future predicted behaviours more reliable for consideration purposes.

Keywords: Al-Najaf City, groundwater aquifer behaviour, groundwater modelling, interface soil layer, Visual MODFLOW

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Authors: Tejinder Singh Sidhu

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Hot corrosion has been recognized as a severe problem in steam-powered electricity generation plants and industrial waste incinerators as it consumes the material at an unpredictably rapid rate. Consequently, the load-carrying ability of the components reduces quickly, eventually leading to catastrophic failure. The inability to either totally prevent hot corrosion or at least detect it at an early stage has resulted in several accidents, leading to loss of life and/or destruction of infrastructures. A number of countermeasures are currently in use or under investigation to combat hot corrosion, such as using inhibitors, controlling the process parameters, designing a suitable industrial alloy, and depositing protective coatings. However, the protection system to be selected for a particular application must be practical, reliable, and economically viable. Due to the continuously rising cost of the materials as well as increased material requirements, the coating techniques have been given much more importance in recent times. Coatings can add value to products up to 10 times the cost of the coating. Among the different coating techniques, thermal spraying has grown into a well-accepted industrial technology for applying overlay coatings onto the surfaces of engineering components to allow them to function under extreme conditions of wear, erosion-corrosion, high-temperature oxidation, and hot corrosion. In this study, the hot corrosion performances of Ni-20Cr and Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings developed by High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (HVOF) process have been studied. The coatings were developed on a Fe-based superalloy, and experiments were performed in an actual industrial environment of a coal-fired boiler. The cyclic study was carried out around the platen superheater zone where the temperature was around 1000°C. The study was conducted for 10 cycles, and one cycle was consisting of 100 hours of heating followed by 1 hour of cooling at ambient temperature. Both the coatings deposited on Fe-based superalloy imparted better hot corrosion resistance than the uncoated one. The Ni-20Cr coated superalloy performed better than the Cr₃C₂-NiCr coated in the actual working conditions of the coal fired boiler. It is found that the formation of chromium oxide at the boundaries of Ni-rich splats of the coating blocks the inward permeation of oxygen and other corrosive species to the substrate.

Keywords: hot corrosion, coating, HVOF, oxidation

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Authors: Melanie Ostermann, Eivind Birkeland, Ying Xue, Alexander Sauter, Mihaela R. Cimpan

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Background: New reliable and robust techniques to assess biological effects of nanomaterials (NMs) in vitro are needed to speed up safety analysis and to identify key physicochemical parameters of NMs, which are responsible for their acute cytotoxicity. The central aim of this study was to validate and evaluate the applicability and reliability of an impedance-based flow cytometry (IFC) technique for the high-throughput screening of NMs. Methods: Eight inorganic NMs from the European Commission Joint Research Centre Repository were used: NM-302 and NM-300k (Ag: 200 nm rods and 16.7 nm spheres, respectively), NM-200 and NM- 203 (SiO₂: 18.3 nm and 24.7 nm amorphous, respectively), NM-100 and NM-101 (TiO₂: 100 nm and 6 nm anatase, respectively), and NM-110 and NM-111 (ZnO: 147 nm and 141 nm, respectively). The aim was to assess the biological effects of these materials on human monoblastoid (U937) cells. Dispersions of NMs were prepared as described in the NANOGENOTOX dispersion protocol and cells were exposed to NMs at relevant concentrations (2, 10, 20, 50, and 100 µg/mL) for 24 hrs. The change in electrical impedance was measured at 0.5, 2, 6, and 12 MHz using the IFC AmphaZ30 (Amphasys AG, Switzerland). A traditional toxicity assay, Trypan Blue Dye Exclusion assay, and dark-field microscopy were used to validate the IFC method. Results: Spherical Ag particles (NM-300K) showed the highest toxic effect on U937 cells followed by ZnO (NM-111 ≥ NM-110) particles. Silica particles were moderate to non-toxic at all used concentrations under these conditions. A higher toxic effect was seen with smaller sized TiO2 particles (NM-101) compared to their larger analogues (NM-100). No interferences between the IFC and the used NMs were seen. Uptake and internalization of NMs were observed after 24 hours exposure, confirming actual NM-cell interactions. Conclusion: Results collected with the IFC demonstrate the applicability of this method for rapid nanotoxicity assessment, which proved to be less prone to nano-related interference issues compared to some traditional toxicity assays. Furthermore, this label-free and novel technique shows good potential for up-scaling in directions of an automated high-throughput screening and for future NM toxicity assessment. This work was supported by the EC FP7 NANoREG (Grant Agreement NMP4-LA-2013-310584), the Research Council of Norway, project NorNANoREG (239199/O70), the EuroNanoMed II 'GEMN' project (246672), and the UH-Nett Vest project.

Keywords: cytotoxicity, high-throughput, impedance, nanomaterials

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Authors: Roberta Facchinetti, Sara Corrizzato, Silvia Cavalieri

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Increasing interconnection between data digitalization and linguistic investigation has given rise to unprecedented potentialities and challenges for corpus linguists, who need to master IT tools for data analysis and text processing, as well as to develop techniques for efficient and reliable annotation in specific mark-up languages that encode documents in a format that is both human and machine-readable. In the present paper, the challenges emerging from the compilation of a linguistic corpus will be taken into consideration, focusing on the English language in particular. To do so, the case study of the InterDiplo corpus will be illustrated. The corpus, currently under development at the University of Verona (Italy), represents a novelty in terms both of the data included and of the tag set used for its annotation. The corpus covers media interviews and debates with diplomats and international operators conversing in English with journalists who do not share the same lingua-cultural background as their interviewees. To date, this appears to be the first tagged corpus of international institutional spoken discourse and will be an important database not only for linguists interested in corpus analysis but also for experts operating in international relations. In the present paper, special attention will be dedicated to the structural mark-up, parts of speech annotation, and tagging of discursive traits, that are the innovational parts of the project being the result of a thorough study to find the best solution to suit the analytical needs of the data. Several aspects will be addressed, with special attention to the tagging of the speakers’ identity, the communicative events, and anthropophagic. Prominence will be given to the annotation of question/answer exchanges to investigate the interlocutors’ choices and how such choices impact communication. Indeed, the automated identification of questions, in relation to the expected answers, is functional to understand how interviewers elicit information as well as how interviewees provide their answers to fulfill their respective communicative aims. A detailed description of the aforementioned elements will be given using the InterDiplo-Covid19 pilot corpus. The data yielded by our preliminary analysis of the data will highlight the viable solutions found in the construction of the corpus in terms of XML conversion, metadata definition, tagging system, and discursive-pragmatic annotation to be included via Oxygen.

Keywords: spoken corpus, diplomats’ interviews, tagging system, discursive-pragmatic annotation, english linguistics

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Authors: Mai Alharthy, Agnes Shiel, Hynes Sinead

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Objectives: The objectives of the study are to translate and culturally adapt the RBMT-3 to be appropriate for use within an Arabic-speaking population and to achieve maximum equivalency between the translated and original versions and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the RBMT-3. Participants' numbers are 16 (10 females and 6 males). All participants are bilingual speakers of Arabic and English, above 18 years old and with no current nor past memory impairment. Methods: The study was conducted in two stages: Translation and cultural adaptation stage: Forward and backward translations were completed by professional translators. Five out of the 14 RBMT-3 subtests required cultural adaptations. Half of the faces in the face recognition subtests were replaced with Arabic faces by a professional photographer. Pictures that are irrelevant to the Arabic culture in the picture recognition subtests were replaced. Names, story and orientations subtests were also adapted to suit the Arabic culture. An expert committee was formed to compare the translated and original versions and to advise on further changes required for test materials. Validation of the Arabic RBMT-3- pilot: 16 Participants were tested on version 1 of the English version and the two versions of the Arabic RBMT-3 ( counterbalanced ). The assessment period was 6 weeks long, with two weeks gap between tests. All assessments took place in a quiet room in the National University of Ireland Galway. Two qualified occupational therapists completed the assessments. Results: Wilcox signed-rank test was used to compare between subtest scores. Significant differences were found in the story, orientation and names subtests between the English and Arabic versions. No significant differences were found in subtests from both Arabic versions except for the story subtest. Conclusion: The story and orientation subtests should be revised by the expert committee members to make further adaptations. The rest of the Arabic RBMT-3 subtests are equivalent to the subtests of the English version. The psychometric properties of the Arabic RBMT-3 will be investigated in a larger Arabic-speaking sample in Saudi Arabia. The outcome of this research is to provide clinicians and researchers with a reliable tool to assess memory problems in Arabic speaking population.

Keywords: memory impairment, neuropsychological assessment, cultural adaptation, cognitive assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 245