Search results for: high-frequency sloping hearing loss

Authors: Juan-Pedro Rica-Peromingo

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Nowadays, corpus linguistics has become a key research methodology for Translation Studies, which broadens the scope of cross-linguistic studies. In the case of the study presented here, the approach used focuses on learners with little or no experience to study, at an early stage, general mistakes and errors, the correct or incorrect use of translation strategies, and to improve the translational competence of the students. Led by Sylviane Granger and Marie-Aude Lefer of the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics of the University of Louvain, the MUST corpus (MUltilingual Student Translation Corpus) is an international project which brings together partners from Europe and worldwide universities and connects Learner Corpus Research (LCR) and Translation Studies (TS). It aims to build a corpus of translations carried out by students including both direct (L2 > L1) an indirect (L1 > L2) translations, from a great variety of text types, genres, and registers in a wide variety of languages: audiovisual translations (including dubbing, subtitling for hearing population and for deaf population), scientific, humanistic, literary, economic and legal translation texts. This paper focuses on the work carried out by the Spanish team from the Complutense University (UCMA), which is part of the MUST project, and it describes the specific features of the corpus built by its members. All the texts used by UCMA are either direct or indirect translations between English and Spanish. Students’ profiles comprise translation trainees, foreign language students with a major in English, engineers studying EFL and MA students, all of them with different English levels (from B1 to C1); for some of the students, this would be their first experience with translation. The MUST corpus is searchable via Hypal4MUST, a web-based interface developed by Adam Obrusnik from Masaryk University (Czech Republic), which includes a translation-oriented annotation system (TAS). A distinctive feature of the interface is that it allows source texts and target texts to be aligned, so we can be able to observe and compare in detail both language structures and study translation strategies used by students. The initial data obtained point out the kind of difficulties encountered by the students and reveal the most frequent strategies implemented by the learners according to their level of English, their translation experience and the text genres. We have also found common errors in the graduate and postgraduate university students’ translations: transfer errors, lexical errors, grammatical errors, text-specific translation errors, and cultural-related errors have been identified. Analyzing all these parameters will provide more material to bring better solutions to improve the quality of teaching and the translations produced by the students.

Keywords: corpus studies, students’ corpus, the MUST corpus, translation studies

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Authors: Lahlou Dahmani, Warda Mekiri, Ahmed Boudjemia

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This scientific paper explores the comparison between the ultimate buckling load obtained through the Eurocode 3 methodology and the ultimate buckling load obtained through finite element simulations for steel columns under compression. The study aims to provide insights into the adequacy of the design rules proposed in Eurocode 3 for different slenderness ratios. The finite element simulations with the Ansys commercial program involve a geometrical and material non-linear analysis of the columns with imperfections. The loss of equilibrium is generally caused by the geometrically nonlinear effects where the column begins to buckle and lose its stability when the load reaches a certain critical value. The linear buckling analysis predicts the theoretical buckling strength of an elastic structure but the nonlinear one is more accurate with taking into account the initial imperfection.

Keywords: Ansys, linear buckling, eigen value, nonlinear buckling, slenderness ratio, Eurocode 3

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Authors: Yanyan Wang

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This paper on second language teaching and learning uses conversation analysis (CA) approach and focuses on how second language learners of Chinese do repair when making clarification requests. In order to demonstrate their behavior in interaction, a comparison was made to study the differences between native speakers of Chinese with non-native speakers of Chinese. The significance of the research is to make second language teachers and learners aware of repair and how to seek clarification. Utilizing the methodology of CA, the research involved two sets of naturally occurring recordings, one of native speaker students and the other of non-native speaker students. Both sets of recording were telephone talks between students and teachers. There were 50 native speaker students and 50 non-native speaker students. From multiple listening to the recordings, the parts with repairs for clarification were selected for analysis which included the moments in the talk when students had problems in understanding or hearing the speaker and had to seek clarification. For example, ‘Sorry, I do not understand ‘and ‘Can you repeat the question? ‘were the parts as repair to make clarification requests. In the data, there were 43 such cases from native speaker students and 88 cases from non-native speaker students. The non-native speaker students were more likely to use repair to seek clarification. Analysis on how the students make clarification requests during their conversation was carried out by investigating how the students initiated problems and how the teachers repaired the problems. In CA term, it is called other-initiated self-repair (OISR), which refers to student-initiated teacher-repair in this research. The findings show that, in initiating repair, native speaker students pay more attention to mutual understanding (inter-subjectivity) while non-native speaker students, due to their lack of language proficiency, pay more attention to their status of knowledge (epistemic) switch. There are three major differences: 1, native Chinese students more often initiate closed-class OISR (seeking specific information in the request) such as repeating a word or phrases from the previous turn while non-native students more frequently initiate open-class OISR (not specifying clarification) such as ‘sorry, I don’t understand ‘. 2, native speakers’ clarification requests are treated by the teacher as understanding of the content while non-native learners’ clarification requests are treated by teacher as language proficiency problem. 3, native speakers don’t see repair as knowledge issue and there is no third position in the repair sequences to close repair while non-native learners take repair sequence as a time to adjust their knowledge. There is clear closing third position token such as ‘oh ‘ to close repair sequence so that the topic can go back. In conclusion, this paper uses conversation analysis approach to compare differences between native Chinese speakers and non-native Chinese learners in their ways of conducting repair when making clarification requests. The findings are useful in future Chinese language teaching and learning, especially in teaching pragmatics such as requests.

Keywords: conversation analysis (CA), clarification request, second language (L2), teaching implication

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Authors: Dany Ng Cheong Vee, Preethee Nunkoo Gonpot, Noor Sookia

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In this paper, we consider the application of Extreme Value Theory as a risk measurement tool. The Value at Risk, for a set of indices, from six Stock Exchanges of Frontier markets is calculated using the Peaks over Threshold method and the performance of the model index-wise is evaluated using coverage tests and loss functions. Our results show that 'fat-tailedness' alone of the data is not enough to justify the use of EVT as a VaR approach. The structure of the returns dynamics is also a determining factor. This approach works fine in markets which have had extremes occurring in the past thus making the model capable of coping with extremes coming up (Colombo, Tunisia and Zagreb Stock Exchanges). On the other hand, we find that indices with lower past than present volatility fail to adequately deal with future extremes (Mauritius and Kazakhstan). We also conclude that using EVT alone produces quite static VaR figures not reflecting the actual dynamics of the data.

Keywords: extreme value theory, financial crisis 2008, value at risk, frontier markets

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Authors: Bendiabdellah Azzeddine, Cherif Bilal Djamal Eddine

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The three-phase power converter voltage structure is widely used in many power applications but its failure can lead to partial or total loss of control of the phase currents and can cause serious system malfunctions or even a complete system shutdown. To ensure continuity of service in all circumstances, effective and rapid techniques of detection and location of inverter fault is to be implemented. The present paper is dedicated to open-circuit fault detection in a three-phase two-level inverter fed induction motor. For detection purpose, the proposed contribution addresses the Park’s current vectors associated to a polar coordinates calculation tool to compute the exact value of the fault angle corresponding directly to the faulty IGBT switch. The merit of the proposed contribution is illustrated by experimental results.

Keywords: diagnosis, detection, Park’s vectors, polar coordinates, open-circuit fault, inverter, IGBT switch

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Authors: Sira Suren, Soorathep Kheawhom

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This work investigates the development of a high energy density zinc-air battery. Printed and flexible thin film zinc-air battery with an overall thickness of about 350 μm was fabricated by an inexpensive screen-printing technique. Commercial nano-silver ink was used as both current collectors and catalyst layer. Carbon black ink was used to fabricate cathode electrode. Polypropylene membrane was used as the cathode substrate and separator. 9 M KOH was used as the electrolyte. A mixture of Zn powder, ZnO, and Bi2O3 was used to prepare the anode electrode. The suitable concentration of Bi2O3 and types of binders (styrene-butadiene and sodium silicate) were investigated. Results showed that battery using 20% Bi2O3 and sodium silicate binder provided the best performance. The open-circuit voltage and energy density observed were 1.59 V and 690 Wh/kg, respectively. When the battery was discharged at 20 mA/cm2, the potential voltage observed was 1.3 V. Furthermore, the battery was tested for its flexibility. Upon bending, no significant loss in performance was observed.

Keywords: flexible, printed battery, screen printing, Zn-air

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Authors: Dursun Kalebaşi

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When we examine the history of mankind (from the past up to the present), we see that millions of people died because of the wars. Especially, since the beginning of 19th century, the increase of the human death rate is caused mostly by the regional conflicts and natural disasters rather than the wars. From that point of view, the biggest threat humanity face today is temperature increase and climate change that started to emerge in recent years. When we take into account the natural disasters on one hand and refuges that flee from regional conflicts on the other, it stands out as a dramatic situation because of the huge human losses. In this context, most of the countries started to give more importance to Search and Rescue (SAR) operations to stop the loss of lives or decrease the death rate. This article will tell about the SAR activities in Turkey since 2000 and discuss the Turkey’s contributions to Rescue Missions after the natural disasters in different parts of the world. Moreover, there will be some new highlights to a more habitable and more peaceful world through the SAR missions.

Keywords: search and rescue, natural disasters, migration and world peace, Turkish army forces

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Authors: Krishna Raj Regmi

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A “Climate change adaptation and disaster risk management for sustainable agriculture” project was implemented in Nepal, a Himalayan country during 2008 to 2013 sponsored jointly by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Nepal. The paper is based on the results and findings of this joint pilot project. The climate change events such as increased intensity of erratic rains in short spells, trend of prolonged drought, gradual rise in temperature in the higher elevations and occurrence of cold and hot waves in Terai (lower plains) has led to flash floods, massive erosion in the hills particularly in Churia range and drying of water sources. These recurring natural and climate-induced disasters are causing heavy damages through sedimentation and inundation of agricultural lands, crops, livestock, infrastructures and rural settlements in the downstream plains and thus reducing agriculture productivity and food security in the country. About 65% of the cultivated land in Nepal is rainfed with drought-prone characteristics and stabilization of agricultural production and productivity in these tracts will be possible through adoption of rainfed and drought-tolerant technologies as well as efficient soil-water management by the local communities. The adaptation and mitigation technologies and options identified by the project for soil erosion, flash floods and landslide control are on-farm watershed management, sloping land agriculture technologies (SALT), agro-forestry practices, agri-silvi-pastoral management, hedge-row contour planting, bio-engineering along slopes and river banks, plantation of multi-purpose trees and management of degraded waste land including sandy river-bed flood plains. The stress tolerant technologies with respect to drought, floods and temperature stress for efficient utilization of nutrient, soil, water and other resources for increased productivity are adoption of stress tolerant crop varieties and breeds of animals, indigenous proven technologies, mixed and inter-cropping systems, system of rice/wheat intensification (SRI), direct rice seeding, double transplanting of rice, off-season vegetable production and regular management of nurseries, orchards and animal sheds. The alternate energy use options and resource conservation practices for use by local communities are installation of bio-gas plants and clean stoves (Chulla range) for mitigation of green house gas (GHG) emissions, use of organic manures and bio-pesticides, jatropha cultivation, green manuring in rice fields and minimum/zero tillage practices for marshy lands. The efficient water management practices for increasing productivity of crops and livestock are use of micro-irrigation practices, construction of water conservation and water harvesting ponds, use of overhead water tanks and Thai jars for rain water harvesting and rehabilitation of on-farm irrigation systems. Initiation of some works on community-based early warning system, strengthening of met stations and disaster database management has made genuine efforts in providing disaster-tailored early warning, meteorological and insurance services to the local communities. Contingent planning is recommended to develop coping strategies and capacities of local communities to adopt necessary changes in the cropping patterns and practices in relation to adverse climatic and disaster risk conditions. At the end, adoption of awareness raising and capacity development activities (technical and institutional) and networking on climate-induced disaster and risks through training, visits and knowledge sharing workshops, dissemination of technical know-how and technologies, conduct of farmers' field schools, development of extension materials and their displays are being promoted. However, there is still need of strong coordination and linkage between agriculture, environment, forestry, meteorology, irrigation, climate-induced pro-active disaster preparedness and research at the ministry, department and district level for up-scaling, implementation and institutionalization of climate change and disaster risk management activities and adaptation mitigation options in agriculture for sustainable livelihoods of the communities.

Keywords: climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, soil-water management practices, sustainable agriculture

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Authors: Saul A. Torres Z., Eduardo Liceaga C., Alfredo Arias M.

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Agriculture in the world falls within the main sources of economic and global needs, so care of crop is extremely important for owners and workers; one of the major causes of loss of product is the pest infection of different types of organisms. We seek to develop a UAV for agricultural spraying at a maximum altitude of 5000 meters above sea level, with a payload of 100 liters of fumigant. For the developing the aerodynamic design of the aircraft is using computational tools such as the "Vortex Lattice Athena" software, "MATLAB"," ANSYS FLUENT"," XFoil " package among others. Also methods are being used structured programming, exhaustive analysis of optimization methods and search. The results have a very low margin of error, and the multi- objective problems can be helpful for future developments. The program has 10 functions developed in MATLAB, these functions are related to each other to enable the development of design, and all these functions are controlled by the principal code "Master.m".

Keywords: aerodynamics design, optimization, algorithm genetic, multi-objective problem, stability, vortex

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Authors: Fares Jnaid, Riyad Aboutaha

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In this paper, a nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was carried out using ANSYS software to build a model able of predicting the behavior of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams with unbonded reinforcement. The FEA model was compared to existing experimental data by other researchers. The existing experimental data consisted of 16 beams that varied from structurally sound beams to beams with unbonded reinforcement with different unbonded lengths and reinforcement ratios. The model was able to predict the ultimate flexural strength, load-deflection curve, and crack pattern of concrete beams with unbonded reinforcement. It was concluded that when the when the unbonded length is less than 45% of the span, there will be no decrease in the ultimate flexural strength due to the loss of bond between the steel reinforcement and the surrounding concrete regardless of the reinforcement ratio. Moreover, when the reinforcement ratio is relatively low, there will be no decrease in ultimate flexural strength regardless of the length of unbond.

Keywords: FEA, ANSYS, unbond, strain

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Authors: Paola Molteni, Luigi d’Alonzo

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Background: Sensory issues are now considered one of the key aspects in defining and diagnosing autism, changing the perspectives on behavioural analysis and intervention in mainstream educational services. However, Italian teachers’ training is yet not specific on the topic of autism and its sensory-related effects and this research investigates the teacher’s capability in understanding the student’s needs and his/her challenging behaviours considering sensory perceptions. Objectives: The research aims to analyse mainstream schools teachers’ awareness on students’ sensory perceptions and how this affects classroom inclusion and learning process. The research questions are: i) Are teachers able to identify student’s sensory issues?; ii) Are trained teachers more able to identify sensory problems then untrained ones?; iii) What is the impact of sensory issues on inclusion in mainstream classrooms?; iv) What should teachers know about autistic sensory dimensions? Methods: This research was designed as a pilot study that involves a multi-methods approach, including action and collaborative research methodology. The designed research allows the researcher to catch the complexity of a province school district (from kindergarten to high school) through a deep detailed analysis of selected aspects. The researcher explored the questions described above through 133 questionnaires and 6 focus groups. The qualitative and quantitative data collected during the research were analysed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: Mainstream schools teachers are not able to confidently recognise sensory issues of children included in the classroom. The research underlines: how professionals with no specific training on autism are not able to recognise sensory problems in students on the spectrum; how hearing and sight issues have higher impact on classroom inclusion and student’s learning process; how a lack of understanding is often followed by misinterpretations of the impact of sensory issues and challenging behaviours. Conclusions: As this research has shown, promoting and enhancing the importance of understanding sensory issues related to autism is fundamental to enable mainstream schools teachers to define educational and life-long plans able to properly answer the student’s needs and support his/her real inclusion in the classroom. This study is a good example of how the educational research can meet and help the daily practice in working with people on the autism spectrum and support the training design for mainstream school teachers: the emerging need of designed preparation on sensory issues is fundamental to be considered when planning school district in-service training programmes, specifically declined for inclusive services.

Keywords: autism spectrum condition, scholastic inclusion, sensory overload, teacher's training

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Authors: Mahnaz Khalafehnilsaz, Rozina Rahnama

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Introduction: The aging process has been linked to a wide range of non-communicable diseases that cause a loss of health-related quality of life. This process can be worsened if an active and healthy lifestyle is not followed by adults, especially in the workplace. This setting not only may create a sedentary lifestyle but will lead to obesity and overweight in the long term and create unhealthy and inactive aging. In addition, eating habits are always known to be associated with active aging. Therefore, it is very valuable to know the eating patterns of people at work in order to detect and prevent diseases in the coming years. This study aimed to design and test a model to improve eating habits among employees at an industrial complex as a practical strategy. Material and method: The present research was a mixed-method study with a subsequent exploratory design which was carried out in two phases, qualitative and quantitative, in 2018 year. In the first step, participants were selected by purposive sampling (n=34) to ensure representation of different job roles; hours worked, gender, grade, and age groups, and semi-structured interviews were used. All interviews were conducted in the workplace and were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the Strauss and Corbin approach. The interview question was, “what were their experiences of eating at work, and how could these nutritional habits affect their health in old age.” Finally, a total of 1500 basic codes were oriented at the open coding step, and they were merged together to create the 17 classes, and six concepts and a conceptual model were designed. The second phase of the study was conducted in the form of a cross-sectional study. After verification of the research tool, the developed questionnaire was examined in a group of employees. In order to test the conceptual model of the study, a total of 500 subjects were included in psychometry. Findings: Six main concepts have been known, including 1. undesirable control of stress, 2. lack of eating knowledge, 3. effect of the social network, 4. lack of motivation for healthy habits, 5. environmental-organizational intensifier, 6. unhealthy eating behaviors. The core concept was “Motivation Loss to do preventive behavior.” The main constructs of the motivational-based model for the promotion of eating habits are “modification and promote of eating habits,” increase of knowledge and competency, convey of healthy nutrition behavior culture and effecting of behavioral model especially in older age, desirable of control stress. Conclusion: A key factor for unhealthy eating behavior at the workplace is a lack of motivation, which can be an obstacle to conduct preventive behaviors at work that can affect the healthy aging process in the long term. The motivational-based model could be considered an effective conceptual framework and instrument for designing interventions for the promotion to create healthy and active aging.

Keywords: aging, eating habits, older age, workplace

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Authors: L. Foudia, K. Haddadi, M. Reffas

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First principles study of structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of the monoclinic perovskite type ScRhO₃ has been reported using the pseudo-potential plane wave method within the local density approximation. The calculated lattice parameters, including the lattice constants and angle β, are in excellent agreement with the available experimental data, which proving the reliability of the chosen theoretical approach. Pressure dependence up to 20 GPa of the single crystal and polycrystalline elastic constants has been investigated in details using the strain-stress approach. The mechanical stability, ductility, average elastic wave velocity, Debye temperature and elastic anisotropy were also assessed. Electronic band structure and density of states (DOS) demonstrated its semiconducting nature showing a direct band gap of 1.38 eV. Furthermore, several optical properties, such as absorption coefficient, reflectivity, refractive index, dielectric function, optical conductivity and electron energy loss function, have been calculated for radiation up to 40 eV.

Keywords: ab-initio, perovskite, DFT, band gap

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Authors: Deb Kumar Shah, M. Shaheer Akhtar, Ha Ryeon Lee, O-Bong Yang, Chong Yeal Kim

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The crystalline silicon (Si) solar cells are highly renowned photovoltaic technology and well-established as the commercial solar technology. Most of the solar panels are globally installed with the crystalline Si solar modules. At the present scenario, the major photovoltaic (PV) market is shared by c-Si solar cells, but the cost of c-Si panels are still very high as compared with the other PV technology. In order to reduce the cost of Si solar panels, few necessary steps such as low-cost Si manufacturing, cheap antireflection coating materials, inexpensive solar panel manufacturing are to be considered. It is known that the antireflection (AR) layer in c-Si solar cell is an important component to reduce Fresnel reflection for improving the overall conversion efficiency. Generally, Si wafer exhibits the 30% reflection because it normally poses the two major intrinsic drawbacks such as; the spectral mismatch loss and the high Fresnel reflection loss due to the high contrast of refractive indices between air and silicon wafer. In recent years, researchers and scientists are highly devoted to a lot of researches in the field of searching effective and low-cost AR materials. Silicon nitride (SiNx) is well-known AR materials in commercial c-Si solar cells due to its good deposition and interaction with passivated Si surfaces. However, the deposition of SiNx AR is usually performed by expensive plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process which could have several demerits like difficult handling and damaging the Si substrate by plasma when secondary electrons collide with the wafer surface for AR coating. It is very important to explore new, low cost and effective AR deposition process to cut the manufacturing cost of c-Si solar cells. One can also be realized that a nano-texturing process like the growth of nanowires, nanorods, nanopyramids, nanopillars, etc. on Si wafer can provide a low reflection on the surface of Si wafer based solar cells. The above nanostructures might be enhanced the antireflection property which provides the larger surface area and effective light trapping. In this work, we report on the development of crystalline Si solar cells without using the AR layer. The Silicon wafer was modified by growing nanowires like Si nanostructures using the wet controlled etching method and directly used for the fabrication of Si solar cell without AR. The nanostructures over Si wafer were optimized in terms of sizes, lengths, and densities by changing the etching conditions. Well-defined and aligned wires like structures were achieved when the etching time is 20 to 30 min. The prepared Si nanostructured displayed the minimum reflectance ~1.64% at 850 nm with the average reflectance of ~2.25% in the wavelength range from 400-1000 nm. The nanostructured Si wafer based solar cells achieved the comparable power conversion efficiency in comparison with c-Si solar cells with SiNx AR layer. From this study, it is confirmed that the reported method (controlled wet etching) is an easy, facile method for preparation of nanostructured like wires on Si wafer with low reflectance in the whole visible region, which has greater prospects in developing c-Si solar cells without AR layer at low cost.

Keywords: chemical etching, conversion efficiency, silicon nanostructures, silicon solar cells, surface modification

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Authors: R. B. Patil, B. S. Kothavale, L. Y. Waghmode

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Today, the CNC turning center becomes an important machine tool for manufacturing industry worldwide. However, as the breakdown of a single CNC turning center may result in the production of an entire plant being halted. For this reason, operations and preventive maintenance have to be minimized to ensure availability of the system. Indeed, improving the availability of the CNC turning center as a whole, objectively leads to a substantial reduction in production loss, operating, maintenance and support cost. In this paper, fault tree analysis (FTA) method is used for reliability analysis of CNC turning center. The major faults associated with the system and the causes for the faults are presented graphically. Boolean algebra is used for evaluating fault tree (FT) diagram and for deriving governing reliability model for CNC turning center. Failure data over a period of six years has been collected and used for evaluating the model. Qualitative and quantitative analysis is also carried out to identify critical sub-systems and components of CNC turning center. It is found that, at the end of the warranty period (one year), the reliability of the CNC turning center as a whole is around 0.61628.

Keywords: fault tree analysis (FTA), reliability analysis, risk assessment, hazard analysis

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Authors: Adnan Baig, Ishteeaq Naeem, Saad Mansoor

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The Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets have advanced quickly in recent years, and their use is steadily rising daily. However, cyber-attackers can target these gadgets due to their distributed nature. Additionally, many IoT devices have significant security flaws in their implementation and design, making them vulnerable to security threats. Hence, these threats can cause important data security and privacy loss from a single attack on network devices or systems. Botnets are a significant security risk that can harm the IoT network; hence, sophisticated techniques are required to mitigate the risk. This work uses a machine learning-based method to identify IoT orchestrated by botnets. The proposed technique identifies the net attack by distinguishing between legitimate and malicious traffic. This article proposes a hyperparameter tuning model to improvise the method to improve the accuracy of existing processes. The results demonstrated an improved and more accurate indication of botnet-based cyber-attacks.

Keywords: Internet of Things, Botnet, BoT-IoT dataset, ML techniques

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Authors: Hanan Begali, Shahi Dost, Annett Ziegler, Markus Cornberg, Maria-Esther Vidal, Anke R. M. Kraft

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Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can be treated with nucleot(s)ide analog (NA), for example, which inhibits HBV replication. However, they have hardly any influence on the functional cure of HBV, which is defined by hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss. NA needs to be taken life-long, which is not available for all patients worldwide. Additionally, NA-treated patients are still at risk of developing cirrhosis, liver failure, or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although each patient has the same components of the immune system, immune responses vary between patients. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the immune response against HBV in different patients is necessary to understand the parameters leading to HBV cure and to use this knowledge to optimize HBV therapies. This requires seamless integration of an enormous amount of diverse and fine-grained data from viral markers, e.g., hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The data integration system relies on the assumption that profiling human immune systems requires the analysis of various variables (e.g., demographic data, treatments, pre-existing conditions, immune cell response, or HLA-typing) rather than only one. However, the values of these variables are collected independently. They are presented in a myriad of formats, e.g., excel files, textual descriptions, lab book notes, and images of flow cytometry dot plots. Additionally, patients can be identified differently in these analyses. This heterogeneity complicates the integration of variables, as data management techniques are needed to create a unified view in which individual formats and identifiers are transparent when profiling the human immune systems. The proposed study (HBsRE) aims at integrating heterogeneous data sets of 87 chronically HBV-infected patients, e.g., clinical data, immune cell response, and HLA-typing, with knowledge encoded in biomedical ontologies and open-source databases into a knowledge-driven framework. This new technique enables us to harmonize and standardize heterogeneous datasets in the defined modeling of the data integration system, which will be evaluated in the knowledge graph (KG). KGs are data structures that represent the knowledge and data as factual statements using a graph data model. Finally, the analytic data model will be applied on top of KG in order to develop a deeper understanding of the immune profiles among various patients and to evaluate factors playing a role in a holistic profile of patients with HBsAg level loss. Additionally, our objective is to utilize this unified approach to stratify patients for new effective treatments. This study is developed in the context of the project “Transforming big data into knowledge: for deep immune profiling in vaccination, infectious diseases, and transplantation (ImProVIT)”, which is a multidisciplinary team composed of computer scientists, infection biologists, and immunologists.

Keywords: chronic hepatitis B infection, immune response, knowledge graphs, ontology

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Authors: Reuben Newell, Edward Archer, Alistair McIlhagger, Calvin Ralph

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Modern industry has developed a need for innovative 3D composite materials due to their attractive material properties. Composite materials are composed of a fibre reinforcement encased in a polymer matrix. The fibre reinforcement consists of warp, weft and binder yarns or tows woven together into a preform. The mechanical performance of composite material is largely controlled by the properties of the preform. As a result, the bulk of recent textile research has been focused on the design of high-strength preform architectures. Studies looking at optimisation of the weaving process have largely been neglected. It has been reported that yarns experience varying levels of damage during weaving, resulting in filament breakage and ultimately compromised composite mechanical performance. The weaving parameters involved in causing this yarn damage are not fully understood. Recent studies indicate that poor yarn tension control may be an influencing factor. As tension is increased, the yarn-to-yarn and yarn-to-weaving-equipment interactions are heightened, maximising damage. The correlation between yarn tension variation and weaving damage severity has never been adequately researched or quantified. A novel study is needed which accesses the influence of tension variation on the mechanical properties of woven yarns. This study has looked to quantify the variation of yarn tension throughout weaving and sought to link the impact of tension to weaving damage. Multiple yarns were randomly selected, and their tension was measured across the creel and shedding stages of weaving, using a hand-held tension meter. Sections of the same yarn were subsequently cut from the loom machine and tensile tested. A comparison study was made between the tensile strength of pristine and tensioned yarns to determine the induced weaving damage. Yarns from bobbins at the rear of the creel were under the least amount of tension (0.5-2.0N) compared to yarns positioned at the front of the creel (1.5-3.5N). This increase in tension has been linked to the sharp turn in the yarn path between bobbins at the front of the creel and creel I-board. Creel yarns under the lower tension suffered a 3% loss of tensile strength, compared to 7% for the greater tensioned yarns. During shedding, the tension on the yarns was higher than in the creel. The upper shed yarns were exposed to a decreased tension (3.0-4.5N) compared to the lower shed yarns (4.0-5.5N). Shed yarns under the lower tension suffered a 10% loss of tensile strength, compared to 14% for the greater tensioned yarns. Interestingly, the most severely damaged yarn was exposed to both the largest creel and shedding tensions. This study confirms for the first time that yarns under a greater level of tension suffer an increased amount of weaving damage. Significant variation of yarn tension has been identified across the creel and shedding stages of weaving. This leads to a variance of mechanical properties across the woven preform and ultimately the final composite part. The outcome from this study highlights the need for optimised yarn tension control during preform manufacture to minimize yarn-induced weaving damage.

Keywords: optimisation of preform manufacture, tensile testing of damaged tows, variation of yarn weaving tension, weaving damage

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Authors: Mengdan Guo, Zongmin Wang, Haibo Yang

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Drought is one of the most complex and destructive natural disasters, with a huge impact on both nature and society. In recent years, adverse climate conditions and uncontrolled human activities have exacerbated the occurrence of global droughts, among which socio-economic droughts are closely related to human survival. The study of socio-economic drought risk assessment is crucial for sustainable social development. Therefore, this study comprehensively considered the risk of disaster causing factors, the exposure level of the disaster-prone environment, and the vulnerability of the disaster bearing body to construct a socio-economic drought risk assessment model for Chuxiong Prefecture in Yunnan Province. Firstly, a threedimensional frequency analysis of intensity area duration drought was conducted, followed by a statistical analysis of the drought risk of the socio-economic system. Secondly, a grid analysis model was constructed to assess the exposure levels of different agents and study the effects of drought on regional crop growth, industrial economic growth, and human consumption thresholds. Thirdly, an agricultural vulnerability model for different irrigation levels was established by using the DSSAT crop model. Industrial economic vulnerability and domestic water vulnerability under the impact of drought were investigated by constructing a standardized socio-economic drought index and coupling water loss. Finally, the socio-economic drought risk was assessed by combining hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. The results show that the frequency of drought occurrence in Chuxiong Prefecture, Yunnan Province is relatively high, with high population and economic exposure concentrated in urban areas of various counties and districts, and high agricultural exposure concentrated in mountainous and rural areas. Irrigation can effectively reduce agricultural vulnerability in Chuxiong, and the yield loss rate under the 20mm winter irrigation scenario decreased by 10.7% compared to the rain fed scenario. From the perspective of comprehensive risk, the distribution of long-term socio-economic drought risk in Chuxiong Prefecture is relatively consistent, with the more severe areas mainly concentrated in Chuxiong City and Lufeng County, followed by counties such as Yao'an, Mouding and Yuanmou. Shuangbai County has the lowest socio-economic drought risk, which is basically consistent with the economic distribution trend of Chuxiong Prefecture. And in June, July, and August, the drought risk in Chuxiong Prefecture is generally high. These results can provide constructive suggestions for the allocation of water resources and the construction of water conservancy facilities in Chuxiong Prefecture, and provide scientific basis for more effective drought prevention and control. Future research is in the areas of data quality and availability, climate change impacts, human activity impacts, and countermeasures for a more comprehensive understanding and effective response to drought risk in Chuxiong Prefecture.

Keywords: DSSAT model, risk assessment, socio-economic drought, standardized socio-economic drought index

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Authors: Soltani Amir, Hu Jiaxin

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Determination of optimal parameters of a passive control system device is the primary objective of this study. Expanding upon the use of control devices in wind and earthquake hazard reduction has led to development of various control systems. The advantage of non-linearity characteristics in a passive control device and the optimal control method using LQR algorithm are explained in this study. Finally, this paper introduces a simple approach to determine optimum parameters of a nonlinear viscous damper for vibration control of structures. A MATLAB program is used to produce the dynamic motion of the structure considering the stiffness matrix of the SDOF frame and the non-linear damping effect. This study concluded that the proposed system (variable damping system) has better performance in system response control than a linear damping system. Also, according to the energy dissipation graph, the total energy loss is greater in non-linear damping system than other systems.

Keywords: passive control system, damping devices, viscous dampers, control algorithm

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Authors: Ali Asghar Saki, Sayed Ali Hosseini Siyar, Abbass Ashoori

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This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of Echinacea purpurea on the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), interleukin-17F (IL-17F) in seven-day-old broiler chickens. Four groups were fed with concentration of 0 g/kg, 5 g/kg, 10 g/kg and 20 g/kg from the root of E. purpurea in the basal diet and two other groups were only fed with the basal diet for 21 days. At the 28^th day, lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 2 mg/kg diet) was injected in four groups and the basal diet group was injected by saline as control. The chickens’ spleen RNA expression was measured for the COX-2 and IL-17F genes by Real-Time PCR. The results have shown that chickens which were fed E. purpurea had a lower COX-2 and IL-17F mRNA expression. The chickens who have received LPS only, lymphocyte was lower than other treatments. Vital organ weights were not significantly different, but body weight loss was recovered by dietary herbs inclusion. The results of this study have shown the positive effect of an anti-inflammatory herb to prevent the undesirable effect of inflammation.

Keywords: broiler chickens, Echinacea purporea, gene expression, lipopolysaccharide

Procedia PDF Downloads 234

Authors: Rhoda Afriyie Mensah, Lin Jiang, Solomon Asante-Okyere, Xu Qiang, Cong Jin

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Flammability analysis of extruded polystyrene (XPS) has become crucial due to its utilization as insulation material for energy efficient buildings. Using the Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa methods, the degradation kinetics of two pure XPS from the local market, red and grey ones, were obtained from the results of thermogravity analysis (TG) and microscale combustion calorimetry (MCC) experiments performed under the same heating rates. From the experiments, it was discovered that red XPS released more heat than grey XPS and both materials showed two mass loss stages. Consequently, the kinetic parameters for red XPS were higher than grey XPS. A comparative evaluation of activation energies from MCC and TG showed an insignificant degree of deviation signifying an equivalent apparent activation energy from both methods. However, different activation energy profiles as a result of the different chemical pathways were presented when the dependencies of the activation energies on extent of conversion for TG and MCC were compared.

Keywords: flammability, microscale combustion calorimetry, thermogravity analysis, thermal degradation, kinetic analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 182

Authors: Kemal Comakli, Meryem Terhan

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In this study, the potential of heat recovery from waste flue gas was examined in 60 MW district heating system of a university, and fuel saving was aimed by using the recovered heat in the system as a source again. Various scenarios are intended to make use of waste heat. For this purpose, actual operation data of the system were taken. Besides, the heat recovery units that consist of heat exchangers such as flue gas condensers, economizers or air pre-heaters were designed theoretically for each scenario. Energy analysis of natural gas-fired boiler’s exhaust flue gas in the system, and economic analysis of heat recovery units to predict payback periods were done. According to calculation results, the waste heat loss ratio from boiler flue gas in the system was obtained as average 16%. Thanks to the heat recovery units, thermal efficiency of the system can be increased, and fuel saving can be provided. At the same time, a huge amount of green gas emission can be decreased by installing the heat recovery units.

Keywords: heat recovery from flue gas, energy analysis of flue gas, economical analysis, payback period

Procedia PDF Downloads 289

Authors: Vladimir A. Grachev

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Today, in the context of rapidly developing technosphere and hourly emerging new technologies, the industrial and environmental safety issue is ever more pressing. The article is devoted to the relationship of social, environmental, and industrial policies with industrial safety, occupational health and safety, environmental safety, and environmental protection. The author assesses the up-to-day situation through system analysis and on the basis of the existing practices. A complex system of the policies implementation without "gaps" and missing links ensures preservation of human lives, health and a favorable living environment. The author demonstrates that absence of an "environmental safety" high-priority link can lead to a significant loss of human lives and health and the global changes in the environment. The role of implementing the environmental policy of enterprises and organizations, and of economic sectors in the implementation of national environmental policy is shown. It was established that the system for implementing environmental policy should be based on a system analysis.

Keywords: environmental protection, environmental safety, industrial safety, occupational health and safety

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Authors: Gulijianati Abake, Ryutaro Tateishi

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Snow is one kind of special underlying surface, has high reflectivity, low thermal conductivity, and snow broth hydrological effect. Every year, frequent snow disaster in Xinjiang causing considerable economic loss and serious damage to towns and farms, such as livestock casualties, traffic jams and other disaster, therefore monitoring SWE (snow volume) in Xinjiang has a great significance. The problems of how this disaster distributes and what disaster-forming environments are important to its occurrence are the most pressing problems in disaster risk assessment and salvage material arrangement. The present study aims 1) to monitor accurate SWE using MODIS, AMSRE, and CMC data, 2) to establish the regularity of snow disaster outbreaks and the important disaster-forming environmental factors. And a spatial autocorrelation analysis method and a canonical correlation analysis method are used to answer these two questions separately, 3) to prepare the way to salvage material arrangements for snow disasters.

Keywords: snow water equivalent (snow volume), AMSR-E, CMC snow depth, snow disaster

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Authors: Aritras Roy, Rinku Mukherjee

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The current study couples a quasi-steady Vortex Lattice Method and a camber correcting technique, ‘Decambering’ for unsteady post-stall flow prediction. The wake is force-free and discrete such that the wake lattices move with the free-stream once shed from the wing. It is observed that the time-averaged unsteady coefficient of lift sees a relative drop at post-stall angles of attack in comparison to its steady counterpart for some angles of attack. Multiple solutions occur at post-stall and three different algorithms to choose solutions in these regimes show both unsteadiness and non-convergence of the iterations. The distribution of coefficient of lift on the wing span also shows sawtooth. Distribution of vorticity changes both along span and in the direction of the free-stream as the wake develops over time with distinct roll-up, which increases with time.

Keywords: post-stall, unsteady, wing, aerodynamics

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Authors: Yousef S. Kh. S. Hashem

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Accurate estimation of initial gas in place (IGIP) plays an important factor in the decision to develop a gas field. One of the methods that are available in the industry to estimate the IGIP is material balance. This method required that the well has to be shut-in while pressure is measured as it builds to average reservoir pressure. Since gas demand is high and shut-in well surveys are very expensive, flowing gas material balance (FGMB) is sometimes used instead of material balance. This work investigated the effect of reservoir properties (pressure, permeability, and reservoir size) on the estimation of IGIP when using FGMB. A gas reservoir simulator that accounts for friction loss, wellbore storage, and the non-Darcy effect was used to simulate 165 different possible causes (3 pressures, 5 reservoir sizes, and 11 permeabilities). Both tubing pressure and bottom-hole pressure were analyzed using FGMB. The results showed that the FGMB method is very sensitive for tied reservoirs (k < 10). Also, it showed which method is best to be used for different reservoir properties. This study can be used as a guideline for the application of the FGMB method.

Keywords: flowing material balance, gas reservoir, reserves, gas simulator

Procedia PDF Downloads 158

Authors: R. P. Naik, A. K. Rakshit

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In recent years, with the rapid development in science and technology, people have increasing requirements on uses of clothing for new functions, which contributes to opportunities for further development and incorporation of new technologies along with novel materials. In this context, textiles are of fast decalescence or fast heat radiation media as per as comfort accountability of textile articles are concern. The microstructure and texture of textiles play a vital role in determining the heat-moisture comfort level of the human body because clothing serves as a barrier to the outside environment and a transporter of heat and moisture from the body to the surrounding environment to keep thermal balance between body heat produced and body heat loss. The main bottleneck which is associated with textile materials to be successful as thermal insulation materials can be enumerated as; firstly, high loft or bulkiness of material so as to provide predetermined amount of insulation by ensuring sufficient trapping of air. Secondly, the insulation depends on forced convection; such convective heat loss cannot be prevented by textile material. Third is that the textile alone cannot reach the level of thermal conductivity lower than 0.025 W/ m.k of air. Perhaps, nano-fibers can do so, but still, mass production and cost-effectiveness is a problem. Finally, such high loft materials for thermal insulation becomes heavier and uneasy to manage especially when required to carry over a body. The proposed works aim at developing lightweight effective thermal insulation textiles in combination with nanoporous silica-gel which provides the fundamental basis for the optimization of material properties to achieve good performance of the clothing system. This flexible nonwoven silica-gel composites fabric in intact monolith was successfully developed by reinforcing SiO2-gel in thermal bonded nonwoven fabric via sol-gel processing. Ambient Pressure Drying method is opted for silica gel preparation for cost-effective manufacturing. The formed structure of the nonwoven / SiO₂ -gel composites were analyzed, and the transfer properties were measured. The effects of structure and fibre on the thermal properties of the SiO₂-gel composites were evaluated. Samples are then tested against untreated samples of same GSM in order to study the effect of SiO₂-gel application on various properties of nonwoven fabric. The nonwoven fabric composites reinforced with aerogel showed intact monolith structure were also analyzed for their surface structure, functional group present, microscopic images. Developed product reveals a significant reduction in pores' size and air permeability than the conventional nonwoven fabric. Composite made from polyester fibre with lower GSM shows lowest thermal conductivity. Results obtained were statistically analyzed by using STATISTICA-6 software for their level of significance. Univariate tests of significance for various parameters are practiced which gives the P value for analyzing significance level along with that regression summary for dependent variable are also studied to obtain correlation coefficient.

Keywords: silica-gel, heat insulation, nonwoven fabric, thermal barrier clothing

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Authors: Amir Lotfi, Seyed Hamid Hosseini

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During the recent past, due to the increase of electrical energy demand and governmental resources constraints in creating additional capacity in the generation, transmission, and distribution, privatization, and restructuring in electrical industry have been considered. So, in most of the countries, different parts of electrical industry like generation, transmission, and distribution have been separated in order to create competition. Considering these changes, environmental issues, energy growth, investment of private equity in energy generation units and difficulties of transmission lines expansion, distributed generation (DG) units have been used in power systems. Moreover, reduction in the need for transmission and distribution, the increase of reliability, improvement of power quality, and reduction of power loss have caused DG to be placed in power systems. On the other hand, considering low liquidity need, private investors tend to spend their money for DGs. In this project, the main goal is to offer an algorithm for planning and placing DGs in order to reduce the need for transmission and distribution network.

Keywords: planning, transmission, distributed generation, power security, power systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 482

Authors: Talal Al-Bazali

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Air drilling has recently received increasing acceptance by the oil and gas industry due to its unique advantages. The main advantages of air drilling include the higher rate of penetration, less formation damage, lower risk of loss of circulation. However, these advantages cannot be fully realized if thermal effects in air drilling are not well understood and minimized. Due to its high frictional coefficient, low heat conductivity, and high compressibility, air can impact the temperature distribution of bit and thus affect its bit performances. Based on energy and mass balances, a transient thermal model that predicts bit temperature is presented along with numerical solutions in this paper. In addition, several important parameters that influence bit temperature distribution are analyzed. Simulation results show that the bit temperature increases with increasing weight on bit and rotary speed but decreases as the standpipe pressure and flow rate increase. These results can be used to optimize drilling operations and flow parameters for an improved bit performance as shown in this paper.

Keywords: air drilling, rate of penetration, temperature, rotary speed

Procedia PDF Downloads 288