Search results for: automated applications

Authors: A. Sohouli, A. Suleman

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This study focuses on reliability analysis of variable stiffness composite laminate structures to investigate the potential structural improvement compared to conventional (straight fibers) composite laminate structures. A computational framework was developed which it consists of a deterministic design step and reliability analysis. The optimization part is Discrete Material Optimization (DMO) and the reliability of the structure is computed by Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) after using Stochastic Response Surface Method (SRSM). The design driver in deterministic optimization is the maximum stiffness, while optimization method concerns certain manufacturing constraints to attain industrial relevance. These manufacturing constraints are the change of orientation between adjacent patches cannot be too large and the maximum number of successive plies of a particular fiber orientation should not be too high. Variable stiffness composites may be manufactured by Automated Fiber Machines (AFP) which provides consistent quality with good production rates. However, laps and gaps are the most important challenges to steer fibers that effect on the performance of the structures. In this study, the optimal curved fiber paths at each layer of composites are designed in the first step by DMO, and then the reliability analysis is applied to investigate the sensitivity of the structure with different standard deviations compared to the straight fiber angle composites. The random variables are material properties and loads on the structures. The results show that the variable stiffness composite laminate structures are much more reliable, even for high standard deviation of material properties, than the conventional composite laminate structures. The reason is that the variable stiffness composite laminates allow tailoring stiffness and provide the possibility of adjusting stress and strain distribution favorably in the structures.

Keywords: material optimization, Monte Carlo simulation, reliability analysis, response surface method, variable stiffness composite structures

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Authors: Fang Li, Xie-Yuan Yin, Xie-Zhen Yin

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Instability and breakup of electrified viscoelastic liquid jets are involved in various applications such as inkjet printing, fuel atomization, the pharmaceutical industry, electrospraying, and electrospinning. Studying on the instability of electrified viscoelastic liquid jets is of theoretical and practical significance. We built a one-dimensional electrified viscoelastic model to study the nonlinear instability behavior of a perfecting conducting, slightly viscoelastic liquid jet under a radial electric field. The model is solved numerically by using an implicit finite difference scheme together with a boundary element method. It is found that under a radial electric field a viscoelastic liquid jet still evolves into a beads-on-string structure with a thin filament connecting two adjacent droplets as in the absence of an electric field. A radial electric field exhibits limited influence on the decay of the filament thickness in the nonlinear evolution process of a viscoelastic jet, in contrast to its great enhancing effect on the linear instability of the jet. On the other hand, a radial electric field can induce axial non-uniformity of the first normal stress difference within the filament. Particularly, the magnitude of the first normal stress difference near the midpoint of the filament can be greatly decreased by a radial electric field. Decreasing the extensional stress by a radial electric field may found applications in spraying, spinning, liquid bridges and others. In addition, the effect of a radial electric field on the formation of satellite droplets is investigated on the parametric plane of the dimensionless wave number and the electrical Bond number. It is found that satellite droplets may be formed for a larger axial wave number at a larger radial electric field. The present study helps us gain insight into the nonlinear instability characteristics of electrified viscoelastic liquid jets.

Keywords: non linear instability, one-dimensional models, radial electric fields, viscoelastic liquid jets

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Authors: Odaleia de O. Farias, Suzelene C. Marinho, Ecleidson B. Fragoso, Daniel S. Lima, Francisco R. S. Lira, Lara S. Araújo, Gabriel dos S. D. Soares

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In populous cities, prehospital care services that use vehicles alternative to ambulances are needed in order to reduce costs and improve response time to occurrences in areas with large concentration of people, such as leisure and tourism spaces. In this context, it was implanted a program called BIKE VIDA, that is innovative quick access and assistance program. The aim of this study is to describe the implantation and initial profile of occurrences performed by an urgency/emergency pre-hospital care service through paramedics on bicycles. It is a cross-sectional, descriptive study carried out in the city of Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil. The data included service records from July to August 2017. Ethical aspects were respected. The service covers a perimeter of 4.5 km, divided into three areas with perimeter of 1.5 km for each paramedic, attending from 5 am to 9 pm. Materials transported by bicycles include External Automated Defibrillator - DEA, portable oxygen, oximeter, cervical collar, stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, dressing and immobilization materials and personal protective equipment. Occurrences are requested directly by calling the emergency number 192 or through direct approach to the professional. In the first month of the program, there were 93 emergencies/urgencies, mainly in the daytime period (71,0%), in males (59,7%), in the age range of 26 to 45 years (46,2%). The main nature was traumatic incidents (53.3%). Most of the cases (88,2%) did not require ambulance transport to the hospital, and there were two deaths. Pre-hospital service through bicycles is an innovative strategy in Brazil and has shown to be promising in terms of reducing costs and improving the quality of the services offered.

Keywords: emergency, response time, prehospital care, urgency

Procedia PDF Downloads 194

Authors: Maria Bercea, Monica Diana Olteanu

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Investigation of polymer systems able to change inside of the body into networks represent an attractive approach, especially when there is a minimally invasive and patient friendly administration. Pharmaceutical formulations based on Pluronic F127 [poly (oxyethylene) (PEO) blocks (70%) and poly(oxypropylene) (PPO) blocks (30%)] present an excellent potential as drug delivery systems. The use of Pluronic F127 alone as gel-forming solution is limited by some characteristics, such as poor mechanical properties, short residence time, high permeability, etc. Investigation of the interactions between the natural and synthetic polymers and surfactants in solution is a subject of great interest from both scientific and practical point of view. As for example, formulations based on Pluronics and chitosan could be used to obtain dual phase transition hydrogels responsive to temperature and pH changes. In this study, different materials were prepared by using poly(vinyl alcohol), chitosan solutions mixed with aqueous solutions of Pluronic F127. The rheological properties of different formulations were investigated in temperature sweep experiments as well as at a constant temperature of 37oC for exploring in-situ gel formation in the human body conditions. In addition, some viscometric investigations were carried out in order to understand the interactions which determine the complex behaviour of these systems. Correlation between the thermodynamic and rheological parameters and phase separation phenomena observed for the investigated systems allowed the dissemination the constitutive response of polymeric materials at different external stimuli, such as temperature and pH. The rheological investigation demonstrated that the viscoelastic moduli of the hydrogels can be tuned depending on concentration of different components as well as pH and temperature conditions and cumulative contributions can be obtained.

Keywords: hydrogel, polymer mixture, stimuli responsive, biomedical applications

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Authors: Zahra Dehghani, Hoda Dehghani, Elham Zarenezhad

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1,2,3-Triazole derivatives are important compounds in medicinal chemistry owing to their wide applications in drug discovery. They can readily associate with biologically targets through the hydrogen bonding and dipole interactions. The 1,2,3-triazole core is a key structural motif in many bioactive compounds, exhibiting a broad spectrum of biological activities, such as antiviral, anticancer, anti-HIV, antibiotic, antibacterial, and antimicrobial. Additionally, they have found significant industrial applications as dyes, agrochemicals, corrosion inhibitors, photo stabilizers, and photographic materials. we disclose the synthesis and characterization of 1-azido-3-(aryl-2-yloxy)propan-2-ol drivatives. The chemistry works well with various ß-azido alcohols involving aryloxy, alkoxy and alkyl residues, and also tolerates a wide spectrum of electron-donating and electron-withdrawing functional groups in both alkyne and azide molecules. Most of ß-azidoalcohols used in these experiments were pre-synthesized by the regioselective ring opening reaction of corresponded epoxides with sodium azide, whereas the majority of terminal alkynes were prepared via SN2-type reaction of propargyl bromide and corresponded nucleophiles. To evaluate the bioactivity of title compounds, the in vitro antifungal activity of all compound was investigated against several pathogenic fungi including Candida albicans, Candida krusei, Aspergillus niger, and Trichophyton rubrum , clotrimazole and fluconazole was used as standard antifungal drugs, also To understand the antibacterial activity of synthesized compounds, they were in vitro screened against E. coli and S. aureus as Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, respectively. The in vitro tests have shown the promising antifungal but marginal antibacterial activity against tested fungi and bacteria.

Keywords: biological activities, antibacterial, antifungal, 1, 2, 3-Triazole

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Authors: Joshna Rani S., Ahmadi Banu

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a significant task to carry out in the medical care contributions of things to come. As AI, it is the essential capacity behind the advancement of accuracy medication, generally consented to be a painfully required development in care. Albeit early endeavors at giving analysis and treatment proposals have demonstrated testing, we anticipate that AI will at last dominate that area too. Given the quick propels in AI for imaging examination, it appears to be likely that most radiology, what's more, pathology pictures will be inspected eventually by a machine. Discourse and text acknowledgment are now utilized for assignments like patient correspondence and catch of clinical notes, and their utilization will increment. The best test to AI in these medical services areas isn't regardless of whether the innovations will be sufficiently skilled to be valuable, but instead guaranteeing their appropriation in day by day clinical practice. For far reaching selection to happen, AI frameworks should be affirmed by controllers, coordinated with EHR frameworks, normalized to an adequate degree that comparative items work likewise, instructed to clinicians, paid for by open or private payer associations, and refreshed over the long haul in the field. These difficulties will, at last, be survived, yet they will take any longer to do as such than it will take for the actual innovations to develop. Therefore, we hope to see restricted utilization of AI in clinical practice inside 5 years and more broad use inside 10 years. It likewise appears to be progressively evident that AI frameworks won't supplant human clinicians for a huge scope, yet rather will increase their endeavors to really focus on patients. Over the long haul, human clinicians may advance toward errands and work plans that draw on remarkably human abilities like sympathy, influence, and higher perspective mix. Maybe the lone medical services suppliers who will chance their professions over the long run might be the individuals who will not work close by AI

Keywords: artificial intellogence, health care, breast cancer, AI applications

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Authors: Shanmugasundaram Selvadurai, Amal Chandran

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Small satellites have become an alternative low-cost solution for several missions to accomplish specific missions such as Earth imaging, Technology demonstration, Education, and other commercial purposes. Small satellite missions focusing on Infrared imaging applications require lower temperature for scientific instruments and such low temperature can be achieved only using external cryocoolers but the disadvantage is that they generate a large amount of waste heat. Existing passive thermal control techniques are not capable to handle such large thermal loads and hence one of the traditional active Thermal Control System (TCS) is studied for a small satellite configuration. This work aims to downscale the existing Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop (MPFL) TCS to a 27U CubeSat platform for an imaginary scientific instrument. The temperature-sensitive detector in the instrument considered to be maintained between 130K and 150K to reduce dark current noise and increase the data quality. A Single-Phase fluid based MPFL is chosen for this system-level study and this TCS consists of a microfluid pump, a micro-cryocooler, a fluid accumulator, external heaters, flow regulators, and sensors. This work also explains the thermal control system architecture with a conceptual design, arrangement of all the components, and thermal analysis for different low orbit conditions. Sizing and extensive trade studies for the components are conducted and the results have shown that the Single-phase MPFL system is able to handle the given thermal loads and maintain the satellite’s interface temperature within the desired limit.

Keywords: active thermal control system, satellite thermal, mechanically pumped fluid loop system, cryogenics, cryocooler

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Authors: S. Ahmed John

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Marine forms-bacteria, actinobacteria, cynobacteria, fungi, microalgae, seaweeds mangroves and other halophytes an extremely important oceanic resources and constituting over 90% of the oceanic biomass. The marine natural products have lead to the discovery of many compounds considered worthy for clinical applications. The marine sources have the highest probability of yielding natural products. Natural derivatives play an important role to prevent the cancer incidences as synthetic drug transformation in mangrove. 28.12% of anticancer compound extracted from the mangroves. Exchocaria agollocha has the anti cancer compounds. The present investigation reveals the potential of the Exchocaria agollocha with biotechnological applications for anti cancer, antimicrobial drug discovery, environmental remediation, and developing new resources for the industrial process. The anti-cancer activity of Exchocaria agollocha was screened from 3.906 to 1000 µg/ml of concentration with the dilution leads to 1:1 to 1:128 following methanol and chloroform extracts. The cell viability in the Exchocaria agollocha was maximum at the lower concentration where as low at the higher concentration of methanol and chloroform extracts when compare to control. At 3.906 concentration, 85.32 and 81.96 of cell viability was found at 1:128 dilution of methanol and chloroform extracts respectively. At the concentration of 31.25 following 1:16 dilution, the cell viability was 65.55 in methanol and 45.55 in chloroform extracts. However, at the higher concentration, the cell viability 22.35 and 8.12 was recorded in the extracts of methanol and chloroform. The cell viability was more in methanol when compare to chloroform extracts at lower concentration. The present findings gives current trends in screening and the activity analysis of metabolites from mangrove resources and to expose the models to bring a new sustain for tackling cancer. Bioactive compounds of Exchocaria agollocha have extensive use in treatment of many diseases and serve as a compound and templates for synthetic modification.

Keywords: bio-active product, compounds, natural products and microalgae

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Authors: Getaneh Berie Tarekegn

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A precise localization system is crucial for many artificial intelligence Internet of Things (AI-IoT) applications in the era of smart cities. Their applications include traffic monitoring, emergency alarming, environmental monitoring, location-based advertising, intelligent transportation, and smart health care. The most common method for providing continuous positioning services in outdoor environments is by using a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Due to nonline-of-sight, multipath, and weather conditions, GNSS systems do not perform well in dense urban, urban, and suburban areas.This paper proposes a generative AI-based positioning scheme for large-scale wireless settings using fingerprinting techniques. In this article, we presented a semi-supervised deep convolutional generative adversarial network (S-DCGAN)-based radio map construction method for real-time device localization. It also employed a reliable signal fingerprint feature extraction method with t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE), which extracts dominant features while eliminating noise from hybrid WLAN and long-term evolution (LTE) fingerprints. The proposed scheme reduced the workload of site surveying required to build the fingerprint database by up to 78.5% and significantly improved positioning accuracy. The results show that the average positioning error of GAILoc is less than 0.39 m, and more than 90% of the errors are less than 0.82 m. According to numerical results, SRCLoc improves positioning performance and reduces radio map construction costs significantly compared to traditional methods.

Keywords: location-aware services, feature extraction technique, generative adversarial network, long short-term memory, support vector machine

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Authors: Rindra Rantoson, Hichem Nouira, Nabil Anwer, Charyar Mehdi-Souzani

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Multiple measurements by means of various data acquisition systems are generally required to measure the shape of freeform workpieces for accuracy, reliability and holisticity. The obtained data are aligned and fused into a common coordinate system within a registration technique involving coarse and fine registrations. Standardized iterative methods have been established for fine registration such as Iterative Closest Points (ICP) and its variants. For coarse registration, no conventional method has been adopted yet despite a significant number of techniques which have been developed in the literature to supply an automatic rough matching between data sets. Two main issues are addressed in this paper: the coarse registration and the fine registration. For coarse registration, two novel automated methods based on the exploitation of discrete curvatures are presented: an enhanced Hough Transformation (HT) and an improved Ransac Transformation. The use of curvature features in both methods aims to reduce computational cost. For fine registration, a new variant of ICP method is proposed in order to reduce registration error using curvature parameters. A specific distance considering the curvature similarity has been combined with Euclidean distance to define the distance criterion used for correspondences searching. Additionally, the objective function has been improved by combining the point-to-point (P-P) minimization and the point-to-plane (P-Pl) minimization with automatic weights. These ones are determined from the preliminary calculated curvature features at each point of the workpiece surface. The algorithms are applied on simulated and real data performed by a computer tomography (CT) system. The obtained results reveal the benefit of the proposed novel curvature-based registration methods.

Keywords: discrete curvature, RANSAC transformation, hough transformation, coarse registration, ICP variant, point-to-point and point-to-plane minimization combination, computer tomography

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Authors: Nasrud Din, Fawad Saeed, Sajid Hussain, Rai Muhammad Dawood Sultan, Premkumar Sellan, Qasim Khan, Wei Lei

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The continuously increasing external quantum efficiencies of Perovskite light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have received significant interest in the scientific community. The need for monitoring and medical diagnostics has experienced a steady growth in recent years, primarily caused by older people and an increasing number of heart attacks, tumors, and cancer disorders among patients. The application of Perovskite near-infrared light-emitting diode (PeNIRLEDs) has exhibited considerable efficacy in bioimaging, particularly in the visualization and examination of blood arteries, blood clots, and tumors. PeNIRLEDs exhibit exciting potential in the field of blood vessel imaging because of their advantageous attributes, including improved depth penetration and less scattering in comparison to visible light. In this study, we synthesized FAPbI₃ Perovskite doped with different concentrations of 5-Aminovaleric acid (5-AVA) 1-6 mg. The incorporation of 5-AVA as a dopant during the FAPbI₃ Perovskite formation influences the FAPbI3 Perovskite’s structural and optical properties, improving its stability, photoluminescence efficiency, and charge transport characteristics. We found a resulting PL emission peak wavelength of 850 nm and bandwidth of 44 nm, along with a calculated quantum yield of 75%. The incorporation of 5-AVA-modified FAPbI₃ Perovskite into LEDs will show promising results, enhancing device efficiency, color purity, and stability. Making it suitable for various medical applications, including subcutaneous deep vein imaging, blood flow visualization, and tumor illumination.

Keywords: perovskite light-emitting diodes, deep vein imaging, blood flow visualization, tumor illumination

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Authors: Peng Hao Wang, Garam Kim, Ronald Sterkenburg

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The applications of composite materials within the aviation industry has been increasing at a rapid pace.  However, the growing applications of composite materials have also led to growing demand for more tooling to support its manufacturing processes. Tooling and tooling maintenance represents a large portion of the composite manufacturing process and cost. Therefore, the industry’s adaptability to new techniques for fabricating high quality tools quickly and inexpensively will play a crucial role in composite material’s growing popularity in the aviation industry. One popular tool fabrication technique currently being developed involves additive manufacturing such as 3D printing. Although additive manufacturing and 3D printing are not entirely new concepts, the technique has been gaining popularity due to its ability to quickly fabricate components, maintain low material waste, and low cost. In this study, a team of Purdue University School of Aviation and Transportation Technology (SATT) faculty and students investigated the effectiveness of a 3D printed composite compression mold. A 3D printed composite compression mold was fabricated by 3D scanning a steel valve cover of an aircraft reciprocating engine. The 3D printed composite compression mold was used to fabricate carbon fiber versions of the aircraft reciprocating engine valve cover. The 3D printed composite compression mold was evaluated for its performance, durability, and dimensional stability while the fabricated carbon fiber valve covers were evaluated for its accuracy and quality. The results and data gathered from this study will determine the effectiveness of the 3D printed composite compression mold in a mass production environment and provide valuable information for future understanding, improvements, and design considerations of 3D printed composite molds.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, carbon fiber, composite tooling, molds

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Authors: Abdallah Al-ZoubI, Mamoun Dmour

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The spectrum of IoT devices is becoming widely diversified, entering almost all possible fields and finding applications in industry, health, finance, logistics, education, to name a few. The IoT active endpoint sensors and devices exceeded the 12 billion mark in 2021 and are expected to reach 27 billion in 2025, with over $34 billion in total market value. This sheer rise in numbers and use of IoT devices bring with it considerable concerns regarding data storage, analysis, manipulation and protection. IoT Blockchain-based systems have recently been proposed as a decentralized solution for large-scale data storage and protection. COVID-19 has actually accelerated the desire to utilize IoT devices as it impacted both demand and supply and significantly affected several regions due to logistic reasons such as supply chain interruptions, shortage of shipping containers and port congestion. An IoT-blockchain system is proposed to handle big data generated by a distributed network of sensors and controllers in an interactive manner. The system is designed using the Ethereum platform, which utilizes smart contracts, programmed in solidity to execute and manage data generated by IoT sensors and devices. such as Raspberry Pi 4, Rasbpian, and add-on hardware security modules. The proposed system will run a number of applications hosted by a local machine used to validate transactions. It then sends data to the rest of the network through InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Ethereum Swarm, forming a closed IoT ecosystem run by blockchain where a number of distributed IoT devices can communicate and interact, thus forming a closed, controlled environment. A prototype has been deployed with three IoT handling units distributed over a wide geographical space in order to examine its feasibility, performance and costs. Initial results indicated that big IoT data retrieval and storage is feasible and interactivity is possible, provided that certain conditions of cost, speed and thorough put are met.

Keywords: IoT devices, blockchain, Ethereum, big data

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Authors: Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, Usman Abdullahi, Adamu Lawan, Aminu Maidala

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Abstract 16 healthy lactating cows will be randomly selected for the trial and will be randomly divided in to 4 groups with 4 cows in each. They will be kept under similar management condition (conventional management system). Animals of relatively same weight and age will be used. After 11days for adaptation, feed intake and performance of the experimental animals will be determine. Milk sample will be collected at each milking in the morning and afternoon to determine; Milk yield, Milk fat percentage, Solid not fat percentage, Total solid percentage of milk. Cows dung will be observe to determine; Score 1 very loose watery stool, Score 2 semi solid with undigested raw material, Score 3 semi solid with less undigested raw material, Score 4 solid with very less undigested raw material, Score 5 good dung no undigested raw material. At the end of the experiment, blood samples will be analyzed for full blood counts and differentials {White Blood Cells (WBC), Red Blood Cells (RBC), Hemoglobin (Hb), Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), Platelets (PLT), Lymphocytes (LYM), Basophils, Eosinophils and Monocytes Proportion (MXD) and Neutrophils (NEUT)} using automated hematology analyzer. Serum samples will be analyzed for heat shock transcription factors, heat shock proteins and hormones (Serum glucocorticoid, prolactin and cortisol). Moreover, biochemical analysis will also be conducted to check for Total protein (TP), Albumen (ALB), Globulin (GBL), Total cholesterol (TCH), glucose (G), sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-) and pH. Keywords: Lactating cows, milk composition, dung score and blood parameters.

Keywords: Lactating cows , Milk yield , Dung score , Blood parameters

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Authors: Rui He, Seung-Eun Baik, Min-Jae Lee, Myong-Hoon Lee

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The polarizer is one of the most essential optical elements in LCDs. Currently, the most widely used polarizers for LCD is the derivatives of the H-sheet polarizer. There is a need for coatable polarizers which are much thinner and more stable than H-sheet polarizers. One possible approach to obtain thin, stable, and coatable polarizers is based on the use of highly ordered guest-host system. In our research, we aimed to fabricate coatable polarizer based on highly ordered liquid crystalline monomer and dichroic dye ‘guest-host’ system, in which the anisotropic absorption of light could be achieved by aligning a dichroic dye (guest) in the cooperative motion of the ordered liquid crystal (host) molecules. Firstly, we designed and synthesized a new reactive liquid crystalline monomer containing polymerizable acrylate groups as the ‘host’ material. The structure was confirmed by 1H-NMR and IR spectroscopy. The liquid crystalline behavior was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy (POM). It was confirmed that the monomers possess highly ordered smectic phase at relatively low temperature. Then, the photocurable ‘guest-host’ system was prepared by mixing the liquid crystalline monomer, dichroic dye and photoinitiator. Coatable polarizers were fabricated by spin-coating above mixture on a substrate with alignment layer. The in-situ photopolymerization was carried out at room temperature by irradiating UV light, resulting in the formation of crosslinked structure that stabilized the aligned dichroic dye molecules. Finally, the dichroic ratio (DR), order parameter (S) and polarization efficiency (PE) were determined by polarized UV/Vis spectroscopy. We prepared the coatable polarizers by using different type of dichroic dyes to meet the requirement of display application. The results reveal that the coatable polarizers at a thickness of 8μm exhibited DR=12~17 and relatively high PE (>96%) with the highest PE=99.3%, which possess potential for the LCD or flexible display applications.

Keywords: coatable polarizer, display, guest-host, liquid crystal

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Authors: Ramish, Farhan Khalique Awan

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Kinematic redundancy within the manipulators presents extended dexterity and manipulability to the manipulators. Redundant serial robotic manipulators are very popular in industries due to its competencies to keep away from singularities during normal operation and fault tolerance because of failure of one or more joints. Such fault tolerant manipulators are extraordinarily beneficial in applications where human interference for repair and overhaul is both impossible or tough; like in case of robotic arms for space programs, nuclear applications and so on. The design of this sort of fault tolerant serial 3 DoF manipulator is presented in this paper. This work was the extension of the author’s previous work of designing the simple 3R serial manipulator. This work is the realization of the previous design with optimizing the link lengths for incorporating the feature of fault tolerance. Various measures have been followed by the researchers to quantify the fault tolerance of such redundant manipulators. The fault tolerance in this work has been described in terms of the worst-case measure of relative manipulability that is, in fact, a local measure of optimization that works properly for certain configuration of the manipulators. An optimum fault tolerant Jacobian matrix has been determined first based on prescribed null space properties after which the link parameters have been described to meet the given Jacobian matrix. A solid model of the manipulator was then developed to realize the mathematically rigorous design. Further work was executed on determining the dynamic properties of the fault tolerant design and simulations of the movement for various trajectories have been carried out to evaluate the joint torques. The mathematical model of the system was derived via the Euler-Lagrange approach after which the same has been tested using the RoboAnalyzer© software. The results have been quite in agreement. From the CAD model and dynamic simulation data, the manipulator was fabricated in the workshop and Advanced Machining lab of NED University of Engineering and Technology.

Keywords: fault tolerant, Graham matrix, Jacobian, kinematics, Lagrange-Euler

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Authors: Sinarwati Mohamad Suhaili, Naomie Salim, Mohamad Nazim Jambli

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Sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) models augmented with attention mechanisms are playing an increasingly important role in automated customer service. These models, which are able to recognize complex relationships between input and output sequences, are crucial for optimizing chatbot responses. Central to these mechanisms are neural attention weights that determine the focus of the model during sequence generation. Despite their widespread use, there remains a gap in the comparative analysis of different attention weighting functions within seq2seq models, particularly in the domain of chatbots using the Customer Support Twitter (CST) dataset. This study addresses this gap by evaluating four distinct attention-scoring functions—dot, multiplicative/general, additive, and an extended multiplicative function with a tanh activation parameter — in neural generative seq2seq models. Utilizing the CST dataset, these models were trained and evaluated over 10 epochs with the AdamW optimizer. Evaluation criteria included validation loss and BLEU scores implemented under both greedy and beam search strategies with a beam size of k=3. Results indicate that the model with the tanh-augmented multiplicative function significantly outperforms its counterparts, achieving the lowest validation loss (1.136484) and the highest BLEU scores (0.438926 under greedy search, 0.443000 under beam search, k=3). These results emphasize the crucial influence of selecting an appropriate attention-scoring function in improving the performance of seq2seq models for chatbots. Particularly, the model that integrates tanh activation proves to be a promising approach to improve the quality of chatbots in the customer support context.

Keywords: attention weight, chatbot, encoder-decoder, neural generative attention, score function, sequence-to-sequence

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Authors: Rohin Rameswarapu, Sameer Valsangkar

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Background: Globally, musculoskeletal disorders are the largest single cause of work-related illnesses accounting for over 33% of all newly reported occupational illnesses. Risk factors for MSD need to be delineated to suggest means for amelioration. Material and methods: In this current cross-sectional study, the prevalence of MSDs among workers in an electrical company assembly line, the socio-demographic and job characteristics associated with MSD were obtained through a semi-structured questionnaire. A quantitative assessment of the physical risk factors through the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) tool, and measurement of psychosocial risk factors through a Likert scale was obtained. Statistical analysis was conducted using Epi-info software and descriptive and inferential statistics including chi-square and unpaired t test were obtained. Results: A total of 263 workers consented and participated in the study. Among these workers, 200 (76%) suffered from MSD. Most of the workers were aged between 18–27 years and majority of the workers were women with 198 (75.2%) of the 263 workers being women. A chi square test was significant for association between male gender and MSD with a P value of 0.007. Among the MSD positive group, 4 (2%) had a grand score of 5, 10 (5%) had a grand score of 6 and 186 (93%) had a grand score of 7 on RULA. There were significant differences between the non-MSD and MSD group on five out of the seven psychosocial domains, namely job demand, job monotony, co-worker support, decision control and family and environment domains. Discussion: The current cross-sectional study demonstrates a high prevalence of MSD among assembly line works with inherent physical and psychosocial risk factors and recommends that not only physical risk factors, addressing psychosocial risk factors through proper ergonomic means is also essential to the well-being of the employee.

Keywords: musculoskeletal disorders, India, occupational health, Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA)

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Authors: Isabel Gouveia

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Antimicrobial textile materials may significantly reduce the risk of infections and because they are able to absorb substances from the skin and release therapeutic compounds to the skin, they can also find applications as complementary therapy of skin-diseases as part of standard management. Although functional textiles may be a promising area in skin disease/injury management, as part of standard management, few offer complementary treatment even though they are well known to reduce scratching and aiding emollient absorption, reducing infection, and alleviating pruritus. The reason for this may rely on the low quality of supporting evidence and negative effect that antimicrobial agents may exert on skin microbiome, as for example additional irritation of the vulnerable skin, and by causing resistant bacteria. Several antimicrobial agents have been tested in textiles: quaternary ammonium compounds, silver, polyhexamethylene-biguanides and triclosan have been used, with success. They have powerful bactericidal activity but the majority have a reduce spectrum of microbial inhibition and may cause skin irritation, ecotoxicity and bacteria resistance. Furthermore, the rising flow of strains resistant to last-resort antibiotics rekindles interest in alternative strategies. In this regard, new functional textiles incorporating highly specific antimicrobial agents towards pathogenic bacteria, are required. Recent research has been conducted on naturally occurring antimicrobials as novel alternatives to antibiotics. Conscious of this need our team firstly reported new approaches using L-cysteine and antimicrobial peptides (AMP). Briefly, we were able to develop different immobilization processes towards 6 Log Reduction against bacteria such as S. aureus and K. pneumoniae. Therefore, here we present several innovative antimicrobial textiles incorporating AMP and L-Cysteine which may open new avenues for the medical textiles market and biomaterials in general. Team references will be discussed as an overview and for comparison purposes in terms of potential therapeutic applications.

Keywords: Antimicrobials, Antimicrobial Textiles, Biomedical Textiles, Biomimetic surface functionalization

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Authors: Oluwaseun K. Oyebode, Josiah A. Adeyemo

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Hydrological modelling plays a crucial role in the planning and management of water resources, most especially in water stressed regions where the need to effectively manage the available water resources is of critical importance. However, due to the complex, nonlinear and dynamic behaviour of hydro-climatic interactions, achieving reliable modelling of water resource systems and accurate projection of hydrological parameters are extremely challenging. Although a significant number of modelling techniques (process-based and data-driven) have been developed and adopted in that regard, the field of hydrological modelling is still considered as one that has sluggishly progressed over the past decades. This is majorly as a result of the identification of some degree of uncertainty in the methodologies and results of techniques adopted. In recent times, evolutionary computation (EC) techniques have been developed and introduced in response to the search for efficient and reliable means of providing accurate solutions to hydrological related problems. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the underlying principles, methodological needs and applications of a promising evolutionary computation modelling technique – genetic programming (GP). It examines the specific characteristics of the technique which makes it suitable to solving hydrological modelling problems. It discusses the opportunities inherent in the application of GP in water related-studies such as rainfall estimation, rainfall-runoff modelling, streamflow forecasting, sediment transport modelling, water quality modelling and groundwater modelling among others. Furthermore, the means by which such opportunities could be harnessed in the near future are discussed. In all, a case for total embracement of GP and its variants in hydrological modelling studies is made so as to put in place strategies that would translate into achieving meaningful progress as it relates to modelling of water resource systems, and also positively influence decision-making by relevant stakeholders.

Keywords: computational modelling, evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, hydrological modelling

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Authors: Julian Jaegers, Siegmar Wirtz, Viktor Scherer

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Wood pellets belong to the most established trade formats of wood-based fuels. Especially, because of the transportability and the storage properties, but also due to low moisture content, high energy density, and the homogeneous particle size and shape, wood pellets are well suited for power generation in power plants and for the use in automated domestic firing systems. Before they are thermally converted, wood pellets pass various transport and storage procedures. There they undergo different mechanical impacts, which leads to pellet breakage and abrasion and to an increase in fines. The fines lead to operational problems during storage, charging, and discharging of pellets, they can increase the risk of dust explosions and can lead to pollutant emissions during combustion. In the current work, the dependence of the formation of fines caused by breakage during pneumatic transport is analyzed experimentally and numerically. The focus lies on the influence of conveying velocity, pellet loading, pipe diameter, and the shape of pipe components like bends or couplings. A test rig has been built, which allows the experimental evaluation of the pneumatic transport varying the above-mentioned parameters. Two high-speed cameras are installed for the quantitative optical access to the particle-particle and particle-wall contacts. The particle size distribution of the bulk before and after a transport process is measured as well as the amount of fines produced. The experiments will be compared with results of corresponding DEM/CFD simulations to provide information on contact frequencies and forces. The contribution proposed will present experimental results and report on the status of the DEM/CFD simulations. The final goal of the project is to provide a better insight into pellet breakage during pneumatic transport and to develop guidelines ensuring a more gentle transport.

Keywords: DEM/CFD-simulation of pneumatic conveying, mechanical impact on wood pellets during transportation, pellet breakage, pneumatic transport of wood pellets

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Authors: Guillaume Mullier, Jean François Chatelain

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Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs) are widely used for advanced applications, in particular in aerospace, automotive and wind energy industries. Once cured to near net shape, CFRP parts need several finishing operations such as trimming, milling or drilling in order to accommodate fastening hardware and meeting the final dimensions. The present research aims to study the effect of the cutting temperature in trimming on the mechanical strength of high performance CFRP laminates used for aeronautics applications. The cutting temperature is of great importance when dealing with trimming of CFRP. Temperatures higher than the glass-transition temperature (Tg) of the resin matrix are highly undesirable: they cause degradation of the matrix in the trimmed edges area, which can severely affect the mechanical performance of the entire component. In this study, a 9.50 mm diameter CVD diamond coated carbide tool with six flutes was used to trim 24-plies CFRP laminates. A 300 m/min cutting speed and 1140 mm/min feed rate were used in the experiments. The tool was heated prior to trimming using a blowtorch, for temperatures ranging from 20°C to 300°C. The temperature at the cutting edge was measured using embedded K-Type thermocouples. Samples trimmed for different cutting temperatures, below and above Tg, were mechanically tested using three-points bending short-beam loading configurations. New cutting tools as well as worn cutting tools were utilized for the experiments. The experiments with the new tools could not prove any correlation between the length of cut, the cutting temperature and the mechanical performance. Thus mechanical strength was constant, regardless of the cutting temperature. However, for worn tools, producing a cutting temperature rising up to 450°C, thermal damage of the resin was observed. The mechanical tests showed a reduced mean resistance in short beam configuration, while the resistance in three point bending decreases with increase of the cutting temperature.

Keywords: composites, trimming, thermal damage, surface quality

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Authors: Lokanath Barik, Abinash Kumar Swain

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This paper presents vibration analysis of FGM sandwich structure with a complex profile governed by refined higher-order shear deformation theory (RHSDT) using isogeometric analysis (IGA). Functionally graded sandwich plates provide a wide range of applications in aerospace, defence, and aircraft industries due to their ability to distribute material functions to influence the thermo-mechanical properties as desired. In practical applications, these structures generally have intrinsic profiles, and their response to loads is significantly affected due to cut-outs. IGA is primarily a NURBS-based technique that is effective in solving higher-order differential equations due to its inherent C1 continuity imposition in solution space for a single patch. Complex structures generally require multiple patches to accurately represent the geometry, and hence, there is a loss of continuity at adjoining patch junctions. Therefore, patch coupling is desired to maintain continuity requirements throughout the domain. In this work, a novel strong coupling approach is provided that generates a well-defined NURBS-based model while achieving continuity. The methodology is validated by free vibration analysis of sandwich plates with present literature. The results are in good agreement with the analytical solution for different plate configurations and power law indexes. Numerical examples of rectangular and annular plates are discussed with variable boundary conditions. Additionally, parametric studies are provided by varying the aspect ratio, porosity ratio and their influence on the natural frequency of the plate.

Keywords: vibration analysis, FGM sandwich structure, multipatch geometry, patch coupling, IGA

Procedia PDF Downloads 75

Authors: Muhammad Shahzad Tufail, Iram Liaqat, Umer Sohail Meer, Muhammad Ishtaiq, Muhammad Sattar

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Nanotechnology is a vibrant field with numerous applications in many different branches of science and technology. Several methods are used to synthesize nanoparticles (NPs), which have multiple range of applications. Comparatively, the biogenic synthesis of NPs is a more economical and environmentally favourable method than the traditional chemical method. The current study aims to synthesize biogenically silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using bacterial isolates. Four bacterial strains Escherichia coli (MT448673), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MN900691), Bacillus subtilis (MN900684) and Bacillus licheniformis (MN900686) were used for the synthesis of AgNPs from silver nitrate (AgNO3) solution. The biofilm time kinetics of four bacterial isolates (P. aeruginosa, E. coli, B. licheniformis and B. subtilis) was analysed by incubating bacterial cultures at 37◦C in test tubes over a period of different time intervals i.e., 2, 3, 5 and 7 days following crystal violet staining method. All the four strains had ability to form strong biofilms between 48 to 72 hours of incubation. Two strains (B. subtilis and B. licheniformis) formed significant (p < 0.05) biofilm after 3 days of incubation period. The other two strains (E. coli and P. aeruginosa) showed strong biofilm formation after 2 days of incubation. Next, the antibiofilm activity of biogenically synthesized AgNPs (10 - 100 µgmL-1) was analysed against biofilm forming human pathogenic bacteria. Findings of the work revealed that 60-90% inhibition was observed at 60 µgmL-1 of AgNPs, while maximum inhibition (i.e.,100%) was found at highest concentration (90 µgmL-1). It was evident that highly significant (p < 0.05) decrease in biofilm formation was observed with increasing concentration of AgNPs.

Keywords: antibiofilm, biofilm formation, nanotechnology, pathogenic bacteria, silver nanoparticles

Procedia PDF Downloads 98

Authors: Abderrahim Elmoataz

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More and more contemporary applications involve data in the form of functions defined on irregular and topologically complicated domains (images, meshs, points clouds, networks, etc). Such data are not organized as familiar digital signals and images sampled on regular lattices. However, they can be conveniently represented as graphs where each vertex represents measured data and each edge represents a relationship (connectivity or certain affinities or interaction) between two vertices. Processing and analyzing these types of data is a major challenge for both image and machine learning communities. Hence, it is very important to transfer to graphs and networks many of the mathematical tools which were initially developed on usual Euclidean spaces and proven to be efficient for many inverse problems and applications dealing with usual image and signal domains. Historically, the main tools for the study of graphs or networks come from combinatorial and graph theory. In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the investigation of one of the major mathematical tools for signal and image analysis, which are Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) variational methods on graphs. The normalized p-laplacian operator has been recently introduced to model a stochastic game called tug-of-war-game with noise. Part interest of this class of operators arises from the fact that it includes, as particular case, the infinity Laplacian, the mean curvature operator and the traditionnal Laplacian operators which was extensiveley used to models and to solve problems in image processing. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and to study a new class of normalized p-Laplacian on graphs. The introduction is based on the extension of p-harmonious function introduced in as discrete approximation for both infinity Laplacian and p-Laplacian equations. Finally, we propose to use these operators as a framework for solving many inverse problems in image processing.

Keywords: normalized p-laplacian, image processing, stochastic game, inverse problems

Procedia PDF Downloads 509

Authors: Carine Platat, Fatima Qshadi, Ghofran Kayed, Nour Hussein, Amjad Jarrar, Habiba Ali

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Nowadays, smartphones are very popular. They are offering a variety of easy-to-use and free applications among which step counters and fitness tests. The number of users is huge making of such applications a potentially efficient new strategy to encourage people to become more active. Nonetheless, data on their reliability and validity are very scarce and when available, they are often negative and contradictory. Besides, weight status, which is likely to introduce a bias in the physical activity assessment, was not often considered. Hence, the use of these applications as motivational tool, assessment tool and in research is questionable. PACER is one of the free step counters application. Even though it is one of the best rated free application by users, it has never been tested for reliability and validity. Prior any use of PACER, this remains to be investigated. The objective of this work is to investigate the reliability and validity of the smartphone application PACER in measuring the number of steps and in assessing the cardiorespiratory fitness by the 6 minutes walking test. 20 overweight or obese students (10 male and 10 female) were recruited at the United Arab Emirate University, aged between 18 and 25 years old. Reliability and validity were tested in real life conditions and in controlled conditions by using a treadmill. Test-retest experiments were done with PACER on 2 days separated by a week in real life conditions (24 hours each time) and in controlled conditions (30 minutes on treadmill, 3km/h). Validity was tested against the pedometer OMRON in the same conditions. During treadmill test, video was recorded and steps numbers were compared between PACER, pedometer and video. The validity of PACER in estimating the cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max) as part of the 6 minutes walking test (6MWT) was studied against the 20m shuttle running test. Reliability was studied by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), 95% confidence interval (95%CI) and by Bland-Altman plots. Validity was studied by calculating Spearman correlation coefficient (rho) and Bland-Altman plots. PACER reliability was good in both male and female in real life conditions (p≤10-3) but only in female in controlled conditions (p=0.01). PACER was valid against OMRON pedometer in male and female in real life conditions (rho=0.94, p≤10-3 ; rho=0.64, p=0.01, in male and female respectively). In controlled conditions, PACER was not valid against pedometer. But, PACER was valid against video in female (rho=0.72, p≤10-3). PACER was valid against the shuttle run test in male and female (rho-=0.66, p=0.01 ; rho=0.51, p=0.04) to estimate VO2max. This study provides data on the reliability and viability of PACER in overweight or obese male and female young adults. Globally, PACER was shown as reliable and valid in real life conditions in overweight or obese male and female to count steps and assess fitness. This supports the use of PACER to assess and promote physical activity in clinical follow-up and community interventions.

Keywords: smartphone application, pacer, reliability, validity, steps, fitness, physical activity

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Authors: Fatema-Tuz-Zohra Khanam, Ali Al-Naji, Asanka G. Perera, Kim Gibson, Javaan Chahl

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Conventional contact-based vital signs monitoring sensors such as pulse oximeters or electrocardiogram (ECG) may cause discomfort, skin damage, and infections, particularly in neonates with fragile, sensitive skin. Therefore, remote monitoring of the vital sign is desired in both clinical and non-clinical settings to overcome these issues. Camera-based vital signs monitoring is a recent technology for these applications with many positive attributes. However, there are still limited camera-based studies on neonates in a clinical setting. In this study, the heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR) of eight infants at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Flinders Medical Centre were remotely monitored using a digital camera applying color and motion-based computational methods. The region-of-interest (ROI) was efficiently selected by incorporating an image decomposition method. Furthermore, spatial averaging, spectral analysis, band-pass filtering, and peak detection were also used to extract both HR and RR. The experimental results were validated with the ground truth data obtained from an ECG monitor and showed a strong correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) 0.9794 and 0.9412 for HR and RR, respectively. The RMSE between camera-based data and ECG data for HR and RR were 2.84 beats/min and 2.91 breaths/min, respectively. A Bland Altman analysis of the data also showed a close correlation between both data sets with a mean bias of 0.60 beats/min and 1 breath/min, and the lower and upper limit of agreement -4.9 to + 6.1 beats/min and -4.4 to +6.4 breaths/min for both HR and RR, respectively. Therefore, video camera imaging may replace conventional contact-based monitoring in NICU and has potential applications in other contexts such as home health monitoring.

Keywords: neonates, NICU, digital camera, heart rate, respiratory rate, image decomposition

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Gihan Thilakarathna, Fernando Ishara, Rathnayake Yasith, Bandara A. M. R. Y.

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E-learning is a crucial component of intelligent education. Even in the midst of a pandemic, E-learning is becoming increasingly important in the educational system. Several e-learning programs are accessible for students. Here, we decided to create an e-learning framework for children. We've found a few issues that teachers are having with their online classes. When there are numerous students in an online classroom, how does a teacher recognize a student's focus on academics and below-the-surface behaviors? Some kids are not paying attention in class, and others are napping. The teacher is unable to keep track of each and every student. Key challenge in e-learning is online exams. Because students can cheat easily during online exams. Hence there is need of exam proctoring is occurred. In here we propose an automated online exam cheating detection method using a web camera. The purpose of this project is to present an E-learning platform for math education and include games for kids as an alternative teaching method for math students. The game will be accessible via a web browser. The imagery in the game is drawn in a cartoonish style. This will help students learn math through games. Everything in this day and age is moving towards automation. However, automatic answer evaluation is only available for MCQ-based questions. As a result, the checker has a difficult time evaluating the theory solution. The current system requires more manpower and takes a long time to evaluate responses. It's also possible to mark two identical responses differently and receive two different grades. As a result, this application employs machine learning techniques to provide an automatic evaluation of subjective responses based on the keyword provided to the computer as student input, resulting in a fair distribution of marks. In addition, it will save time and manpower. We used deep learning, machine learning, image processing and natural language technologies to develop these research components.

Keywords: math, education games, e-learning platform, artificial intelligence

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Felermino D. M. A. Ali, S. C. Ng

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E-learning is an evolutionary form of distance learning and has become better over time as new technologies emerged. Today, efforts are still being made to embrace E-learning systems with emerging technologies in order to make them better. Among these advancements, Educational Data Mining (EDM) is one that is gaining a huge and increasing popularity due to its wide application for improving the teaching-learning process in online practices. However, even though EDM promises to bring many benefits to educational industry in general and E-learning environments in particular, its principal drawback is the lack of easy to use tools. The current EDM tools usually require users to have some additional technical expertise to effectively perform EDM tasks. Thus, in response to these limitations, this study intends to design and implement an EDM application framework which aims at automating and simplify the development of EDM in E-learning environment. The application framework introduces a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that hides the complexity of technical details and enables users to perform EDM in an automated fashion. The framework was designed based on abstraction, extensibility, and interoperability principles. The framework implementation was made up of three major modules. The first module provides an abstraction for data gathering, which was done by extending Moodle LMS (Learning Management System) source code. The second module provides data mining methods and techniques as services; it was done by converting Weka API into a set of Web services. The third module acts as an intermediary between the first two modules, it contains a user-friendly interface that allows dynamically locating data provider services, and running knowledge discovery tasks on data mining services. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the overhead of the proposed framework through a combination of simulation and implementation. The experiments have shown that the overhead introduced by the SOA mechanism is relatively small, therefore, it has been concluded that a service-oriented architecture can be effectively used to facilitate educational data mining in E-learning environments.

Keywords: educational data mining, e-learning, distributed data mining, moodle, service-oriented architecture, Weka

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Authors: Abdullah Eqal Al Mazrooei

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In this work, a new nonlinear model will be introduced. The model is in the state-space form. The nonlinearity of this model is in the state equation where the state vector is multiplied by its self. This technique makes our model generalizes many famous models as Lotka-Volterra model and Lorenz model which have many applications in the real life. We will apply our new model to estimate the wind speed by using a new nonlinear estimator which suitable to work with our model.

Keywords: nonlinear systems, state-space model, Kronecker product, nonlinear estimator

Procedia PDF Downloads 685