Search results for: feasibility mapping

Authors: Anderson Braga Mendes

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Itaipu Hydroelectric Power Plant is settled on the Paraná River, which is a natural boundary between Brazil and Paraguay; thus, the facility is shared by both countries. Itaipu Power Plant is the biggest hydroelectric generator in the world, and provides clean and renewable electrical energy supply for 17% and 76% of Brazil and Paraguay, respectively. The plant started its generation in 1984. It counts on 20 Francis turbines and has installed capacity of 14,000 MWh. Its historic generation record occurred in 2016 (103,098,366 MWh), and since the beginning of its operation until the last day of 2016 the plant has achieved the sum of 2,415,789,823 MWh. The distinct sedimentologic aspects of the drainage area of Itaipu Power Plant, from its stretch upstream (Porto Primavera and Rosana dams) to downstream (Itaipu dam itself), were taken into account in order to best estimate the increase/decrease in the sediment yield by using data from 2001 to 2016. Such data are collected through a network of 14 automatic sedimentometric stations managed by the company itself and operating in an hourly basis, covering an area of around 136,000 km² (92% of the incremental drainage area of the undertaking). Since 1972, a series of lifespan studies for the Itaipu Power Plant have been made, being first assessed by Sir Hans Albert Einstein, at the time of the feasibility studies for the enterprise. From that date onwards, eight further studies were made through the last 44 years aiming to confer more precision upon the estimates based on more updated data sets. From the analysis of each monitoring station, it was clearly noticed strong increase tendencies in the sediment yield through the last 14 years, mainly in the Iguatemi, Ivaí, São Francisco Falso and Carapá Rivers, the latter situated in Paraguay, whereas the others are utterly in Brazilian territory. Five lifespan scenarios considering different sediment yield tendencies were simulated with the aid of the softwares SEDIMENT and DPOSIT, both developed by the author of the present work. Such softwares thoroughly follow the Borland & Miller methodology (empirical method of area-reduction). The soundest scenario out of the five ones under analysis indicated a lifespan foresight of 168 years, being the reservoir only 1.8% silted by the end of 2016, after 32 years of operation. Besides, the mass balance in the reservoir (water inflows minus outflows) between 1986 and 2016 shows that 2% of the whole Itaipu lake is silted nowadays. Owing to the convergence of both results, which were acquired by using different methodologies and independent input data, it is worth concluding that the mathematical modeling is satisfactory and calibrated, thus assigning credibility to this most recent lifespan estimate.

Keywords: Borland and Miller method, hydroelectricity, Itaipu Power Plant, lifespan, mass balance

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Authors: Mehrnaz Mostafavi

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Recent advances in single-molecule protein identification (ID) and quantification techniques are poised to revolutionize proteomics, enabling researchers to delve into single-cell proteomics and identify low-abundance proteins crucial for biomedical and clinical research. This paper introduces a different approach to single-molecule protein ID and quantification using tri-color amino acid tags and a plasmonic nanopore device. A comprehensive simulator incorporating various physical phenomena was designed to predict and model the device's behavior under diverse experimental conditions, providing insights into its feasibility and limitations. The study employs a whole-proteome single-molecule identification algorithm based on convolutional neural networks, achieving high accuracies (>90%), particularly in challenging conditions (95–97%). To address potential challenges in clinical samples, where post-translational modifications affecting labeling efficiency, the paper evaluates protein identification accuracy under partial labeling conditions. Solid-state nanopores, capable of processing tens of individual proteins per second, are explored as a platform for this method. Unlike techniques relying solely on ion-current measurements, this approach enables parallel readout using high-density nanopore arrays and multi-pixel single-photon sensors. Convolutional neural networks contribute to the method's versatility and robustness, simplifying calibration procedures and potentially allowing protein ID based on partial reads. The study also discusses the efficacy of the approach in real experimental conditions, resolving functionally similar proteins. The theoretical analysis, protein labeler program, finite difference time domain calculation of plasmonic fields, and simulation of nanopore-based optical sensing are detailed in the methods section. The study anticipates further exploration of temporal distributions of protein translocation dwell-times and the impact on convolutional neural network identification accuracy. Overall, the research presents a promising avenue for advancing single-molecule protein identification and quantification with broad applications in proteomics research. The contributions made in methodology, accuracy, robustness, and technological exploration collectively position this work at the forefront of transformative developments in the field.

Keywords: nano proteomics, nanopore-based optical sensing, deep learning, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Zachary Cooper-Baldock, Paulo E. Santos, Russell S. A. Brinkworth, Karl Sammut

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- In recent years, large unmanned underwater vehicles such as the Boeing Voyager and Anduril Ghost Shark have been developed. These vessels can be structured to contain onboard internal payload bays. These payload bays can serve a variety of purposes – including the launch and recovery (LAR) of smaller underwater vehicles. The LAR of smaller vessels is extremely important, as it enables transportation over greater distances, increased time on station, data transmission and operational safety. The larger vessel and its payload bay structure complicate the LAR of UUVs in contrast to static docks that are affixed to the seafloor, as they actively impact the local flow field. These flow field impacts require analysis to determine if UUV vessels can be safely launched and recovered inside the motherships. This research seeks to determine the hydrodynamic forces exerted on a vertically over-actuated, small, unmanned underwater vehicle (OUUV) during an internal LAR manoeuvre and compare this to an under-actuated vessel (UUUV). In this manoeuvre, the OUUV is navigated through the stern wake region of the larger vessel to a set point within the internal payload bay. The manoeuvre is simulated using ANSYS Fluent computational fluid dynamics models, covering the entire recovery of the OUUV and UUUV. The analysis of the OUUV is compared against the UUUV to determine the differences in the exerted forces. Of particular interest are the drag, pressure, turbulence and flow field effects exerted as the OUUV is driven inside the payload bay of the larger vessel. The hydrodynamic forces and flow field disturbances are used to determine the feasibility of making such an approach. From the simulations, it was determined that there was no significant detrimental physical forces, particularly with regard to turbulence. The flow field effects exerted by the OUUV are significant. The vertical thrusters exert significant wake structures, but their orientation ensures the wake effects are exerted below the UUV, minimising the impact. It was also seen that OUUV experiences higher drag forces compared to the UUUV, which will correlate to an increased energy expenditure. This investigation found no key indicators that recovery via a mothership payload bay was not feasible. The turbulence, drag and pressure phenomenon were of a similar magnitude to existing static and towed dock structures.

Keywords: underwater vehicles, submarine, autonomous underwater vehicles, auv, computational fluid dynamics, flow fields, pressure, turbulence, drag

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Authors: Bencherif Kada

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In the forest management practice, landscape and Mediterranean forest are never posed as linked objects. But sustainable forestry requires the valorization of the forest landscape, and this aim involves assessing the spatial distribution of biodiversity by mapping forest landscaped units and subunits and by monitoring the environmental trends. This contribution aims to highlight, through object-oriented classifications, the landscaped biodiversity of the National Park of Tlemcen (Algeria). The methodology used is based on ground data and on the basic processing units of object-oriented classification, that are segments, so-called image-objects, representing a relatively homogenous units on the ground. The classification of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) imagery is performed on image objects and not on pixels. Advantages of object-oriented classification are to make full use of meaningful statistic and texture calculation, uncorrelated shape information (e.g., length-to-width ratio, direction, and area of an object, etc.), and topological features (neighbor, super-object, etc.), and the close relation between real-world objects and image objects. The results show that per object classification using the k-nearest neighbor’s method is more efficient than per pixel one. It permits to simplify of the content of the image while preserving spectrally and spatially homogeneous types of land covers such as Aleppo pine stands, cork oak groves, mixed groves of cork oak, holm oak, and zen oak, mixed groves of holm oak and thuja, water plan, dense and open shrub-lands of oaks, vegetable crops or orchard, herbaceous plants, and bare soils. Texture attributes seem to provide no useful information, while spatial attributes of shape and compactness seem to be performant for all the dominant features, such as pure stands of Aleppo pine and/or cork oak and bare soils. Landscaped sub-units are individualized while conserving the spatial information. Continuously dominant dense stands over a large area were formed into a single class, such as dense, fragmented stands with clear stands. Low shrublands formations and high wooded shrublands are well individualized but with some confusion with enclaves for the former. Overall, a visual evaluation of the classification shows that the classification reflects the actual spatial state of the study area at the landscape level.

Keywords: forest, oaks, remote sensing, diversity, shrublands

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Authors: Bharatkumar Doshi

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Electro-Magnetic Pulse Welding (EMPW) is a solid state welding process carried out at almost room temperature, in which joining is enabled by high impact velocity deformation. In this process, high voltage capacitor’s stored energy is discharged in an EM coil resulting in a damped, sinusoidal current with an amplitude of several hundred kiloamperes. Due to these transient magnetic fields of few tens of Tesla near the coil is generated. As the conductive (tube) part is positioned in this area, an opposing eddy current is induced in this part. Consequently, high Lorentz forces act on the part, leading to acceleration away from the coil. In case of a tube, it gets compressed under forming velocities of more than 300 meters per second. After passing the joining gap it collides with the second metallic joining rod, leading to the formation of a jet under appropriate collision conditions. Due to the prevailing high pressure, metallurgical bonding takes place. A characteristic feature is the wavy interface resulting from the heavy plastic deformations. In the process, the formation of intermetallic compounds which might deteriorate the weld strength can be avoided, even for metals with dissimilar thermal properties. In order to optimize the process parameters like current, voltage, inductance, coil dimensions, workpiece dimensions, air gap, impact velocity, effective plastic strain, shear stress acting in the welding zone/impact zone etc. are very critical and important to establish. These process parameters could be determined by simulation using Finite Element Methods (FEM) in which electromagnetic –structural couple field analysis is performed. The feasibility of welding could thus be investigated by varying the parameters in the simulation using COMSOL. Simulation results shall be applied in performing the preliminary experiments of welding the different alloy steel tubes and/or alloy steel to other materials. The single turn coil (S.S.304) with field shaper (copper) has been designed and manufactured. The preliminary experiments are performed using existing EMPW facility available Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, India. The experiments are performed at 22kV charged into 64µF capacitor bank and the energy is discharged into single turn EM coil. Welding of axi-symetric components such as aluminum tube and rod has been proven experimentally using EMPW techniques. In this paper EM coil design, manufacturing, Electromagnetic-structural FEM simulation of Magnetic Pulse Welding and preliminary experiment results is reported.

Keywords: COMSOL, EMPW, FEM, Lorentz force

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Authors: Ameni Mejri, Moufida Hajjaj, Salem Hasnaoui, Ridha Bouallegue

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The technology advances have most lately made the millimeter wave (mmWave) communication possible. Due to the huge amount of spectrum that is available in MmWave frequency bands, this promising candidate is considered as a key technology for the deployment of 5G cellular networks. In order to enhance system capacity and achieve spectral efficiency, very large antenna arrays are employed at mmWave systems by exploiting array gain. However, it has been shown that conventional beamforming strategies are not suitable for mmWave hardware implementation. Therefore, new features are required for mmWave cellular applications. Unlike traditional multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems for which only digital precoders are essential to accomplish precoding, MIMO technology seems to be different at mmWave because of digital precoding limitations. Moreover, precoding implements a greater number of radio frequency (RF) chains supporting more signal mixers and analog-to-digital converters. As RF chain cost and power consumption is increasing, we need to resort to another alternative. Although the hybrid precoding architecture has been regarded as the best solution based on a combination between a baseband precoder and an RF precoder, we still do not get the optimal design of hybrid precoders. According to the mapping strategies from RF chains to the different antenna elements, there are two main categories of hybrid precoding architecture. Given as a hybrid precoding sub-array architecture, the partially-connected structure reduces hardware complexity by using a less number of phase shifters, whereas it sacrifices some beamforming gain. In this paper, we treat the hybrid precoder design in mmWave MIMO systems as a problem of matrix factorization. Thus, we adopt the alternating minimization principle in order to solve the design problem. Further, we present our proposed algorithm for the partially-connected structure, which is based on the iterative hard thresholding method. Through simulation results, we show that our hybrid precoding algorithm provides significant performance gains over existing algorithms. We also show that the proposed approach reduces significantly the computational complexity. Furthermore, valuable design insights are provided when we use the proposed algorithm to make simulation comparisons between the hybrid precoding partially-connected structure and the fully-connected structure.

Keywords: alternating minimization, hybrid precoding, iterative hard thresholding, low-complexity, millimeter wave communication, partially-connected structure

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Authors: Hasan Alrashid

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The 2005 Hague Convention seeks to ensure legal certainty and predictability between parties in international business transactions. It harmonies exclusive choice of court agreements at the international level between parties to commercial transactions and to govern the recognition and enforcement of judgments resulting from proceedings based on such agreements to promote international trade and investment. Although the choice of court agreements is significant in international business transactions, the United Arab Emirates refuse to recognise it by Article 24 of the Federal Law No. 11 of 1992 of the Civil Procedure Code. A review of judicial judgments in United Arab Emirates up to the present day has revealed that several cases appeared before the Court in different states of United Arab Emirates regarding the recognition of exclusive choice of court agreements. In all the cases, the courts regarded the exclusive choice of court agreements as a direct assault on state authority and sovereignty and refused categorically to recognize choice of court agreements by refusing to stay proceedings in favor of the foreign chosen court. This has created uncertainty and unpredictability in international business transaction in the United Arab Emirates. In June 2011, the first Gulf Judicial Seminar on Cross-Frontier Legal Cooperation in Civil and Commercial Matters was held in Doha, Qatar. The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference attended the conference and invited the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) namely, The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait to adopt some of the Hague Conventions, one of which was the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. One of the recommendations of the conference was that the GCC states should research ‘the benefits of predictability and legal certainty provided by the 2005 Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and its resulting advantages for cross-border trade and investment’ for possible adoption of the Hague Convention. Up to today, no further step has been taken by the any of the GCC states to adapt the Hague Convention nor did they conduct research on the benefits of predictability and legal certainty in international business transactions. This paper will argue that the approach regarding the recognition of choice of court agreements in United Arab Emirates states can be improved in order to help the parties in international business transactions avoid parallel litigation and ensure legal certainty and predictability. The focus will be the uncertainty and gaps regarding the choice of court agreements in the United Arab Emirates states. The Hague Convention on choice of court agreements and the importance of harmonisation of the rules of choice of court agreements at international level will also be discussed. Finally, The feasibility and desirability of recognizing choice of court agreements in United Arab Emirates legal system by becoming a party to the Hague Convention will be evaluated.

Keywords: choice of court agreements, party autonomy, public authority, sovereignty

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Authors: Bolawole F. Ogunbodede, Mokolade Johnson, Adetunji Adejumo

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High population growth rate, reactive infrastructure provision, inability of physical planning to cope with developmental pace are responsible for waste water crisis in the Lagos Metropolis. Septic tank is still the most prevalent waste-water holding system. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of septage treatment infrastructure. Public waste-water treatment system statistics relative to the 23 million people in Lagos State is worrisome. 1.85 billion Cubic meters of wastewater is generated on daily basis and only 5% of the 26 million population is connected to public sewerage system. This is compounded by inadequate budgetary allocation and erratic power supply in the last two decades. This paper explored community participatory waste-water management alternative at Oworonshoki Municipality in Lagos. The study is underpinned by decentralized Waste-water Management systems in built-up areas. The initiative accommodates 5 step waste-water issue including generation, storage, collection, processing and disposal through participatory decision making in two Oworonshoki Community Development Association (CDA) areas. Drone assisted mapping highlighted building footage. Structured interviews and focused group discussion of land lord associations in the CDA areas provided collaborator platform for decision-making. Water stagnation in primary open drainage channels and natural retention ponds in framing wetlands is traceable to frequent of climate change induced tidal influences in recent decades. Rise in water table resulting in septic-tank leakage and water pollution is reported to be responsible for the increase in the water born infirmities documented in primary health centers. This is in addition to unhealthy dumping of solid wastes in the drainage channels. The effect of uncontrolled disposal system renders surface waters and underground water systems unsafe for human and recreational use; destroys biotic life; and poisons the fragile sand barrier-lagoon urban ecosystems. Cluster decentralized system was conceptualized to service 255 households. Stakeholders agreed on public-private partnership initiative for efficient wastewater service delivery.

Keywords: health, infrastructure, management, septage, well-being

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Authors: Schröde C., Rodriguez D., Sánchez A., Abdul Malak, Churchill J., Boksmati T., Alharbi, Alsulmi H., Maghrabi S., Mowalad, Mutwalli R., Abualnaja Y.

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Formulating a strategy for sustainable development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s coastal and marine environment is at the core of the “Marine and Coastal Protection Assessment Study for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Coastline (MCEP)”; that was set up in the context of the Vision 2030 by the Saudi Arabian government and aimed at providing a first comprehensive ‘Status Quo Assessment’ of the Kingdom’s marine environment to inform a sustainable development strategy and serve as a baseline assessment for future monitoring activities. This baseline assessment relied on scientific evidence of the drivers, pressures and their impact on the environments of the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. A key element of the assessment was the cumulative pressure hotspot analysis developed for both national waters of the Kingdom following the principles of the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework and using the cumulative pressure and impact assessment methodology. The ultimate goals of the analysis were to map and assess the main hotspots of environmental pressures, and identify priority areas for further field surveillance and for urgent management actions. The study identified maritime transport, fisheries, aquaculture, oil, gas, energy, coastal industry, coastal and maritime tourism, and urban development as the main drivers of pollution in the Saudi Arabian marine waters. For each of these drivers, pressure indicators were defined to spatially assess the potential influence of the drivers on the coastal and marine environment. A list of hotspots of 90 locations could be identified based on the assessment. Spatially grouped the list could be reduced to come up with of 10 hotspot areas, two in the Arabian Gulf, 8 in the Red Sea. The hotspot mapping revealed clear spatial patterns of drivers, pressures and hotspots within the marine environment of waters under KSA’s maritime jurisdiction in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. The cascading assessment approach based on the DPSIR framework ensured that the root causes of the hotspot patterns, i.e. the human activities and other drivers, can be identified. The adapted CPIA methodology allowed for the combination of the available data to spatially assess the cumulative pressure in a consistent manner, and to identify the most critical hotspots by determining the overlap of cumulative pressure with areas of sensitive biodiversity. Further improvements are expected by enhancing the data sources of drivers and pressure indicators, fine-tuning the decay factors and distances of the pressure indicators, as well as including trans-boundary pressures across the regional seas.

Keywords: Arabian Gulf, DPSIR, hotspot, red sea

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Authors: Wilai Masanga, Chirapha Tannanonta, Sangutid Thongsawad, Sasikarn Chamchod, Todsaporn Fuangrod

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The major factors of radiotherapy for head and neck (HN) cancers include patient’s anatomical changes and tumour shrinkage. These changes can significantly affect the planned dose distribution that causes the treatment plan deterioration. A measured transit EPID images compared to a predicted EPID images using gamma analysis has been clinically implemented to verify the dose accuracy as part of adaptive radiotherapy protocol. However, a global gamma analysis dose not sensitive to some critical organ changes as the entire treatment field is compared. The objective of this feasibility study is to evaluate the dosimetric response to patient anatomical changes during the treatment course in HN IMRT (Head and Neck Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy) using a novel comparison method; organ-of-interest gamma analysis. This method provides more sensitive to specific organ change detection. Random replanned 5 HN IMRT patients with causes of tumour shrinkage and patient weight loss that critically affect to the parotid size changes were selected and evaluated its transit dosimetry. A comprehensive physics-based model was used to generate a series of predicted transit EPID images for each gantry angle from original computed tomography (CT) and replan CT datasets. The patient structures; including left and right parotid, spinal cord, and planning target volume (PTV56) were projected to EPID level. The agreement between the transit images generated from original CT and replanned CT was quantified using gamma analysis with 3%, 3mm criteria. Moreover, only gamma pass-rate is calculated within each projected structure. The gamma pass-rate in right parotid and PTV56 between predicted transit of original CT and replan CT were 42.8%( ± 17.2%) and 54.7%( ± 21.5%). The gamma pass-rate for other projected organs were greater than 80%. Additionally, the results of organ-of-interest gamma analysis were compared with 3-dimensional cone-beam computed tomography (3D-CBCT) and the rational of replan by radiation oncologists. It showed that using only registration of 3D-CBCT to original CT does not provide the dosimetric impact of anatomical changes. Using transit EPID images with organ-of-interest gamma analysis can provide additional information for treatment plan suitability assessment.

Keywords: re-plan, anatomical change, transit electronic portal imaging device, EPID, head, and neck

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Authors: Lucas Barbosa Da Silva, Jun Okamoto Jr.

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Precision Agriculture has long being benefited from crop fields’ aerial imagery. This important tool has allowed identifying patterns in crop fields, generating useful information to the production management. Reflectance intensity data in different ranges from the electromagnetic spectrum may indicate presence or absence of nutrients in the soil of an area. Different relations between the different light bands may generate even more detailed information. The knowledge of the nutrients content in the soil or in the crop during its growth is a valuable asset to the farmer that seeks to optimize its yield. However, small farmers in Brazil often lack the resources to access this kind information, and, even when they do, it is not presented in a comprehensive and/or objective way. So, the challenges of implementing this technology ranges from the sampling of the imagery, using aerial platforms, building of a mosaic with the images to cover the entire crop field, extracting the reflectance information from it and analyzing its relationship with the parameters of interest, to the display of the results in a manner that the farmer may take the necessary decisions more objectively. In this work, it’s proposed an analysis of soil nutrient contents based on image processing of satellite imagery and comparing its outtakes with commercial laboratory’s chemical analysis. Also, sources of satellite imagery are compared, to assess the feasibility of using Google Earth data in this application, and the impacts of doing so, versus the application of imagery from satellites like Landsat-8 and Pleiades. Furthermore, an algorithm for building mosaics is implemented using Google Earth imagery and finally, the possibility of using unmanned aerial vehicles is analyzed. From the data obtained, some soil parameters are estimated, namely, the content of Potassium, Phosphorus, Boron, Manganese, among others. The suitability of Google Earth Imagery for this application is verified within a reasonable margin, when compared to Pleiades Satellite imagery and to the current commercial model. It is also verified that the mosaic construction method has little or no influence on the estimation results. Variability maps are created over the covered area and the impacts of the image resolution and sample time frame are discussed, allowing easy assessments of the results. The final results show that easy and cheaper remote sensing and analysis methods are possible and feasible alternatives for the small farmer, with little access to technological and/or financial resources, to make more accurate decisions about soil nutrient management.

Keywords: remote sensing, precision agriculture, mosaic, soil, nutrient content, satellite imagery, aerial imagery

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Authors: Zohar Manber, Ran Elkon

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Accumulation of somatic mutations (SMs) in the genome is a major driving force of cancer development. Most SMs in the tumor's genome are functionally neutral; however, some cause damage to critical processes and provide the tumor with a selective growth advantage (termed cancer driver mutations). Current research on functional significance of SMs is mainly focused on finding alterations in protein coding sequences. However, the exome comprises only 3% of the human genome, and thus, SMs in the noncoding genome significantly outnumber those that map to protein-coding regions. Although our understanding of noncoding driver SMs is very rudimentary, it is likely that disruption of regulatory elements in the genome is an important, yet largely underexplored mechanism by which somatic mutations contribute to cancer development. The expression of most human genes is controlled by multiple enhancers, and therefore, it is conceivable that regulatory SMs are distributed across different enhancers of the same target gene. Yet, to date, most statistical searches for regulatory SMs have considered each regulatory element individually, which may reduce statistical power. The first challenge in considering the cumulative activity of all the enhancers of a gene as a single unit is to map enhancers to their target promoters. Such mapping defines for each gene its set of regulating enhancers (termed "set of regulatory elements" (SRE)). Considering multiple enhancers of each gene as one unit holds great promise for enhancing the identification of driver regulatory SMs. However, the success of this approach is greatly dependent on the availability of comprehensive and accurate enhancer-promoter (E-P) maps. To date, the discovery of driver regulatory SMs has been hindered by insufficient sample sizes and statistical analyses that often considered each regulatory element separately. In this study, we analyzed more than 2,500 whole-genome sequence (WGS) samples provided by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) in order to identify such driver regulatory SMs. Our analyses took into account the combinatorial aspect of gene regulation by considering all the enhancers that control the same target gene as one unit, based on E-P maps from three genomics resources. The identification of candidate driver noncoding SMs is based on their recurrence. We searched for SREs of genes that are "hotspots" for SMs (that is, they accumulate SMs at a significantly elevated rate). To test the statistical significance of recurrence of SMs within a gene's SRE, we used both global and local background mutation rates. Using this approach, we detected - in seven different cancer types - numerous "hotspots" for SMs. To support the functional significance of these recurrent noncoding SMs, we further examined their association with the expression level of their target gene (using gene expression data provided by the ICGC and TCGA for samples that were also analyzed by WGS).

Keywords: cancer genomics, enhancers, noncoding genome, regulatory elements

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Authors: John Hardy

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A range of future-oriented intelligence techniques is commonly used by states to assess their national security and develop strategies to detect and manage threats, to develop and sustain capabilities, and to recover from attacks and disasters. Although homeland security organizations use future's intelligence tools to generate scenarios and simulations which inform their planning, there have been relatively few studies of the methods available or their applications for homeland security purposes. This study presents an assessment of one category of strategic intelligence techniques, termed Multi-Path Futures Analyses (MPFA), and how it can be applied to three distinct tasks for the purpose of analyzing homeland security issues. Within this study, MPFA are categorized as a suite of analytic techniques which can include effects-based operations principles, general morphological analysis, multi-path mapping, and multi-criteria decision analysis techniques. These techniques generate multiple pathways to potential futures and thereby generate insight into the relative influence of individual drivers of change, the desirability of particular combinations of pathways, and the kinds of capabilities which may be required to influence or mitigate certain outcomes. The study assessed eighteen uses of MPFA for homeland security purposes and found that there are five key applications of MPFA which add significant value to analysis. The first application is generating measures of success and associated progress indicators for strategic planning. The second application is identifying homeland security vulnerabilities and relationships between individual drivers of vulnerability which may amplify or dampen their effects. The third application is selecting appropriate resources and methods of action to influence individual drivers. The fourth application is prioritizing and optimizing path selection preferences and decisions. The fifth application is informing capability development and procurement decisions to build and sustain homeland security organizations. Each of these applications provides a unique perspective of a homeland security issue by comparing a range of potential future outcomes at a set number of intervals and by contrasting the relative resource requirements, opportunity costs, and effectiveness measures of alternative courses of action. These findings indicate that MPFA enhances analysts’ ability to generate tangible measures of success, identify vulnerabilities, select effective courses of action, prioritize future pathway preferences, and contribute to ongoing capability development in homeland security assessments.

Keywords: homeland security, intelligence, national security, operational design, strategic intelligence, strategic planning

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Authors: Inka Maria Vilhelmiina Hiltunen

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The crisis of liberal democracy has been recognized from many sites of political literature; scholars of Marxist critical political economy and deliberative democracy, as well as critics of neoliberalism, have become concerned about how either the rise of populism and authoritarianism, institutional decline or the overarching economic rationality erode political democratic citizenship in favor of economic technocracy or conservative protectionism. However, even if these bodies of literature recognize the generalized crisis that haunts Western democracies, dialogue between them has been very limited. That said, drawing from contemporary Marxist perspectives, this article aims at bridging the gap between the criticism of neoliberalism and theories of deliberative democracy. The first section starts by outlining what is meant by neoliberalism, liberal democracy, and the crisis of liberal democracy. The next section explores how contemporary capitalism acts upon society and transforms it. It introduces Jurgen Habermas’ thesis of the ‘colonization of the lifeworld’, Wendy Brown’s analysis of neoliberal rationality and Étienne Balibar’s concepts of ‘absolute capitalism’ and ‘total subsumption,’ that the essay aims at connecting in the last section. The third section is concerned with the deliberative democratic theory and practice. The section highlights the qualitative socio-political impacts of deliberation, as predicted by theorists and shown by empirical studies. The last section draws from contemporary Marxist perspectives to examine the question if deliberative democratic theories and practices can resolve the crisis of liberal democracy in the current financially driven era of neoliberal capitalism. By asking this question, the essay aims to consider what is required to reverse the current global trend of rising inequality. If liberal democracy has declined towards commodified and reactionary forms of politics and if ‘market rationality’ has shaped social agency to the extent that politicians and the public struggle to imagine ‘any alternatives’, the most urgent political task is to bring to life a new political imagination based on democratic ideals of equality, inclusivity, reciprocity, and solidarity, that thereby enables the revision of the transnational institutional design. This part focuses on the hegemonic role of finance and money. The essay concludes by stating that the implementation of substantive global democracy must start from the dissolution of the hegemony of finance, centered on U.S., and from the remaking of the conditions of socioeconomic reproduction world-wide. However, given the still present overarching neoliberal status quo, the essay is skeptical of the ideological feasibility of this remaking.

Keywords: deliberative democracy, criticism of neoliberalism, marxist political economy, crisis of liberal democracy

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Authors: Mohamed El Fares Djellatou, Fracoise Filion

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The Ashukin program that means bridge in Naskapi or Atikamekw language, has been designed to offer a partnership between nursing students and an indigenous community. The students design a health promotion project tailored to the needs of the community. The issues of intimidation in primary school and cyber-dependence in high school were some concerns in a rural Atikamekw community. The goal of the project was to have a conversation with indigenous youths, aged 10-16 years old, on the challenges presented by intimidation and cyber dependence as well as promoting healthy relationships online and within the community. Methods: Multiple progressive inquiry questions (PIQs) were used to assess the feasibility and importance of this project for the Atikamekw nation, and to determine a plan to follow. The theoretical foundations to guide the conception of the project were the Population Health Promotion Model (PHPM), the First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Model, and the Medicine Wheel. A broad array of social determinants of health were addressed, including healthy childhood development, personal health practices, and coping skills, and education. The youths were encouraged to participate in interactive educational sessions, using PowerPoint presentations and pamphlets as the main effective strategies. Additional tools such as cultural artworks and physical activities were introduced to strengthen the inter-relational and team spirit within the Indigenous population. A quality assurance tool (QAT) was developed specifically to determine the appropriateness of these health promotion tools. Improvements were guided by the feedback issued by the indigenous schools’ teachers and social workers who filled the QATs. Post educational sessions, quantitative results have shown that 93.48% of primary school students were able to identify the different types of intimidation, 72.65% recognized more than two strategies, and 52.1% were able to list at least four resources to diffuse intimidation. On the other hand, around 75% of the adolescents were able to name at least three negative effects, and 50% listed three strategies to reduce cyber-dependence. This project was meant to create a bridge with the First Nation through health promotion, a population that is known to be disadvantaged due to systemic health inequity and disparities. Culturally safe care was proposed to deal with the two identified priority issues, and an educational toolkit was given to both schools to ensure the sustainability of the project. The project was self-financed through fundraising activities, and it yielded better results than expected.

Keywords: indigenous, first nation, bullying, cyber-dependence, internet addiction, intimidation, youth, adolescents, school, community nursing, health promotion

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Authors: Ahmad Kayvani Fard, Gordon Mckay, Muataz Hussien

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Adsorption/sorption is believed to be one of the optimal processes for the removal of heavy metals from water due to its low operational and capital cost as well as its high removal efficiency. Different materials have been reported in literature as adsorbent for heavy metal removal in waste water such as natural sorbents, organic polymers (synthetic) and mineral materials (inorganic). The selection of adsorbents and development of new functional materials that can achieve good removal of heavy metals from water is an important practice and depends on many factors, such as the availability of the material, cost of material, and material safety and etc. In this study we reported the synthesis of doped Activated carbon and Carbon nanotube (CNT) with different loading of metal oxide nanoparticles such as Fe2O3, Fe3O4, Al2O3, TiO2, SiO2 and Ag nanoparticles and their application in removal of heavy metals, hydrocarbon, and organics from waste water. Commercial AC and CNT with different loadings of mentioned nanoparticle were prepared and effect of pH, adsorbent dosage, sorption kinetic, and concentration effects are studied and optimum condition for removal of heavy metals from water is reported. The prepared composite sorbent is characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), the Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) nitrogen adsorption technique, and Zeta potential. The composite materials showed higher removal efficiency and superior adsorption capacity compared to commercially available carbon based adsorbent. The specific surface area of AC increased by 50% reaching up to 2000 m2/g while the CNT specific surface area of CNT increased by more than 8 times reaching value of 890 m2/g. The increased surface area is one of the key parameters along with surface charge of the material determining the removal efficiency and removal efficiency. Moreover, the surface charge density of the impregnated CNT and AC have enhanced significantly where can benefit the adsorption process. The nanoparticles also enhance the catalytic activity of material and reduce the agglomeration and aggregation of material which provides more active site for adsorbing the contaminant from water. Some of the results for treating wastewater includes 100% removal of BTEX, arsenic, strontium, barium, phenolic compounds, and oil from water. The results obtained are promising for the use of AC and CNT loaded with metal oxide nanoparticle in treatment and pretreatment of waste water and produced water before desalination process. Adsorption can be very efficient with low energy consumption and economic feasibility.

Keywords: carbon nanotube, activated carbon, adsorption, heavy metal, water treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 209

Authors: Abiodun Olayinka, Daniel Dzidzienyo, Pangirayi Tongoona, Samuel Offei, Edwige Gaby Nkouaya Mbanjo, Chiedozie Egesi, Ismail Yusuf Rabbi

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Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a major source of starch for various industrial applications. However, the traditional cultivation and harvesting methods of cassava are labour-intensive and inefficient, limiting the supply of fresh cassava roots for industrial starch production. To achieve improved productivity and quality of fresh cassava roots through mechanized cultivation, cassava cultivars with compact plant architecture and moderate plant height are needed. Plant architecture-related traits, such as plant height, harvest index, stem diameter, branching angle, and lodging tolerance, are critical for crop productivity and suitability for mechanized cultivation. However, the genetics of cassava plant architecture remain poorly understood. This study aimed to identify the genetic bases of the relationships between plant architecture traits and productivity-related traits, particularly starch content. A panel of 453 clones developed at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria, was genotyped and phenotyped for 18 plant architecture and productivity-related traits at four locations in Nigeria. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted using the phenotypic data from a panel of 453 clones and 61,238 high-quality Diversity Arrays Technology sequencing (DArTseq) derived Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers that are evenly distributed across the cassava genome. Five significant associations between ten SNPs and three plant architecture component traits were identified through GWAS. We found five SNPs on chromosomes 6 and 16 that were significantly associated with shoot weight, harvest index, and total yield through genome-wide association mapping. We also discovered an essential candidate gene that is co-located with peak SNPs linked to these traits in M. esculenta. A review of the cassava reference genome v7.1 revealed that the SNP on chromosome 6 is in proximity to Manes.06G101600.1, a gene that regulates endodermal differentiation and root development in plants. The findings of this study provide insights into the genetic basis of plant architecture and yield in cassava. Cassava breeders could leverage this knowledge to optimize plant architecture and yield in cassava through marker-assisted selection and targeted manipulation of the candidate gene.

Keywords: manihot esculenta crantz, plant architecture, dartseq, snp markers, genome-wide association study

Procedia PDF Downloads 61

Authors: I. Tiahi

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The aim of the current paper is to explore educational practices in contemporary Algeria. Researches explain such practices bear traditional approach and the overlooks modern teaching methods such as mobile learning. That is why the research output of examining student engagement in respect of mobile learning was obtained from the following objectives: (1) To evaluate the current practice of English language teaching within Algerian higher education institutions, (2) To explore how social constructivism theory and m-learning help students’ engagement in the classroom and (3) To explore the feasibility and acceptability of m-learning amongst institutional leaders. The methodology underpins a case study and action research. For the case study, the researcher engaged with 6 teachers, 4 institutional leaders, and 30 students subjected for semi-structured interviews and classroom observations to explore the current teaching methods for English as a foreign language. For the action research, the researcher applied an intervention course to investigate the possibility and implications for future implementation of mobile learning in higher education institutions. The results were deployed using thematic analysis. The research outcome showed that the disengagement of students in English language learning has many aspects. As seen from the interviews from the teachers, the researcher found that they do not have enough resources except for using ppt for some teacher. According to them, the teaching method they are using is mostly communicative and competency-based approach. Teachers informed that students are disengaged because they have psychological barriers. In classroom setting, the students are conscious about social approval from the peer, and thus if they are to face negative reinforcement which would damage their image, it is seen as a preventive mechanism to be scared of committing mistakes. This was also very reflective in this finding. A lot of other arguments can be given for this claim; however, in Algerian setting, it is usual practice where teachers do not provide positive reinforcement which is open up students for possible learning. Thus, in order to overcome such a psychological barrier, proper measures can be taken. On a conclusive remark, it is evident that teachers, students, and institutional leaders provided positive feedback for using mobile learning. It is not only motivating but also engaging in learning processes. Apps such as Kahoot, Padlet and Slido were well received and thus can be taken further to examine its higher impact in Algerian context. Thus, in the future, it will be important to implement m-learning effectively in higher education to transform the current traditional practices into modern, innovative and active learning. Persuasion for this change for stakeholder may be challenging; however, its long-term benefits can be reflective from the current research paper.

Keywords: Algerian context, mobile learning, social constructivism, student engagement

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: Jeongyeon Park, Yeo Jun Yoon, Jiyoung Seo, In Seok Moon, Hae Jun Lee, Kiwon Song

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Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAPP) is defined as a partially ionized gas with electrically charged particles at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. CAPP generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and has potential as a new apoptosis-promoting cancer therapy. With an annular type dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) CAPP-generating device combined with a helium (He) gas feeding system, we showed that CAPP selectively induced apoptosis in various cancer cells while it promoted proliferation of the adipose tissue-derived stem cell (ASC). The apoptotic effect of CAPP was highly selective toward p53-mutated cancer cells. The intracellular ROS was mainly responsible for apoptotic cell death in CAPP-treated cancer cells. CAPP induced apoptosis even in doxorubicin-resistant cancer cell lines, demonstrating the feasibility of CAPP as a potent cancer therapy. With the same device and exposure conditions to cancer cells, CAPP stimulated proliferation of the ASC, a kind of mesenchymal stem cell that is capable of self-renewing and differentiating into adipocytes, chondrocytes, osteoblasts and neurons. CAPP-treated ASCs expressed the stem cell markers and differentiated into adipocytes as untreated ASCs. The increase of proliferation by CAPP in ASCs was offset by a NO scavenger but was not affected by ROS scavengers, suggesting that NO generated by CAPP is responsible for the activated proliferation in ASCs. Usually, cancer stem cells are reported to be resistant to known cancer therapies. When we applied CAPP of the same device and exposure conditions to cancer cells to liver cancer stem cells (CSCs) that express CD133 and epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) cancer stem cell markers, apoptotic cell death was not examined. Apoptotic cell death of liver CSCs was induced by the CAPP generated from a device with an air-based flatten type DBD. An exposure of liver CSCs to CAPP decreased the viability of liver CSCs to a great extent, suggesting plasma be used as a promising anti-cancer treatment. To validate whether CAPP can be a promising anti-cancer treatment or an adjuvant modality to eliminate remnant tumor in cancer surgery of vestibular schwannoma, we applied CAPP to mouse schwannoma cell line SC4 Nf2 ‑/‑ and human schwannoma cell line HEI-193. A CAPP treatment leads to anti-proliferative effect in both cell lines. We are currently studying the molecular mechanisms of differential physiological effect of CAPP; the proliferation of ASCs and apoptosis of various cancer cells and CSCs.

Keywords: cold atmospheric pressure plasma, apoptosis, proliferation, cancer cells, adult stem cells

Procedia PDF Downloads 256

Authors: Jamuna Loganath

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Education is the key to the development of any individual’s personality. Today’s students will be tomorrow’s citizens of the global society. The education of the student is the edifice on which his/her future will be built. Schools therefore should provide an all-round development of students so as to foster a healthy society. The behaviors and the attitude of the students in school play an essential role for the success of the education process. Frequent reports of misbehaviors such as clowning, harassing classmates, verbal insults are becoming common in schools today. If this issue is left unattended, it may develop a negative attitude and increase the delinquent behavior. So, the need of the hour is to find a solution to this problem. To solve this issue, it is important to monitor the students’ behaviors in school and give necessary feedback and mentor them to develop a positive attitude and help them to become a successful grownup. Nevertheless, measuring students’ behavior and attitude is extremely challenging. None of the present technology has proven to be effective in this measurement process because actions, reactions, interactions, response of the students are rarely used in the course of the data due to complexity. The purpose of this proposal is to recommend an effective supervising system after carrying out a feasibility study by measuring the behavior of the Students. This can be achieved by equipping schools with CCTV cameras. These CCTV cameras installed in various schools of the world capture the facial expressions and interactions of the students inside and outside their classroom. The real time raw videos captured from the CCTV can be uploaded to the cloud with the help of a network. The video feeds get scooped into various nodes in the same rack or on the different racks in the same cluster in Hadoop HDFS. The video feeds are converted into small frames and analyzed using various Pattern recognition algorithms and MapReduce algorithm. Then, the video frames are compared with the bench marking database (good behavior). When misbehavior is detected, an alert message can be sent to the counseling department which helps them in mentoring the students. This will help in improving the effectiveness of the education process. As Video feeds come from multiple geographical areas (schools from different parts of the world), BIG DATA helps in real time analysis as it analyzes computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. It also analyzes data that can’t be analyzed by traditional software applications such as RDBMS, OODBMS. It has also proven successful in handling human reactions with ease. Therefore, BIG DATA could certainly play a vital role in handling this issue. Thus, effectiveness of the education process can be enhanced with the help of video analytics using the latest BIG DATA technology.

Keywords: big data, cloud, CCTV, education process

Procedia PDF Downloads 220

Authors: Saqib Rasool, Adnan N. Mian

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Web components are introduced as the latest standard of HTML5 for writing modular web interfaces for ensuring maintainability through the isolated scope of web components. Reusability can also be achieved by sharing plug-and-play web components that can be used as off-the-shelf components by other developers. A web component encapsulates all the required HTML, CSS and JavaScript code as a standalone package which must be imported for integrating a web component within an existing web interface. It is then followed by the integration of web component with the web services for dynamically populating its content. Since web components are reusable as off-the-shelf components, these must be equipped with some mechanism for ensuring their proper integration with web services. The consistency of a service behavior can be verified through type-checking. This is one of the popular solutions for improving the quality of code in many programming languages. However, HTML does not provide type checking as it is a markup language and not a programming language. The contribution of this work is to introduce a new extension of HTML called Service Type-checking Markup Language (STML) for adding support of type checking in HTML for JSON based REST services. STML can be used for defining the expected data types of response from JSON based REST services which will be used for populating the content within HTML elements of a web component. Although JSON has five data types viz. string, number, boolean, object and array but STML is made to supports only string, number and object. This is because of the fact that both object and array are considered as string, when populated in HTML elements. In order to define the data type of any HTML element, developer just needs to add the custom STML attributes of st-string, st-number and st-boolean for string, number and boolean respectively. These all annotations of STML are used by the developer who is writing a web component and it enables the other developers to use automated type-checking for ensuring the proper integration of their REST services with the same web component. Two utilities have been written for developers who are using STML based web components. One of these utilities is used for automated type-checking during the development phase. It uses the browser console for showing the error description if integrated web service is not returning the response with expected data type. The other utility is a Gulp based command line utility for removing the STML attributes before going in production. This ensures the delivery of STML free web pages in the production environment. Both of these utilities have been tested to perform type checking of REST services through STML based web components and results have confirmed the feasibility of evaluating service behavior only through HTML. Currently, STML is designed for automated type-checking of integrated REST services but it can be extended to introduce a complete service testing suite based on HTML only, and it will transform STML from Service Type-checking Markup Language to Service Testing Markup Language.

Keywords: REST, STML, type checking, web component

Procedia PDF Downloads 227

Authors: Nivedhitha Venkatakrishnan

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Walking down busy temple streets in India is an experience in lifetime. Especially the temple streets are one of the most energetic places not only because of the divinity but also because of the streets itself which provides place for people to relax, meet, shop, linger, just walk around these activities create a set of experience which results in memories that lasts longer. Thinking of any temple street in India the image that comes to anyone’s mind are the elegantly sculpted Gopurams (Gateway) that depicts the craftsmanship and the history of the place, people taking a holy dip in the water, the aroma of the agarbathi’s, flowers with the divine Vedic chants and the sound of the temple bell flock of pigeons flying from the niches of the Gopuram with the sun in the backdrop. It gives a feeling of impulse energy that brings in life to these streets. Any temple street with even any one factor missing would look dead. This will be amiss in the essence in the scene of one’s experiences. These Temple Streets traditionally cater not only for religious purpose but to a wide range of activities. A vibrant street that facilitates such activities are preferred by the public any day. The research seeks to understand and find out the definition of Vibrancy in Indian Context. What is Vibrancy? What brings in the feeling of Vibrancy/Liveliness/Energy? Is it the Built structure and the city? Or is it the people? Or is it the Activity? Or is it Built structure – city – People – Activity put together brings the sense of Vibrancy to a place? How to define Vibrancy? Is it measurable? For which a case of Car Street Udupi, Karnataka is taken. The research is carried out in two stages. ‘Stage One’ makes use of ethnographic fieldwork as a basic method, complimented by structured field observations using a behavioral mapping procedure of the streets. Stage Two’ utilizes surveys that collected. This stage seeks to understand what design characteristics and furniture arrangements are associated with stationary, social and gathering activities of people by each cultural group and all groups collectively. The main conclusion from this research is that retail activities remain the main concern of people in cultural streets. Management and higher-level planning of retail activities on the streets could encourage and motivate possible Shops to enrich the trade variety of the street that provides a means for social and cultural diversity. In addition to business activities, spatial design characteristics are found to have an influence on people’s behavior and activity. The findings of this research suggest that retail and business activities, together with the design and skillful management of the public areas, could support a wider range of static and social activities among people of various ethnic backgrounds.

Keywords: activity, liveliness, temple street, vibrancy

Procedia PDF Downloads 137

Authors: Swati Tomar, Sunil Kumar Gupta

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Anammox is a novel and promising technology that has changed the traditional concept of biological nitrogen removal. The process facilitates direct oxidation of ammonical nitrogen under anaerobic conditions with nitrite as an electron acceptor without the addition of external carbon sources. The present study investigated the feasibility of anammox hybrid reactor (AHR) combining the dual advantages of suspended and attached growth media for biodegradation of ammonical nitrogen in wastewater. The experimental unit consisted of 4 nos. of 5L capacity AHR inoculated with mixed seed culture containing anoxic and activated sludge (1:1). The process was established by feeding the reactors with synthetic wastewater containing NH4-H and NO2-N in the ratio 1:1 at HRT (hydraulic retention time) of 1 day. The reactors were gradually acclimated to higher ammonium concentration till it attained pseudo steady state removal at a total nitrogen concentration of 1200 mg/l. During this period, the performance of the AHR was monitored at twelve different HRTs varying from 0.25-3.0 d with increasing NLR from 0.4 to 4.8 kg N/m3d. AHR demonstrated significantly higher nitrogen removal (95.1%) at optimal HRT of 1 day. Filter media in AHR contributed an additional 27.2% ammonium removal in addition to 72% reduction in the sludge washout rate. This may be attributed to the functional mechanism of filter media which acts as a mechanical sieve and reduces the sludge washout rate many folds. This enhances the biomass retention capacity of the reactor by 25%, which is the key parameter for successful operation of high rate bioreactors. The effluent nitrate concentration, which is one of the bottlenecks of anammox process was also minimised significantly (42.3-52.3 mg/L). Process kinetics was evaluated using first order and Grau-second order models. The first-order substrate removal rate constant was found as 13.0 d-1. Model validation revealed that Grau second order model was more precise and predicted effluent nitrogen concentration with least error (1.84±10%). A new mathematical model based on mass balance was developed to predict N2 gas in AHR. The mass balance model derived from total nitrogen dictated significantly higher correlation (R2=0.986) and predicted N2 gas with least error of precision (0.12±8.49%). SEM study of biomass indicated the presence of the heterogeneous population of cocci and rod shaped bacteria of average diameter varying from 1.2-1.5 mm. Owing to enhanced NRE coupled with meagre production of effluent nitrate and its ability to retain high biomass, AHR proved to be the most competitive reactor configuration for dealing with nitrogen laden wastewater.

Keywords: anammox, filter media, kinetics, nitrogen removal

Procedia PDF Downloads 358

Authors: Santhani M. Selveindran

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Background: Natural disasters are traumatic global events that are becoming increasing more common, with significant psychosocial impact on survivors. This impact results not only in psychosocial distress but, for many, can lead to psychosocial disorders and chronic psychopathology. While there are currently available interventions that seek to prevent and treat these psychosocial sequelae, their effectiveness is uncertain. The evidence-base is emerging with more primary studies evaluating the effectiveness of various psychosocial interventions for survivors of natural disasters, which remains to be synthesized. Aim of Review: To identify, critically appraise and synthesize the current evidence-base on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in preventing or treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in adults and children who are survivors of natural disasters. Methods: A protocol was developed as a guide to carry out this review. A systematic search was conducted in eight international electronic databases, three grey literature databases, one dissertation and thesis repository, websites of six humanitarian and non-governmental organizations renowned for their work on natural disasters, as well as bibliographic and citation searching for eligible articles. Papers meeting the specific inclusion criteria underwent quality assessment using the Downs and Black checklist. Data were extracted from the included papers and analysed by way of narrative synthesis. Results: Database and website searching returned 3777 papers where 31 met the criteria for inclusion. Additional 2 papers were obtained through bibliographic and citation searching. Methodological quality of most papers was fair. Twenty-five studies evaluated psychological interventions, five, social interventions whereas three studies evaluated ‘mixed’ psychological and social interventions. All studies, irrespective of methodological quality, reported post-intervention reductions in symptom scores for PTSD, depression and/or anxiety and where assessed, reduced diagnosis of PTSD and MDD, and produced improvements in self-efficacy and quality of life. Statistically significant results were seen in 27 studies. However, three studies demonstrated that the evaluated interventions may not have been very beneficial. Conclusions: The overall positive results suggest that any psychosocial interventions are favourable and should be delivered to all natural disaster survivors, irrespective of age, country, and phase of disaster. Yet, heterogeneity and methodological shortcomings of the current evidence-base makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions needed to formulate categorical guidance or frameworks. Further, rigorously conducted research is needed in this area, although the feasibility of such, given the context and nature of the problem, is also recognized.

Keywords: psychosocial interventions, natural disasters, survivors, effectiveness

Procedia PDF Downloads 131

Authors: Clare S. Sullivan

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The high desert of central Oregon, USA is a challenging growing environment: short growing season (70-100 days); average annual precipitation of 280 mm; drastic swings in diurnal temperatures; possibility of frost any time of year; and sandy soils low in organic matter. Despite strong demand, there is almost no fruit grown in central Oregon due to potential yield loss caused by early and late frosts. Elsewhere in the USA, protected culture (i.e., high tunnels) has been used to extend fruit production seasons and improve yields. In central Oregon, high tunnels are used to grow multiple high-value vegetable crops, and farmers are unlikely to plant a perennial crop in a high tunnel unless proven profitable. In May 2019, two berry trials were established on a farm in Alfalfa, OR, to evaluate raspberry and strawberry yield, season length, and fruit quality in protected (high tunnels) vs. unprotected culture (open field). The main objective was to determine whether high tunnel berry production is a viable enterprise for the region. Each trial was arranged using a split-plot design. The main factor was the production system (high tunnel vs. open field), and the replicated, subplot factor was berry variety. Four day-neutral strawberry varieties and four primocane-bearing raspberry varieties were planted for the study and were managed using organic practices. Berries were harvested once a week early in the season, and twice a week as production increased. Harvested berries were separated into ‘marketable’ and ‘unmarketable’ in order to calculate percent cull. First-year results revealed berry yield and quality differences between varieties and production systems. Strawberry marketable yield and berry fruit size increased significantly in the high tunnel compared to the field; percent yield increase ranged from 7-46% by variety. Evie 2 was the highest yielding strawberry, although berry quality was lower than other berries. Raspberry marketable yield and berry fruit size tended to increase in the high tunnel compared to the field, although variety had a more significant effect. Joan J was the highest yielding raspberry and out-yielded the other varieties by 250% outdoor and 350% indoor. Overall, strawberry and raspberry yields tended to improve in high tunnels as compared to the field, but data from a second year will help determine whether high tunnel investment is worthwhile. It is expected that the production system will have more of an effect on berry yield and season length for second-year plants in 2020.

Keywords: berries, high tunnel, local food, organic

Procedia PDF Downloads 88

Authors: Usharani Rathinam

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Although policies directing inclusion of marginalized were in effect, majority of chronically impoverished in India belonged to schedule caste and schedule tribes. Also, taking into account that poverty is gendered; destitute women belonged to lower social order whose need is not largely highlighted at policy level. This paper discusses on social relations poverty which highlights on how social order that existed structurally in the society can perpetuate chronic poverty, followed by a critical review on social inclusion policies of India, its merits and demerits in addressing chronic poverty. Multiple case study design is utilized to address this concern in four districts of India; Jhansi, Tikamgarh, Cuddalore and Anantapur. These four districts were selected by purposive sampling based on the criteria; the district should either be categorized as a backward district or should have a history of high poverty rate. Qualitative methods including eighty in-depth interviews, six focus group discussions, six social mapping procedures and three key informant interviews were conducted in 2011, at each of the locations. Analysis of the data revealed that irrespective of gender, schedule castes and schedule tribe participants were found to be chronically poor in all districts. Caste based discrimination is exhibited at both micro and macro levels; village and institutional levels. At village level, lower caste respondents had lesser access to public resources. Also, within institutional settings, due to confiscation, unequal access to resources is noticed, especially in fund distribution. This study found that half of the budget intended for schedule caste and schedule tribes were confiscated by upper caste administrative staffs. This implies that power based on social hierarchy marginalize lower caste participants from accessing better economic, social, and political benefits, that had led them to suffer long term poverty. This study also explored the traditional ties between caste, social structure and bonded labour as a cause of long-term poverty. Though equal access is being emphasized in constitutional rights, issues at micro level have not been reflected in formulation of these rights. Therefore, it is significant for a policy to consider the structural complexity and then focus on issues such as equal distribution of assets and infrastructural facilities that will reduce exclusion and foster long-term security in areas such as employment, markets and public distribution.

Keywords: caste, inclusion policies, India, social order

Procedia PDF Downloads 183

Authors: Ibrahim A. Adeniran, Rui F. Zhu, Man S. Wong

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Owing to the insufficiency in the spatial representativeness and continuity of in situ temperature measurements from weather stations (WS), the use of temperature measurement from WS for large-range diurnal analysis in heterogenous landscapes has been limited. This has made the accurate estimation of land surface temperature (LST) from remotely sensed data more crucial. Moreover, the study of dynamic interaction between the atmosphere and the physical surface of the Earth could be enhanced at both annual and diurnal scales by using optimal LST data derived from satellite sensors. The tradeoff between the spatial and temporal resolution of LSTs from satellite’s thermal infrared sensors (TIRS) has, however, been a major challenge, especially when high spatiotemporal LST data are recommended. It is well-known from existing literature that polar satellites have the advantage of high spatial resolution, while geostationary satellites have a high temporal resolution. Hence, this study is aimed at designing a framework for the cross-comparison of LST data from polar and geostationary satellites in a heterogeneous landscape. This could help to understand the relationship between the LST estimates from the two satellites and, consequently, their integration in diurnal LST analysis. Landsat-8 satellite data will be used as the representative of the polar satellite due to the availability of its long-term series, while the Himawari-8 satellite will be used as the data source for the geostationary satellite because of its improved TIRS. For the study area, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HK SAR) will be selected; this is due to the heterogeneity in the landscape of the region. LST data will be retrieved from both satellites using the Split window algorithm (SWA), and the resulting data will be validated by comparing satellite-derived LST data with temperature data from automatic WS in HK SAR. The LST data from the satellite data will then be separated based on the land use classification in HK SAR using the Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organization version3 (GLCNMO 2013) data. The relationship between LST data from Landsat-8 and Himawari-8 will then be investigated based on the land-use class and over different seasons of the year in order to account for seasonal variation in their relationship. The resulting relationship will be spatially and statistically analyzed and graphically visualized for detailed interpretation. Findings from this study will reveal the relationship between the two satellite data based on the land use classification within the study area and the seasons of the year. While the information provided by this study will help in the optimal combination of LST data from Polar (Landsat-8) and geostationary (Himawari-8) satellites, it will also serve as a roadmap in the annual and diurnal urban heat (UHI) analysis in Hong Kong SAR.

Keywords: automatic weather station, Himawari-8, Landsat-8, land surface temperature, land use classification, split window algorithm, urban heat island

Procedia PDF Downloads 47

Authors: T. Garlan, I. Gabelotaud, S. Lucas, E. Marchès

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Production of a global sedimentological seabed map has been initiated in 1995 to provide the necessary tool for searches of aircraft and boats lost at sea, to give sedimentary information for nautical charts, and to provide input data for acoustic propagation modelling. This original approach had already been initiated one century ago when the French hydrographic service and the University of Nancy had produced maps of the distribution of marine sediments of the French coasts and then sediment maps of the continental shelves of Europe and North America. The current map of the sediment of oceans presented was initiated with a UNESCO's general map of the deep ocean floor. This map was adapted using a unique sediment classification to present all types of sediments: from beaches to the deep seabed and from glacial deposits to tropical sediments. In order to allow good visualization and to be adapted to the different applications, only the granularity of sediments is represented. The published seabed maps are studied, if they present an interest, the nature of the seabed is extracted from them, the sediment classification is transcribed and the resulted map is integrated in the world map. Data come also from interpretations of Multibeam Echo Sounder (MES) imagery of large hydrographic surveys of deep-ocean. These allow a very high-quality mapping of areas that until then were represented as homogeneous. The third and principal source of data comes from the integration of regional maps produced specifically for this project. These regional maps are carried out using all the bathymetric and sedimentary data of a region. This step makes it possible to produce a regional synthesis map, with the realization of generalizations in the case of over-precise data. 86 regional maps of the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean have been produced and integrated into the world sedimentary map. This work is permanent and permits a digital version every two years, with the integration of some new maps. This article describes the choices made in terms of sediment classification, the scale of source data and the zonation of the variability of the quality. This map is the final step in a system comprising the Shom Sedimentary Database, enriched by more than one million punctual and surface items of data, and four series of coastal seabed maps at 1:10,000, 1:50,000, 1:200,000 and 1:1,000,000. This step by step approach makes it possible to take into account the progresses in knowledge made in the field of seabed characterization during the last decades. Thus, the arrival of new classification systems for seafloor has improved the recent seabed maps, and the compilation of these new maps with those previously published allows a gradual enrichment of the world sedimentary map. But there is still a lot of work to enhance some regions, which are still based on data acquired more than half a century ago.

Keywords: marine sedimentology, seabed map, sediment classification, world ocean

Procedia PDF Downloads 207

Authors: Mahmoud Reza Hosseini

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The universe is in a continuous expansion process, resulting in the reduction of its density and temperature. Also, by extrapolating back from its current state, the universe at its early times is studied, known as the big bang theory. According to this theory, moments after creation, the universe was an extremely hot and dense environment. However, its rapid expansion due to nuclear fusion led to a reduction in its temperature and density. This is evidenced through the cosmic microwave background and the universe structure at a large scale. However, extrapolating back further from this early state reaches singularity, which cannot be explained by modern physics, and the big bang theory is no longer valid. In addition, one can expect a nonuniform energy distribution across the universe from a sudden expansion. However, highly accurate measurements reveal an equal temperature mapping across the universe, which is contradictory to the big bang principles. To resolve this issue, it is believed that cosmic inflation occurred at the very early stages of the birth of the universe. According to the cosmic inflation theory, the elements which formed the universe underwent a phase of exponential growth due to the existence of a large cosmological constant. The inflation phase allows the uniform distribution of energy so that an equal maximum temperature can be achieved across the early universe. Also, the evidence of quantum fluctuations of this stage provides a means for studying the types of imperfections the universe would begin with. Although well-established theories such as cosmic inflation and the big bang together provide a comprehensive picture of the early universe and how it evolved into its current state, they are unable to address the singularity paradox at the time of universe creation. Therefore, a practical model capable of describing how the universe was initiated is needed. This research series aims at addressing the singularity issue by introducing a state of energy called a "neutral state," possessing an energy level that is referred to as the "base energy." The governing principles of base energy are discussed in detail in our second paper in the series "A Conceptual Study for Addressing the Singularity of the Emerging Universe," which is discussed in detail. To establish a complete picture, the origin of the base energy should be identified and studied. In this research paper, the mechanism which led to the emergence of this natural state and its corresponding base energy is proposed. In addition, the effect of the base energy in the space-time fabric is discussed. Finally, the possible role of the base energy in quantization and energy exchange is investigated. Therefore, the proposed concept in this research series provides a road map for enhancing our understating of the universe's creation from nothing and its evolution and discusses the possibility of base energy as one of the main building blocks of this universe.

Keywords: big bang, cosmic inflation, birth of universe, energy creation, universe evolution

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Authors: Asrarul H. Jeelani

Abstract:

Arsenic contamination of groundwater and its’ health implications in lower Gangetic plain of Indian states started reporting in the 1980s. The same period was declared as the first water decade (1981-1990) to achieve ‘water for all.’ To fulfill the aim, the Indian government, with the support of international agencies installed millions of hand-pumps through water resources development programs. The hand-pumps improve the accessibility if the groundwater, but over-extraction of it increases the chances of mixing of trivalent arsenic which is more toxic than pentavalent arsenic of dug well water in Gangetic plain and has different physical manifestations. Now after three decades, Bihar (middle Gangetic plain) is also facing arsenic contamination of groundwater and its’ health implications. Objective: This interdisciplinary research attempts to understand the health and social implications of arsenicosis among different castes in Haldi Chhapra village and to find the association of ramifications with water resources development. Methodology: The Study used concurrent quantitative dominant mix method (QUAN+qual). The researcher had employed household survey, social mapping, interviews, and participatory interactions. However, the researcher used secondary data for retrospective analysis of hand-pumps and implications of arsenicosis. Findings: The study found 88.5% (115) household have hand-pumps as a source of water however 13.8% uses purified supplied water bottle and 3.6% uses combinations of hand-pump, bottled water and dug well water for drinking purposes. Among the population, 3.65% of individuals have arsenicosis, and 2.72% of children between the age group of 5 to 15 years are affected. The caste variable has also emerged through quantitative as well as geophysical locations analysis as 5.44% of arsenicosis manifested individual belong to scheduled caste (SC), 3.89% to extremely backward caste (EBC), 2.57% to backward caste (BC) and 3% to other. Among three clusters of arsenic poisoned locations, two belong to SC and EBC. The village as arsenic affected is being discriminated, whereas the affected individual is also facing discrimination, isolation, stigma, and problem in getting married. The forceful intervention to install hand-pumps in the first water decades and later restructuring of the dug well destroyed a conventional method of dug well cleaning. Conclusion: The common manifestation of arsenicosis has increased by 1.3% within six years of span in the village. This raised the need for setting up a proper surveillance system in the village. It is imperative to consider the social structure for arsenic mitigation program as this research reveals caste as a significant factor. The health and social implications found in the study; retrospectively analyzed as the collateral impact of water resource development programs in the village.

Keywords: arsenicosis, caste, collateral impact, water resources

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