Search results for: temporal and spatial variation

Authors: Amin Masoumiganjgah, Luke Salmon, Julianne Burnton, Fahimeh Bagheri, Gavin Lenton, S. L. Ezekial Tan

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Introduction: The incidence of proximal biceps tenodesis and acute distal biceps repair is increasing, and rehabilitation protocols following both are variable. Golf is a popular sport within Australia, and the Gold Coast has become a Mecca for golfers, with more courses per capita than anywhere else in the world. Currently, there are no clear guidelines regarding return to golf play following biceps procedures. The aim of this study was to determine biceps brachii activation during the golf swing through electromyographic analysis, and subsequently, aid in rehabilitation guidelines and return to golf following tenodesis and repair. Methods: Subjects were amateur golfers with no previous upper limb surgery. Surface electromyography (EMG) and high-speed video recording were used to analyse activation of the left and right biceps brachii and the anterior deltoid during the golf swing. Each participant’s maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) was recorded, and they were then required to hit a golf ball aiming for specific distances of 2, 50, 100 and 150 metres at a driving range. Noraxon myoResearch and Matlab were used for data analysis. Mean % MVC was calculated for leading and trailing arms during the full swing and its’ 4 phases: back-swing, acceleration, early follow-through and late follow-through. Results: 12 golfers (2 female and 10 male), participated in the study. Median age was 27 (25 – 38), with all being right handed. Over all distances, the mean activation of the short and long head of biceps brachii was < 10% through the full swing. When breaking down the 50, 100 and 150m swing into phases, mean MVC activation was lowest in backswing (5.1%), followed by acceleration (9.7%), early follow-through (9.2%), and late follow-through (21.4%). There was more variation and slightly higher activation in the right biceps (trailing arm) in backswing, acceleration, and early follow-through; with higher activation in the leading arm in late follow-through (25.4% leading, 17.3% trailing). 2m putts resulted in low MVC values (3.1% ) with little variation across swing phases. There was considerable individual variation in results – one tense subject averaged 11.0% biceps MVC through the 2m putting stroke and others recorded peak mean MVC biceps activations of 68.9% at 50m, 101.3% at 100m, and 111.3% at 150m. Discussion: Previous studies have investigated the role of rotator cuff, spine, and hip muscles during the golf swing however, to our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the activation of biceps brachii. Many rehabilitation programs following a biceps tenodesis or repair allow active range against gravity and restrict strengthening exercises until 6 weeks, and this does not appear to be associated with any adverse outcome. Previous studies demonstrate a range of < 10% MVC is similar to the unloaded biceps brachii during walking(1), active elbow flexion with the hand positioned either in pronation or supination will produce MVC < 20% throughout range(2) and elbow flexion with a 4kg dumbbell can produce mean MVC’s of around 40%(3). Our study demonstrates that increasing activation is associated with the leading arm, increasing shot distance and the late follow-through phase. Although the cohort mean MVC of the biceps brachii is <10% through the full swing, variability is high and biceps activation reach peak mean MVC’s of over 100% in different swing phases for some individuals. Given these EMG values, caution is advised when advising patients post biceps procedures to return to long distance golf shots, particularly when the leading arm is involved. Even though it would appear that putting would be as safe as having an unloaded hand out of a sling following biceps procedures, the variability of activation patterns across different golfers would lead us to caution against accelerated golf rehabilitation in those who may be particularly tense golfers. The 50m short iron shot was too long to consider as a chip shot and more work can be done in this area to determine the safety of chipping.

Keywords: electromyographic analysis, biceps brachii rupture, golf swing, tendon surgery

Procedia PDF Downloads 68

Authors: Gamze Safak, Umut Arslanoglu

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Cultural and tourism conservation and development zones and tourism centers are the boundaries declared for the purpose of protecting, using, and evaluating the sectoral development and planned development in areas where historical and cultural values are heavily involved and/or where tourism potential is high. The most rapidly changing regions in Turkey are tourism areas, especially the coastal areas. Planning these regions is not about only an economic gain but also a natural and physical environment and refers to a complex process. If the tourism sector is not well controlled, excessive use of natural resources and wrong location choices may cause damage to natural areas, historical values, and socio-cultural structure. Since the strategic decisions taken in the environmental order and zoning plans, which are the means of guiding the physical environment of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which have the authority to make plans in tourism centers, are transformed into plan decisions that find the spatial expression, comprehensive evaluation of all kinds of data, following the historical development and based on the correct and current data is required. In addition, the authority has a number of competences in tourism promotion as well as the authority to plan, leading to the necessity of taking part in the applications requiring complex analysis such as the management and integration of the country's economic, political, social and cultural resources. For this purpose, Tourism Inventory System (TES) project, which consists of a series of subsystems, has been developed in order to solve complex planning and method problems in the management of site-related information. The scope of the project is based on the integration of numerical and verbal data in the regions within the jurisdiction of the authority, and the monitoring of the historical development of urban planning studies, making the spatial data of the institution easily accessible, shared, questionable and traceable in international standards. A dynamic and continuous system design has been put into practice by utilizing the advantage of the use of Geographical Information Systems in the planning process to play a role in making the right decisions, revealing the tools of social, economic, cultural development, and preservation of natural and cultural values. This paper, which is prepared by the project team members in TES (Tourism Inventory System), will present a study regarding the applicability of GIS in cultural and natural heritage conservation.

Keywords: cultural conservation, GIS, geographic information system, tourism inventory system, urban planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 107

Authors: Jerzy Bański

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Central and Eastern European agriculture is characterized by large spatial variations in the structure of agricultural land and the structure of crops on arable land. In general, field crops predominate among the land used for agriculture. In the southern part of the study area, permanent crops have a relatively large share, which is due to favorable climatic conditions. Clear differences between the north and south of the region concern the structure of crop cultivation. In the north, the cultivation of cereals, mainly wheat, definitely prevails. In the south of the region, on the other hand, the structure of crops is more diverse, as more industrial crops are grown in addition to cereals. The primary cognitive objective of the study is to diagnose and identify the directions of changes in the structure of agricultural land use in the CEE region. Particular attention was paid to the spatial differentiation of this structure and its importance in its formation of various conditions. The analysis included the basic elements of the structure of agricultural land use and the structure of crops on arable land. The decrease in the area of arable land is characteristic of the entire region and is the result of the territorial growth of cities, the development of communications infrastructure (rail and road), and the increase in the rationality of crop production involving, among other things, the exclusion from the cultivation of land with the lowest agro-ecological values and their afforestation. It can be summarized that the directions of changes in the basic categories of agricultural land are related to agro-ecological conditions, which indicates an increase in the rationality of crop production. In countries with lower-quality of agricultural production space, the share of grassland generally increased, while in countries with favorable conditions -mainly soil- the share of arable land increased. As for the structure of field crops, the direction of its changes seems to be mainly due to economic and social reasons. Ownership changes shaping an unfavorable agrarian structure (fragmentation and fragmentation of arable fields) and the process of aging of the rural population resulted in the abandonment of resource- and labor-intensive crops. As a result, the importance of growing fruits and vegetables, and potatoes has declined. The structure of vegetable crops has been greatly influenced by the accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the European Union. This is primarily the increase in the importance of oil crops (rapeseed and sunflower) related to biofuel production. In the case of cereal crops, the main direction of change was the increase in the share of wheat at the expense of other cereal species.

Keywords: agriculture, land use, Central and Eastern Europe, crops, arable land

Procedia PDF Downloads 64

Authors: Gustavo Cruz-Bello

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Progreso is a coastal community in Yucatan, Mexico, highly exposed to floods produced by severe storms and tropical cyclones. A participatory cartography approach was conducted to help to reduce floods disasters and assess social vulnerability within the community. The first step was to engage local authorities in risk management to facilitate the process. Two workshop were conducted, in the first, a poster size printed high spatial resolution satellite image of the town was used to gather information from the participants: eight women and seven men, among them construction workers, students, government employees and fishermen, their ages ranged between 23 and 58 years old. For the first task, participants were asked to locate emblematic places and place them in the image to familiarize with it. Then, they were asked to locate areas that get flooded, the buildings that they use as refuges, and to list actions that they usually take to reduce vulnerability, as well as to collectively come up with others that might reduce disasters. The spatial information generated at the workshops was digitized and integrated into a GIS environment. A printed version of the map was reviewed by local risk management experts, who validated feasibility of proposed actions. For the second workshop, we retrieved the information back to the community for feedback. Additionally a survey was applied in one household per block in the community to obtain socioeconomic, prevention and adaptation data. The information generated from the workshops was contrasted, through T and Chi Squared tests, with the survey data in order to probe the hypothesis that poorer or less educated people, are less prepared to face floods (more vulnerable) and live near or among higher presence of floods. Results showed that a great majority of people in the community are aware of the hazard and are prepared to face it. However, there was not a consistent relationship between regularly flooded areas with people’s average years of education, house services, or house modifications against heavy rains to be prepared to hazards. We could say that the participatory cartography intervention made participants aware of their vulnerability and made them collectively reflect about actions that can reduce disasters produced by floods. They also considered that the final map could be used as a communication and negotiation instrument with NGO and government authorities. It was not found that poorer and less educated people are located in areas with higher presence of floods.

Keywords: climate change, floods, Mexico, participatory mapping, social vulnerability

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Juhi Kaushik, Abhishek Agarwal, Manoj Sarda, Vatsal Sanjay, Arup Kumar Das

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Fire accidents in trains bring huge disaster to human life and property. Evacuation becomes a major challenge in such incidents owing to confined spaces, large passenger density and trains moving at high speeds. The pantry car in Indian Railways trains carry inflammable materials like cooking fuel and LPG and electrical fittings. The pantry car is therefore highly susceptible to fire accidents. Numerical simulations have been done in a pantry car of Indian locomotive train using computational fluid dynamics based software. Different scenarios of a fire outbreak have been explored by varying Heat Release Rate per Unit Area (HRRPUA) of the fire source, introduction of exhaust in the cooking area, and taking a case of an air conditioned pantry car. Temporal statures of flame and soot have been obtained for each scenario and differences have been studied and reported. Inputs from this study can be used to assess casualties in fire accidents in locomotive trains and development of smoke control/detection systems in Indian trains.

Keywords: fire propagation, flame contour, pantry fire, soot flow

Procedia PDF Downloads 327

Authors: Bader Eddin Al Asali, N. Srinivasa Reddy

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Cities are dynamic in nature and are characterized by concentration of people, infrastructure, services and markets, which offer opportunities for production and consumption. Often growth and development in urban areas is not systematic, and is directed by number of factors like natural growth, land prices, housing availability, job locations-the central business district (CBD’s), transportation routes, distribution of resources, geographical boundaries, administrative policies, etc. One sided spatial and geographical development in cities leads to the unequal spatial distribution of population and jobs, resulting in high transportation activity. City development can be measured by the parameters such as urban size, urban form, urban shape, and urban structure. Urban Size is the city size and defined by the population of the city, and urban form is the location and size of the economic activity (CBD) over the geographical space. Urban shape is the geometrical shape of the city over which the distribution of population and economic activity occupied. And Urban Structure is the transport network within which the population and activity centers are connected by hierarchy of roads. Among the urban land-use systems transportation plays significant role and is one of the largest energy consuming sector. Transportation interaction among the land uses is measured in Passenger-Km and mean trip length, and is often used as a proxy for measurement of energy consumption in transportation sector. Among the trips generated in cities, work trips constitute more than 70 percent. Work trips are originated from the place of residence and destination to the place of employment. To understand the role of urban parameters on transportation interaction, theoretical cities of different size and urban specifications are generated through building block exercise using a specially developed interactive C++ programme and land use transportation modeling is carried. The land-use transportation modeling exercise helps in understanding the role of urban parameters and also to classify the cities for their urban form, structure, and shape. Muscat the capital city of Oman underwent rapid urbanization over the last four decades is taken as a case study for its classification. Also, a pilot survey is carried to capture urban travel characteristics. Analysis of land-use transportation modeling with field data classified Muscat as a linear city with polycentric CBD. Conclusions are drawn suggestion are given for policy making for the sustainability of Muscat City.

Keywords: land-use transportation, transportation modeling urban form, urban structure, urban rule parameters

Procedia PDF Downloads 257

Authors: Nazia Muhsin, Tofael Ahamed, Ryozo Noguchi, Tomohiro Takigawa

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One of the most challenging issues to achieve sustainable development on food security is land use changes. The crisis of lands for agricultural production mainly arises from the unplanned transformation of agricultural lands to infrastructure development i.e. urbanization and industrialization. Land use without sustainability assessment could have impact on the food security and environmental protections. Bangladesh, as the densely populated country with limited arable lands is now facing challenges to meet sustainable food security. Agricultural lands are using for economic growth by establishing industries. The industries are spreading from urban areas to the suburban areas and using the agricultural lands. To minimize the agricultural land losses for unplanned industrialization, compact economic zones should be find out in a scientific approach. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to find out suitable sites for industrial growth by land suitability analysis (LSA) by using Geographical Information System (GIS) and multi-criteria analysis (MCA). The goal of the study was to emphases both agricultural lands and industries for sustainable development in land use. The study also attempted to analysis the agricultural land use changes in a suburban area by statistical data of agricultural lands and primary data of the existing industries of the study place. The criteria were selected as proximity to major roads, and proximity to local roads, distant to rivers, waterbodies, settlements, flood-flow zones, agricultural lands for the LSA. The spatial dataset for the criteria were collected from the respective departments of Bangladesh. In addition, the elevation spatial dataset were used from the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) data source. The criteria were further analyzed with factors and constraints in ArcGIS®. Expert’s opinion were applied for weighting the criteria according to the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a multi-criteria technique. The decision rule was set by using ‘weighted overlay’ tool to aggregate the factors and constraints with the weights of the criteria. The LSA found only 5% of land was most suitable for industrial sites and few compact lands for industrial zones. The developed LSA are expected to help policy makers of land use and urban developers to ensure the sustainability of land uses and agricultural production.

Keywords: AHP (analytical hierarchy process), GIS (geographic information system), LSA (land suitability analysis), MCA (multi-criteria analysis)

Procedia PDF Downloads 252

Authors: Fathi Abubrig, Mohamed Delfag, Suad Abuzariba

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The influence of the crystal field interactions on the mixed spin-3/2 and spin-5/2 ferromagnetic Ising system is considered by using the mean field theory based on Bogoliubov inequality for the Gibbs free energy. The ground-state phase diagram is constructed, the phase diagrams of the second-order critical temperatures are obtained, and the thermal variation of the sublattice magnetizations is investigated in detail. We find some interesting phenomena for the sublattice magnetizations at particular values of the crystal field interactions.

Keywords: crystal field, Ising system, ferromagnetic, magnetization, phase diagrams

Procedia PDF Downloads 474

Authors: Babak Forouraghi

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A genetic circuit is a collection of interacting genes and proteins that enable individual cells to implement and perform vital biological functions such as cell division, growth, death, and signaling. In cell engineering, synthetic gene circuits are engineered networks of genes specifically designed to implement functionalities that are not evolved by nature. These engineered networks enable scientists to tackle complex problems such as engineering cells to produce therapeutics within the patient's body, altering T cells to target cancer-related antigens for treatment, improving antibody production using engineered cells, tissue engineering, and production of genetically modified plants and livestock. Construction of computational models to realize genetic circuits is an especially challenging task since it requires the discovery of the flow of genetic information in complex biological systems. Building synthetic biological models is also a time-consuming process with relatively low prediction accuracy for highly complex genetic circuits. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the utility of a pre-trained bidirectional encoder transformer that can accurately predict gene expressions in genetic circuit designs. The main reason behind using transformers is their innate ability (attention mechanism) to take account of the semantic context present in long DNA chains that are heavily dependent on the spatial representation of their constituent genes. Previous approaches to gene circuit design, such as CNN and RNN architectures, are unable to capture semantic dependencies in long contexts, as required in most real-world applications of synthetic biology. For instance, RNN models (LSTM, GRU), although able to learn long-term dependencies, greatly suffer from vanishing gradient and low-efficiency problem when they sequentially process past states and compresses contextual information into a bottleneck with long input sequences. In other words, these architectures are not equipped with the necessary attention mechanisms to follow a long chain of genes with thousands of tokens. To address the above-mentioned limitations, a transformer model was built in this work as a variation to the existing DNA Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (DNABERT) model. It is shown that the proposed transformer is capable of capturing contextual information from long input sequences with an attention mechanism. In previous works on genetic circuit design, the traditional approaches to classification and regression, such as Random Forrest, Support Vector Machine, and Artificial Neural Networks, were able to achieve reasonably high R2 accuracy levels of 0.95 to 0.97. However, the transformer model utilized in this work, with its attention-based mechanism, was able to achieve a perfect accuracy level of 100%. Further, it is demonstrated that the efficiency of the transformer-based gene expression classifier is not dependent on the presence of large amounts of training examples, which may be difficult to compile in many real-world gene circuit designs.

Keywords: machine learning, classification and regression, gene circuit design, bidirectional transformers

Procedia PDF Downloads 48

Authors: Xiaojie Jiang, Wei Cai, Yinxiao Xiang, Ni Zhang, Mengxin Ren, Xinzheng Zhang, Jingjun Xu

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Reflection phase of graphene plasmons (GPs) at an abrupt interface is very important, which determines the plasmon resonance of graphene structures of deep sub-wavelength scales. However, at an abrupt graphene edge, the reflection phase is always a constant, ΦR ≈ π/4. In this work, we show that the reflection phase of GPs can be efficiently changed through substrate design. Reflection phase of graphene plasmons (GPs) at an abrupt interface is very important, which determines the plasmon resonance of graphene structures of deep sub-wavelength scales. However, at an abrupt graphene edge, the reflection phase is always a constant, ΦR ≈ π/4. In this work, we show that the reflection phase of GPs can be efficiently changed through substrate design. Specifically, the reflection phase is no longer π/4 at the interface formed by placing a graphene sheet on different substrates. Moreover, tailorable reflection phase of GPs up to 2π variation can be further achieved by scattering GPs at a junction consisting of two such dielectric interfaces with various gap width acting as a Fabry-Perot cavity. Besides, the evolution of plasmon mode in graphene ribbons based on the interface reflection phase tuning is predicted, which is expected to be observed in near-field experiments with scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM). Our work provides another way for in-plane plasmon control, which should find applications for integrated plasmon devices design using graphene.Specifically, the reflection phase is no longer π/4 at the interface formed by placing a graphene sheet on different substrates. Moreover, tailorable reflection phase of GPs up to 2π variation can be further achieved by scattering GPs at a junction consisting of two such dielectric interfaces with various gap width acting as a Fabry-Perot cavity. Besides, the evolution of plasmon mode in graphene ribbons based on the interface reflection phase tuning is predicted, which is expected to be observed in near-field experiments with scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM). Our work provides a new way for in-plane plasmon control, which should find applications for integrated plasmon devices design using graphene.

Keywords: graphene plasmons, reflection phase tuning, plasmon mode tuning, Fabry-Perot cavity

Procedia PDF Downloads 137

Authors: Zdravko Trivic, Kelvin E. Y. Low, Darko Radovic, Raymond Lucas

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Our understanding and experience of the built environment are primarily shaped by multi‐sensory, emotional and symbolic modes of exchange with spaces. Associated sensory and cognitive declines that come with ageing substantially affect the overall quality of life of the elderly citizens and the ways they perceive and use urban environment. Reduced mobility and increased risk of falls, problems with spatial orientation and communication, lower confidence and independence levels, decreased willingness to go out and social withdrawal are some of the major consequences of sensory declines that challenge almost all segments of the seniors’ everyday living. However, contemporary urban environments are often either sensory overwhelming or depleting, resulting in physical, mental and emotional stress. Moreover, the design and planning of housing neighbourhoods hardly go beyond the passive 'do-no-harm' and universal design principles, and the limited provision of often non-integrated eldercare and inter-generational facilities. This paper explores and discusses the largely neglected relationships between the 'hard' and 'soft' aspects of housing neighbourhoods and urban experience, focusing on seniors’ perception and multi-sensory experience as vehicles for design and planning of high-density housing neighbourhoods that are inclusive and empathetic yet build senior residents’ physical and mental abilities at different stages of ageing. The paper outlines methods and key findings from research conducted in two high-density housing neighbourhoods in Singapore with aims to capture and evaluate multi-sensorial qualities of two neighbourhoods from the perspective of senior residents. Research methods employed included: on-site sensory recordings of 'objective' quantitative sensory data (air temperature and humidity, sound level and luminance) using multi-function environment meter, spatial mapping of patterns of elderly users’ transient and stationary activity, socio-sensory perception surveys and sensorial journeys with local residents using eye-tracking glasses, and supplemented by walk-along or post-walk interviews. The paper develops a multi-sensory framework to synthetize, cross-reference, and visualise the activity and spatio-sensory rhythms and patterns and distill key issues pertinent to ageing-friendly and health-supportive neighbourhood design. Key findings show senior residents’ concerns with walkability, safety, and wayfinding, overall aesthetic qualities, cleanliness, smell, noise, and crowdedness in their neighbourhoods, as well as the lack of design support for all-day use in the context of Singaporean tropical climate and for inter-generational social interaction. The (ongoing) analysis of eye-tracking data reveals the spatial elements of senior residents’ look at and interact with the most frequently, with the visual range often directed towards the ground. With capacities to meaningfully combine quantitative and qualitative, measured and experienced sensory data, multi-sensory framework shows to be fruitful for distilling key design opportunities based on often ignored aspects of subjective and often taken-for-granted interactions with the familiar outdoor environment. It offers an alternative way of leveraging the potentials of housing neighbourhoods to take a more active role in enabling healthful living at all stages of ageing.

Keywords: ageing-friendly neighbourhoods, eye-tracking, high-density environment, multi-sensory approach, perception

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: Aisha Iddrisu, Ferruh Uztuğ

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This study is a quantitative content analysis of advertising message strategies used in Ghana’s TV commercials (2020-2021) using the modified strategy of Wang and Praet (2016) with the objective of exploring the various advertising message strategies used in Ghana’s TV advertisement, its variation according to product category including the most widely used message strategy. The findings indicate that, out of the 220 commercials used in the study, the Affective message strategy (n=122, 55%) was the dominant message strategy used in Ghana’s TV commercials. The most advertised product category in Ghana’s TV commercials (2020-2021) was the food category, and a significant relationship was observed between message strategy and product category as well as message strategy and brand type.

Keywords: advertising, message strategy, Ghana, television

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: H. Imad, Y. Cheah, O. Aamera

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The aims of this research are to study the mitochondrial non-coding region by using the Sanger sequencing technique and establish the degree of variation characteristics of a fragment. FTA® Technology (FTA™ paper DNA extraction) utilized to extract DNA. A portion of a non-coding region encompassing positions 37 to 340 amplified in accordance with the Anderson reference sequence. PCR products purified by EZ-10 spin column then sequenced and detected by using the ABI 3730xL DNA Analyzer. New polymorphic positions 57, 63, and 101 are described may in future be suitable sources for identification purpose. The data obtained can be used to identify variable nucleotide positions characterized by frequent occurrence most promising for identification variants.

Keywords: encompassing nucleotide positions 37 to 340, HVII, Iraq, mitochondrial DNA, polymorphism, frequency

Procedia PDF Downloads 748

Authors: Huy Hieu Pham, Houssam Salmane, Louahdi Khoudour, Alain Crouzil, Pablo Zegers, Sergio Velastin

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We present a deep learning-based multitask framework for joint 3D human pose estimation and action recognition from color video sequences. Our approach proceeds along two stages. In the first, we run a real-time 2D pose detector to determine the precise pixel location of important key points of the body. A two-stream neural network is then designed and trained to map detected 2D keypoints into 3D poses. In the second, we deploy the Efficient Neural Architecture Search (ENAS) algorithm to find an optimal network architecture that is used for modeling the Spatio-temporal evolution of the estimated 3D poses via an image-based intermediate representation and performing action recognition. Experiments on Human3.6M, Microsoft Research Redmond (MSR) Action3D, and Stony Brook University (SBU) Kinect Interaction datasets verify the effectiveness of the proposed method on the targeted tasks. Moreover, we show that our method requires a low computational budget for training and inference.

Keywords: human action recognition, pose estimation, D-CNN, deep learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: Cristina Galiana Carballo, Ibon Doval Martínez

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Urban boundaries often result in a controversial limit between countryside and city in Europe. This territory is normally defined by the very limited land uses and the abundance of open space. The dimension and dynamics of peri-urbanization in the last decades have increased this land stock, which has influenced/impacted in several factors in terms of economic costs (maintenance, transport), ecological disturbances of the territory and changes in inhabitant´s behaviour. In an increasingly urbanised world and a growing urban population, cities also face challenges such as Climate Change. In this context, new near-future corrective trends including circular economies for local food supply or decentralised waste management became key strategies towards more sustainable urban models. Those new solutions need to be planned and implemented considering the potential conflict with current land uses. The city of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country, Spain) has triplicated land consumption per habitant in 10 years, resulting in a vast extension of low-density urban type confronting rural land and threatening agricultural uses, landscape and urban sustainability. Urban planning allows managing and optimum use allocation based on soil vocation and socio-ecosystem needs, while peri-urban space arises as an opportunity for developing different uses which do not match either within the compact city, not in open agricultural lands, such as medium-size agrocomposting systems or biomass plants. Therefore, a qualitative multi-criteria methodology has been developed for Vitoria-Gasteiz city to assess the spatial definition of peri-urban land. Therefore, a qualitative multi-criteria methodology has been developed for Vitoria-Gasteiz city to assess the spatial definition of peri-urban land. Climate change and circular economy were identified as frameworks where to determine future land, soil vocation and urban planning requirements which eventually become estimations of required local food and renewable energy supply along with alternative waste management system´s implementation. By means of it, it has been developed an urban planning proposal which overcomes urban-non urban dichotomy in Vitoria-Gasteiz. The proposal aims to enhance rural system and improve urban sustainability performance through the normative recognition of an agricultural peri-urban belt.

Keywords: landscape ecology, land-use management, periurban, urban planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 153

Authors: Wagner Pereira, Alphonse Kelecom

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Mining can impact the environment, and the major impact of some mining activities is the radiological impact. In human populations, such impact is well studied and regulated. For biota, this assessment always had as focus the protection of human food chain. The protection of biota itself is a new approach, still developing. In order to contribute to this new approach, fish collecting was carried out in areas of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), where a uranium mine is in decommissioning phase. The activity concentrations were analyzed, in Bq/kg wet weight, for Uranium (Unat), Th-232 and Ra-226 in the lambari fish Astyanax bimaculatus L. (omnivorous fish) and in the traíra fish Hoplias malabaricus Bloch, 1794 (carnivorous fish). Seven composite samples (that is: a sufficient number of individuals to reach at least 2 kg of fresh weight) were collected every six months between 2013 and 2015. The mean activity concentrations (AC) for uranium ranged from 1.12 (lambari) to 0.60 (lungfish). For Th, variations ranged from 0.30 to 0.05 (lambari and traíra, respectively). Finally, the Ra-226 means ranged between 0.08 and 0.03. No temporal trends of accumulation could be identified. Systematically, the AC values of radionuclides were higher in omnivorous fish when compared to the carnivore ones.

Keywords: biota dose, NORM, fish, environmental protection

Procedia PDF Downloads 240

Authors: Leila Maleki, Ahmad Esmali Kooraneh, Hossein Taghi Derakhshi

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Neural activity in the human brain starts from the early stages of prenatal development. This activity or signals generated by the brain are electrical in nature and represent not only the brain function but also the status of the whole body. At the present moment, three methods can record functional and physiological changes within the brain with high temporal resolution of neuronal interactions at the network level: the electroencephalogram (EEG), the magnet oencephalogram (MEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); each of these has advantages and shortcomings. EEG recording with a large number of electrodes is now feasible in clinical practice. Multichannel EEG recorded from the scalp surface provides a very valuable but indirect information about the source distribution. However, deep electrode measurements yield more reliable information about the source locations، Intracranial recordings and scalp EEG are used with the source imaging techniques to determine the locations and strengths of the epileptic activity. As a source localization method, Low Resolution Electro-Magnetic Tomography (LORETA) is solved for the realistic geometry based on both forward methods, the Boundary Element Method (BEM) and the Finite Difference Method (FDM). In this paper, we review The findings EEG- LORETA about epilepsy.

Keywords: epilepsy, EEG, EEG-LORETA

Procedia PDF Downloads 528

Authors: Kiurski S. Jelena, Aksentijević M. Snežana, Oros B. Ivana, Kecić S. Vesna, Djogo Z. Maja

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The paper investigates the effect of light intensity on the formation of two ketones, acetone and methyl ethyl ketone, in working premises of five pad printing departments in Novi Sad, Serbia. Multiple linear regression analysis examined the form of interdependency concentrations of methyl ethyl ketone, acetone and light intensity in five printing presses at seven sampling points, using Statistica software package version 10th. The results show an average stacking variation investigated variable and can be presented by the general regression model: y = b0 + b1xi1 + b2xi2.

Keywords: acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, multiple linear regression analysis, pad printing

Procedia PDF Downloads 407

Authors: Upamanyu Majumder, Angshuman Das

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The Klimov RD-33 is a turbofan jet engine for a lightweight fighter jet that is the primary engine for the Mikoyan MiG-29. Its production started in 1981. The RD-33 was the first afterburning turbofan engine produced by the Klimov Company of Russia in the 8,000 to 9,000 kilograms-force (78,000 to 88,000 N; 18,000 to 20,000 lbf) thrust class. It features a modular twin-shaft design with individual parts that can be replaced separately and has a good tolerance to the environment. The RD-33 is simple to maintain and retains good performance in challenging environments. In this paper the stagnation properties(pressure and temperature) at the intake diffuser, compressor and turbine sections of the RD-33 engine are calculated using the standard atmosphere conditions at different altitudes( take-off, 5000m, 10000m, 15000m, 20000m and 22500m). The results are plotted against altitude values using MS-Excel.

Keywords: Klimov RD-33 engine, stagnation properties, various altitudes, ms-excel

Procedia PDF Downloads 344

Authors: Samir Karimov, Elshad Abdullayev, Muslum Gurbanov

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As one of the γ-radiolysis products of hexachlorocyclohexane and hexachlorobenzene, the study of 1.4 g/L concentrated 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene (TCB) in methanol solution has been irradiated at 0-209.3 kGy dose of γ-radiation and the results have been studied via GC-MS. At maximum radiation dose of 209.3 kGy 91.38% of TCB has converted into different organic compounds, such as 1,4-, 1,3- and 1,2- dichlorobenzenes (DCB), chlorobenzene, toluene, benzene and other chlorinated and non-chlorinated compounds. The variation of compounds formed by γ-radiolysis depends on the nature of solvent and radiation dose. One of the frequently identified radiolysis products of TCB in different organic solvents - 1,4-DCB studied quantitatively with external standard. The concentration of DCB increases by increasing absorbed radiation dose to approximately 131.8 kGy, then at higher doses with its conversion into chlorobenzene, it decreases.

Keywords: γ-radiolysis, chlorinated pesticides, radiation dose, dechlorination

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Authors: Etienne K. Ngoy

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This analysis suggests that the comprehensive degradation caused by any environmental factor on fiber reinforced plastics under mechanical stress can be measured as a change in viscoelastic properties of the material. The change in viscoelastic characteristics is experimentally determined as a time-dependent function expressing the amplification of the stress relaxation. The variation of this experimental function provides a measure of the environmental degradation rate. Where real service environment conditions can be reliably simulated in the laboratory, it is possible to generate master curves that include environmental degradation effect and hence predict the durability of the fiber reinforced plastics under environmental degradation.

Keywords: environmental effects, fiber reinforced plastics durability, prediction, stress effect

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Authors: Negar Riazifar, Nigel G. Stocks

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This paper proposes strategies in level crossing (LC) sampling and reconstruction that provide alias-free high-fidelity signal reconstruction for speech signals without exponentially increasing sample number with increasing bit-depth. We introduce methods in LC sampling that reduce the sampling rate close to the Nyquist frequency even for large bit-depth. The results indicate that larger variation in the sampling intervals leads to an alias-free sampling scheme; this is achieved by either reducing the bit-depth or adding jitter to the system for high bit-depths. In conjunction with windowing, the signal is reconstructed from the LC samples using an efficient Toeplitz reconstruction algorithm.

Keywords: alias-free, level crossing sampling, spectrum, trigonometric polynomial

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Authors: Norhaslina Mat Zian, Hasril Hasini, Nur Irmawati Om

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This study focuses on the flow and combustion behavior inside gas turbine combustor used in thermal power plant. The combustion process takes place using synthetic gas and the baseline solution was made on gas turbine combustor firing natural gas (100% Methane) as the main source of fuel. Attention is given to the effect of the H2/CO ratio on the variation of the flame profile, temperature distribution, and emissions. The H2/CO ratio varies in the range of 10-80 % and the CH4 values are fixed 10% for each case. While keeping constant the mass flow rate and operating pressure, the preliminary result shows that the flow inside the can-combustor is highly swirling which indicates good mixing of fuel and air prior to the entrance of the mixture to the main combustion zone.

Keywords: cfd, combustion, flame, syngas

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Authors: El-Sadek H. Nour El-deen, K. Harby

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Energy saving and environment friendly applications are turning out to be one of the most important topics nowadays. In this work, a simulation analysis using TRNSYS software has been carried out to study the benefit of employing a solar adsorption cooling system under the climatic conditions of Al-Minya city, Egypt. A theoretical model was carried out on a two bed adsorption cooling system employing granular activated carbon-HFC-404A as working pair. Temporal and averaged history of solar collector, adsorbent beds, evaporator and condenser has been shown. System performance in terms of daily average cooling capacity and average coefficient of performance around the year has been investigated. The results showed that maximum yearly average coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling capacity are about 0.26 and 8 kW respectively. The maximum value of the both average cooling capacity and COP cyclic is directly proportional to the maximum solar radiation. The system performance was found to be increased with the average ambient temperature. Finally, the proposed solar powered adsorption cooling systems can be used effectively under Al-Minya climatic conditions.

Keywords: adsorption, cooling, Egypt, environment, solar energy

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Authors: Masilonyane Mokhele

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Across the world, different planning models of the so-called airport-led developments are becoming bandwagons hailed as key to the future of cities. However, in the existing knowledge, there is paucity of empirically informed description and explanation of the economic fundamentals driving the forces of attraction of airports. This void is arguably a result of the absence of an appropriate theoretical framework to guide the analyses. Given this paucity, the aim of the paper is to contribute towards a theoretical framework that could be used to describe and explain forces that drive the location and mix of airport-centric developments. Towards achieving this aim, the objectives of the paper are: one, to establish the type of economic activities that are located on and around O.R. Tambo International Airport (ORTIA), and analyse the reasons for locating there; two, to establish changes that have occurred over time in the form of the airport-centric development of ORTIA; three, to identify the propulsive economic qualities of ORTIA; four, to analyse the spatial, economic and structural linkages within the airport-centric development of ORTIA, between the airport-centric development and the airport, as well as the airport-centric development’s linkages with their metropolitan area and other regional, national and international airport-centric developments and locations. To address the objectives above, the study adopted a case study approach, centred on ORTIA in South Africa: Africa’s busiest airport in terms of passengers and airfreight handled. Using a lens of location theory, a survey was adopted as a main research method, wherein telephonic interviews were conducted with a representative number of firms on and around ORTIA. Other data collection methods encompassed in-depth qualitative interviews (to augment the information obtained through the survey) and analysis of secondary information, particularly as regards establishing changes that have occurred in the form of ORTIA and surrounds. From the empirical findings, ORTIA was discovered to have propulsive economic qualities that act as significant forces of attraction in the clustering of firms. Together with its airport-centric development, ORTIA was discovered to have growth pole properties because of the linkages that occur within the study area, and the linkages that exist between the airport-centric firms and the airport. It was noted that the transport-oriented firms (typified by couriers and freight carriers) act as anchors in some fellow airport-centric firms making use of elements of urbanisation economies, particularly as regards the use of the airport for airfreight services. The empirical findings presented in the paper (in conjunction with results from other airport-centric development case studies) could be used as contribution towards extending theory that describes and explains forces that drive the location and mix of airport-centric developments.

Keywords: airports, airport-centric development, O. R. Tambo international airport, South Africa

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Authors: Eric Kumar, Erica Cochran, Zhiang Zhang, Wei Liang, Ronak Mody

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The objective of this article was to create a modelling framework that exposes the marginal costs of shifting workloads across geographically distributed data-centers. Geographical distribution of internet services helps to optimize their performance for localized end users with lowered communications times and increased availability. However, due to the geographical and temporal effects, the physical embodiments of a service's data center infrastructure can vary greatly. In this work, we first identify that the sources of variances in the physical infrastructure primarily stem from local weather conditions, specific user traffic profiles, energy sources, and the types of IT hardware available at the time of deployment. Second, we create a traffic simulator that indicates the IT load at each data-center in the set as an approximator for user traffic profiles. Third, we implement a framework that quantifies the global level energy demands using building energy models and the traffic profiles. The results of the model provide a time series of energy demands that can be used for further life cycle analysis of internet services.

Keywords: data-centers, energy, life cycle, network simulation

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Authors: Evelyn Asante Yeboah, Kwabena O. Asubonteng, Justice Camillus Mensah, Christine Furst

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Smallholder-dominated mosaic landscapes in rural Africa are relevant for food production, biodiversity conservation, and climate regulation. Land-use transitions threaten the multifunctionality of such landscapes, especially the production capacity of arable lands resulting in food security challenges. Using land-cover maps derived from maximum likelihood classification of Landsat satellite images for the years 2002, 2015, and 2020, post-classification change detection, landscape metrics, and key informant interviews, the study assessed the implications of rubber plantation expansion and oil business development on the food production capacity of Ahanta West District, Ghana. The analysis reveals that settlement and rubber areas expanded by 5.82% and 10.33% of the landscape area, respectively, between 2002 and 2020. This increase translates into over twice their initial sizes (144% in settlement change and 101% in rubber change). Rubber plantation spread dominates the north and southwestern areas, whereas settlement is widespread in the eastern parts of the landscape. Rubber and settlement expanded at the expense of cropland, palm, and shrublands. Land-use transitions between cropland, palm, and shrubland were targeting each other, but the net loss in shrubland was higher (-17.27%). Isolation, subdivision, connectedness, and patch adjacency indices showed patch consolidation in the landscape configuration from 2002 to 2015 and patch fragmentation from 2015 to 2020. The study also found patches with consistent increasing connectivity in settlement areas indicating the influence of oil discovery developments and fragmentation tendencies in rubber, shrubland, cropland, and palm, indicating springing up of smaller rubber farms, the disappearance of shrubland, and splitting up of cropland and palm areas respectively. The results revealed a trend in land-use transitions in favor of smallholder rubber plantation expansion and oil discovery developments, which suggest serious implications on food production systems and poses a risk for food security and landscape multifunctional characteristics. To ensure sustainability in land uses, this paper recommends the enforcement of legislative instruments governing spatial planning and land use in Ghana as embedded in the 2016 land-use and spatial planning act.

Keywords: food production systems, food security, Ghana’s west coast, land-use transitions, multifunctional rural landscapes

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Authors: A. V. Shelke, P. S. More

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This research aimed to study the kinetic reaction of reused cooking oil and to find the optimum condition of its process. The feedstock was collected from the street sellers and also prepared at laboratory. From this research, it is found that the kinetic reaction of reused sunflower oil (auto-oxidation) is obtained in terms of variation of the absorption coefficient of unexposed sunflower oil as 0.05 which is very close to that of exposed sunflower oil 0.075. At room temperature, the optimum intensity obtained from optical absorption spectroscopy study is 0.267 for unexposed sunflower oil and 0.194 for exposed sunflower oil. However, results indicated that FTIR spectroscopy is accurate and precise enough for such determination. Free Fatty Acid (FFA% = 026), acid ~53% and safonication ~%192 get reduce in exposed oil was investigated.

Keywords: friction, oxidation, sunflower oil, vegetable oils

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Authors: Josef Brychta, Jiri Kratochvil, Marek Pagac

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The group of progressive cutting materials can include non-traditional, emerging and less-used materials that can be an efficient use of cutting their lead to a quantum leap in the field of machining. This is essentially a “superhard” materials (STM) based on polycrystalline diamond (PCD) and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) cutting performance ceramics and development is constantly "perfecting" fine coated cemented carbides. The latter cutting materials are broken down by two parameters, toughness and hardness. A variation of alloying elements is always possible to improve only one of each parameter. Reducing the size of the core on the other hand doing achieves "contradictory" properties, namely to increase both hardness and toughness.

Keywords: grained cutting materials difficult to machine materials, optimum utilization, mechanic, manufacturing

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Authors: Yung-Chih Kuo, I-Hsin Wang

Abstract:

Catanionic solid lipid nanoparticles (CASLNs) with surface wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and lactoferrin (Lf) were formulated for entrapping and releasing etoposide (ETP), crossing the blood–brain barrier (BBB), and inhibiting the growth of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Microemulsified ETP-CASLNs were modified with WGA and Lf for permeating a cultured monolayer of human brain-microvascular endothelial cells (HBMECs) regulated by human astrocytes and for treating malignant U87MG cells. Experimental evidence revealed that an increase in the concentration of catanionic surfactant from 5 μM to 7.5 μM reduced the particle size. When the concentration of catanionic surfactant increased from 7.5 μM to 12.5 μM, the particle size increased, yielding a minimal diameter of WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs at 7.5 μM of catanionic surfactant. An increase in the weight percentage of BW from 25% to 75% enlarged WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs. In addition, an increase in the concentration of catanionic surfactant from 5 to 15 μM increased the absolute value of zeta potential of WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs. It was intriguing that the increment of the charge as a function of the concentration of catanionic surfactant was approximately linear. WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs revealed an integral structure with smooth particle contour, displayed a lighter exterior layer of catanionic surfactant, WGA, and Lf and showed a rigid interior region of solid lipids. A variation in the concentration of catanionic surfactant between 5 μM and 15 μM yielded a maximal encapsulation efficiency of ETP ata 7.5 μM of catanionic surfactant. An increase in the concentration of Lf/WGA decreased the grafting efficiency of Lf/WGA. Also, an increase in the weight percentage of ETP decreased its encapsulation efficiency. Moreover, the release rate of ETP from WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs reduced with increasing concentration of catanionic surfactant, and WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs at 12.5 μM of catanionic surfactant exhibited a feature of sustained release. The order in the viability of HBMECs was ETP-CASLNs ≅ Lf-ETP-CASLNs ≅ WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs > ETP. The variation in the transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) and permeability of propidium iodide (PI) was negligible when the concentration of Lf increased. Furthermore, an increase in the concentration of WGA from 0.2 to 0.6 mg/mL insignificantly altered the TEER and permeability of PI. When the concentration of Lf increased from 2.5 to 7.5 μg/mL and the concentration of WGA increased from 2.5 to 5 μg/mL, the enhancement in the permeability of ETP was minor. However, 10 μg/mL of Lf promoted the permeability of ETP using Lf-ETP-CASLNs, and 5 and 10 μg/mL of WGA could considerably improve the permeability of ETP using WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs. The order in the efficacy of inhibiting U87MG cells was WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs > Lf-ETP-CASLNs > ETP-CASLNs > ETP. As a result, WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs reduced the TEER, enhanced the permeability of PI, induced a minor cytotoxicity to HBMECs, increased the permeability of ETP across the BBB, and improved the antiproliferative efficacy of U87MG cells. The grafting of WGA and Lf is crucial to control the medicinal property of ETP-CASLNs and WGA-Lf-ETP-CASLNs can be promising colloidal carriers in GBM management.

Keywords: catanionic solid lipid nanoparticle, etoposide, glioblastoma multiforme, lactoferrin, wheat germ agglutinin

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