Search results for: model-free damage detection

Authors: Mara Balestrieri, Clara Pusceddu

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Issues relating to the destructive phenomena that can damage people and goods have returned to the centre of debate in Italy with the increase in catastrophic episodes in recent years in a country which is highly vulnerable to hydrological risk. Environmental factors and geological and geomorphological territorial characteristics play an important role in determining the level of vulnerability and the natural tendency to risk. However, a territory has also been subjected to the requirements of and transformations of society, and this brings other relevant factors. The reasons for the increase in destructive phenomena are often to be found in the territorial development models adopted. Stewardship of the landscape and management of risk are related issues. This study aims to summarize the most relevant elements about this connection and at the same time to clarify the role of environmental risk assessment as a tool to aid in the sustainable management of landscape. How planners relate to this problem and which aspects should be monitored in order to prepare responsible and useful interventions?

Keywords: assessment, landscape, risk, planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 447

Authors: Chandu Rathnayake, Isuri Anuradha

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Early detection and accurate diagnosis of lung diseases play a crucial role in improving patient prognosis. However, conventional diagnostic methods heavily rely on subjective symptom assessments and medical imaging, often causing delays in diagnosis and treatment. To overcome this challenge, we propose a novel lung disease prediction system that integrates patient symptoms and X-ray images to provide a comprehensive and reliable diagnosis.In this project, develop a mobile application specifically designed for detecting lung diseases. Our application leverages both patient symptoms and X-ray images to facilitate diagnosis. By combining these two sources of information, our application delivers a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of the patient's condition, minimizing the risk of misdiagnosis. Our primary aim is to create a user-friendly and accessible tool, particularly important given the current circumstances where many patients face limitations in visiting healthcare facilities. To achieve this, we employ several state-of-the-art algorithms. Firstly, the Decision Tree algorithm is utilized for efficient symptom-based classification. It analyzes patient symptoms and creates a tree-like model to predict the presence of specific lung diseases. Secondly, we employ the Random Forest algorithm, which enhances predictive power by aggregating multiple decision trees. This ensemble technique improves the accuracy and robustness of the diagnosis. Furthermore, we incorporate a deep learning model using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with the RestNet50 pre-trained model. CNNs are well-suited for image analysis and feature extraction. By training CNN on a large dataset of X-ray images, it learns to identify patterns and features indicative of lung diseases. The RestNet50 architecture, known for its excellent performance in image recognition tasks, enhances the efficiency and accuracy of our deep learning model. By combining the outputs of the decision tree-based algorithms and the deep learning model, our mobile application generates a comprehensive lung disease prediction. The application provides users with an intuitive interface to input their symptoms and upload X-ray images for analysis. The prediction generated by the system offers valuable insights into the likelihood of various lung diseases, enabling individuals to take appropriate actions and seek timely medical attention. Our proposed mobile application has significant potential to address the rising prevalence of lung diseases, particularly among young individuals with smoking addictions. By providing a quick and user-friendly approach to assessing lung health, our application empowers individuals to monitor their well-being conveniently. This solution also offers immense value in the context of limited access to healthcare facilities, enabling timely detection and intervention. In conclusion, our research presents a comprehensive lung disease prediction system that combines patient symptoms and X-ray images using advanced algorithms. By developing a mobile application, we provide an accessible tool for individuals to assess their lung health conveniently. This solution has the potential to make a significant impact on the early detection and management of lung diseases, benefiting both patients and healthcare providers.

Keywords: CNN, random forest, decision tree, machine learning, deep learning

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Authors: E. Shahsavari, R. Ghasemi, A. Akramizadeh

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This paper presents a new method to design nonlinear feedback linearization controller for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). A nonlinear controller is designed based on nonlinear model to prolong the stack life of PEM fuel cells. Since it is known that large deviations between hydrogen and oxygen partial pressures can cause severe membrane damage in the fuel cell, feedback linearization is applied to the PEM fuel cell system so that the deviation can be kept as small as possible during disturbances or load variations. To obtain an accurate feedback linearization controller, tuning the linear parameters are always important. So in proposed study NSGA_II method was used to tune the designed controller in aim to decrease the controller tracking error. The simulation result showed that the proposed method tuned the controller efficiently.

Keywords: nonlinear dynamic model, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, feedback linearization, optimal control, NSGA_II

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Authors: Kashima Arora, Monika Tomar, Vinay Gupta

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Biosensors have found potential applications ranging from environmental testing and biowarfare agent detection to clinical testing, health care, and cell analysis. This is driven in part by the desire to decrease the cost of health care and to obtain precise information more quickly about the health status of patient by the development of various biosensors, which has become increasingly prevalent in clinical testing and point of care testing for a wide range of biological elements. Uric acid is an important byproduct in human body and a number of pathological disorders are related to its high concentration in human body. In past few years, rapid growth in the development of new materials and improvements in sensing techniques have led to the evolution of advanced biosensors. In this context, metal oxide thin film based matrices due to their bio compatible nature, strong adsorption ability, high isoelectric point (IEP) and abundance in nature have become the materials of choice for recent technological advances in biotechnology. In the past few years, wide band-gap metal oxide semiconductors including ZnO, SnO₂ and CeO₂ have gained much attention as a matrix for immobilization of various biomolecules. Tin oxide (SnO₂), wide band gap semiconductor (Eg =3.87 eV), despite having multifunctional properties for broad range of applications including transparent electronics, gas sensors, acoustic devices, UV photodetectors, etc., it has not been explored much for biosensing purpose. To realize a high performance miniaturized biomolecular electronic device, rf sputtering technique is considered to be the most promising for the reproducible growth of good quality thin films, controlled surface morphology and desired film crystallization with improved electron transfer property. Recently, iron oxide and its composites have been widely used as matrix for biosensing application which exploits the electron communication feature of Fe, for the detection of various analytes using urea, hemoglobin, glucose, phenol, L-lactate, H₂O₂, etc. However, to the authors’ knowledge, no work is being reported on modifying the electronic properties of SnO₂ by implanting with suitable metal (Fe) to induce the redox couple in it and utilizing it for reagentless detection of uric acid. In present study, Fe implanted SnO₂ based matrix has been utilized for reagentless uric acid biosensor. Implantation of Fe into SnO₂ matrix is confirmed by energy-dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis. Electrochemical techniques have been used to study the response characteristics of Fe modified SnO₂ matrix before and after uricase immobilization. The developed uric acid biosensor exhibits a high sensitivity to about 0.21 mA/mM and a linear variation in current response over concentration range from 0.05 to 1.0 mM of uric acid besides high shelf life (~20 weeks). The Michaelis-Menten kinetic parameter (Km) is found to be relatively very low (0.23 mM), which indicates high affinity of the fabricated bioelectrode towards uric acid (analyte). Also, the presence of other interferents present in human serum has negligible effect on the performance of biosensor. Hence, obtained results highlight the importance of implanted Fe:SnO₂ thin film as an attractive matrix for realization of reagentless biosensors towards uric acid.

Keywords: Fe implanted tin oxide, reagentless uric acid biosensor, rf sputtering, thin film

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Authors: Attila Kiss, Erzsébet Némedi, Zoltán Naár

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As natural prebiotic (non-digestible) carbohydrates stimulate the growth of colon microflora and contribute to maintain the health of the host, analytical studies aiming at revealing the chemical behavior of these beneficial food components came to the forefront of interest. Food processing (especially baking) may lead to a significant conversion of the parent compounds, hence it is of utmost importance to characterize the transformation patterns and the plausible decomposition products formed by thermal degradation. The relevance of this work is confirmed by the wide-spread use of these carbohydrates (fructo-oligosaccharides, cyclodextrins, raffinose and resistant starch) in the food industry. More and more functional foodstuffs are being developed based on prebiotics as bioactive components. 12 different types of oligosaccharides have been investigated in order to reveal their thermal degradation characteristics. Different carbohydrate derivatives (D-fructose and D-glucose oligomers and polymers) have been exposed to elevated temperatures (150 °C 170 °C, 190 °C, 210 °C, and 220 °C) for 10 min. An advanced HPLC method was developed and used to identify the decomposition products of carbohydrates formed as a consequence of thermal treatment. Gradient elution was applied with binary solvent elution (acetonitrile, water) through amine based carbohydrate column. Evaporative light scattering (ELS) proved to be suitable for the reliable detection of the UV/VIS inactive carbohydrate degradation products. These experimental conditions and applied advanced techniques made it possible to survey all the formed intermediers. Change in oligomer distribution was established in cases of all studied prebiotics throughout the thermal treatments. The obtained results indicate increased extent of chain degradation of the carbohydrate moiety at elevated temperatures. Prevalence of oligomers with shorter chain length and even the formation of monomer sugars (D-glucose and D-fructose) might be observed at higher temperatures. Unique oligomer distributions, which have not been described previously are revealed in the case of each studied, specific carbohydrate, which might result in various prebiotic activities. Resistant starches exhibited high stability when being thermal treated. The degradation process has been modeled by a plausible reaction mechanism, in which proton catalyzed degradation and chain cleavage take place.

Keywords: prebiotics, thermal degradation, fructo-oligosaccharide, HPLC, ELS detection

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Authors: Gupta Rajesh, Paudel Sagar, Sharma Utkarsh, Singh Amit Kumar

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Thermal stratification has drawn much attention because of the malfunctions at various nuclear plants in U.S.A that raised significant safety concerns. The concerns due to this phenomenon relate to thermal stresses in branch pipes connected to the reactor coolant system piping. This stress limits the lifetime of the piping system, and even leading to penetrating cracks. To assess origin of valve damage in the pipeline, it is essential to determine the effect of turbulence penetration on valve leakage; since stratified flow is generally generated by turbulent penetration or valve leakage. As a result, we concluded with the help of coupled fluent-structural analysis that the pipe with less turbulence has less chance of failure there by requiring less maintenance.

Keywords: nuclear reactor coolant system, thermal stratification, turbulent penetration, coupled fluent-structural analysis, Von-Misses stress

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Authors: Shef Amir Arasy

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In 2023, the world's population will be 7.8 billion, which has increased significantly in the last 20 years. Every country in the world is experiencing the impacts of climate change directly and indirectly. However, the community still needs to build massive infrastructure and buildings. The massive CO2 emissions which lead to climate change come from cement usage in construction activity. Bamboo is one of the most sustainable materials for reducing carbon emissions and releasing more than 30% oxygen compared to the mass of trees. Besides, bamboo harvest time is faster than other sustainable materials, around 3-4 years. Furthermore, Bamboo has a high tensile strength, which can provide ductility effectively to prevent damage to buildings during an earthquake. By the finite element method, this research analyzes bamboo configuration and connection for tall building structures under different earthquake frequencies and fire. The aim of this research is to provide proper design and connection of bamboo buildings that can be more reliable than concrete structures.

Keywords: bamboo, concrete, ductility, earthquake.

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Authors: Faizin Mulia Rizkika, Iqbal Jabbari Mufti, Muhammad R. Y. Nugraha, Fadil Maulidir Sube

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Flooding is an event of ponding on the flat area around the river as a result of the overflow of river water was not able to be accommodated by the river and may cause damage to the infrastructure of a region. This study aimed to analyze the data of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for information that plays a role in the mapping of zones prone to flooding, mapping the distribution of zones prone to flooding that occurred in the Citarum upstream using secondary data and software (ArcGIS, MapInfo), this assessment was made distribution map of flooding, there were 13 counties / districts dam flood-prone areas in Bandung, and the most vulnerable districts are areas Baleendah-Dayeuhkolot-Bojongsoang-Banjaran. The area has a low slope and the same limits with boundary rivers and areas that have excessive land use, so the water catchment area is reduced.

Keywords: mitigation, flood, citarum, DEM

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Authors: I. C. Okwulehie, J. A. Ogoke

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The phytocemical, mineral, proximate and heavy metals compositions of six edible and non-edible species of mushrooms were investigated. Fully fleshy mushrooms were used for the analysis. On the averagely, the bioactive constituents of the mushrooms were as follows Alkaloids 0.12 ± 0.02 – 1.01 ± 03 %, Tannins 0.44 ± 0.09 – 1.38 ± 0.6,). Phenols,(0.13 ± 0.01 – 0.26± 0.00, Saponins 0.14 ± 0.03 – 0.32 ± 0.04%, Flavonoids 0.08 ± 0.02 – 0.34 ± 0.02%. The result of proximate composition indicated that the mushroom contained (5.17 ± 0.06 – 12.28 ± 0.16% protein, 0.16 ± 0.02 – 0.67 ± 0.02% fats, 1.06 ± 0.03 – 8.49 ± 0.03 % fibre, (62.06 ± 0.52 – 80.01 ± 4.71% and carbohydrate. The mineral composition of the mushrooms were as follows, calcium 81.49 ± 2.32 - .914 ± 2.32mg/100g, Magnesium(8 ± 1.39-24 ± 2.40mg/100g, Potassium 64.54 ± 0.43 – 164.54 ± 1.23 mg/100g, sodium 9.47 ± 0.12 – 30.97 ± 0.16 mg/100g, and Phosphorus 22.19 ± 0.57-53.2± 0.44 mg/100g. Heavy metals concentration indicated Cadmium 0.7-0.94ppm. Zinc 27.82 – 70.98 ppm. Lead 0.66 – 2.86ppm and Copper 1.8-22.32ppm. The result obtained indicates that the mushrooms are of good sources of phytochemicals, proximate and minerals needed for maintenance of good health and can also be exploited in manufacture of drugs. Heavy metals obtained indicate that when consume intentionally in high content may cause liver, kidney damage and even death.

Keywords: bioactive, heavy metals, mushroom, nutritive

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Authors: Hyo-Su Lim, Ye-Eun Song, Eun-Bi Lee, Sang-Yoon Lee, Young-Il Seo, Jin-Pyo Kim, Nam-Kyu Park

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If we analogize any physical external force given to victims in many crimes including violence, it would be possible not only to presume mutual action between victims and suspects, but to make a deduction of more various facts in cases. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify criminal tools through secretion on clothes by using amino acid reagents such as Ninhydrin, DFO(1,8-dizafluoren-9-one), 1,2 – IND (1,2-indanedione) which are reacting to skin secretion. For more effective collecting condition, porcine skin which is physiologically similar to human was used. Although there were little differences of shape identification according to sensitivity, amino acid reagents were able to identify the fist, foot, and baseball bat. Furthermore, we conducted the experiments for developmental variations through change over time setting up 5-weeks period including first damage as variation factor, and developing materials in each action through certain reagents. Specimen level of development depending on change over time was identified. As a result, each of initial level of development was seen no changes.

Keywords: hit marks, amino acid reagents, porcine skin, criminal tool

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Authors: Alicja Starczewska, Aleksander Nawrat, Krzysztof Daniec, Jarosław Homa, Kacper Hołda

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Border Gateway Protocol is the main routing protocol that enables routing establishment between all autonomous systems, which are the basic administrative units of the internet. Due to the poor protection of BGP, it is important to use additional BGP security systems. Many solutions to this problem have been proposed over the years, but none of them have been implemented on a global scale. This article describes a system capable of building images of real-time BGP network topology in order to detect BGP anomalies. Our proposal performs a detailed analysis of BGP messages that come into local network cards supplemented by information collected by remote collectors in different localizations.

Keywords: BGP, BGP hijacking, cybersecurity, detection

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Authors: Erick C. Valverde, Wansu Lim

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Facial emotion recognition (FER) system has been recently developed for more advanced computer vision applications. The ability to identify human emotions would enable smart healthcare facility to diagnose mental health illnesses (e.g., depression and stress) as well as better human social interactions with smart technologies. The FER system involves two steps: 1) face detection task and 2) facial emotion recognition task. It classifies the human expression in various categories such as angry, disgust, fear, happy, sad, surprise, and neutral. This system requires intensive research to address issues with human diversity, various unique human expressions, and variety of human facial features due to age differences. These issues generally affect the ability of the FER system to detect human emotions with high accuracy. Early stage of FER systems used simple supervised classification task algorithms like K-nearest neighbors (KNN) and artificial neural networks (ANN). These conventional FER systems have issues with low accuracy due to its inefficiency to extract significant features of several human emotions. To increase the accuracy of FER systems, deep learning (DL)-based methods, like convolutional neural networks (CNN), are proposed. These methods can find more complex features in the human face by means of the deeper connections within its architectures. However, the inference speed and computational costs of a DL-based FER system is often disregarded in exchange for higher accuracy results. To cope with this drawback, an optimized DL-based FER system is proposed in this study.An extreme version of Inception V3, known as Xception model, is leveraged by applying different network optimization methods. Specifically, network pruning and quantization are used to enable lower computational costs and reduce memory usage, respectively. To support low resource requirements, a 68-landmark face detector from Dlib is used in the early step of the FER system.Furthermore, a DL compiler is utilized to incorporate advanced optimization techniques to the Xception model to improve the inference speed of the FER system. In comparison to VGG-Net and ResNet50, the proposed optimized DL-based FER system experimentally demonstrates the objectives of the network optimization methods used. As a result, the proposed approach can be used to create an efficient and real-time FER system.

Keywords: deep learning, face detection, facial emotion recognition, network optimization methods

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Authors: Amal Saafan, Kareem Al Sofy, Sameh AbdelGhani, Magdy Amin

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Background: Acinetobacter spp. resistance towards β-lactam antibiotics is mediated mainly by different classes of β-lactamases production; detection of some genes responsible for production of β-lactamases is the objective of the study. Methods: One hundred fifty bacterial isolates were recovered from blood, sputum, and urine specimens from different hospitals in Egypt. Sixty-nine isolate were identified as Acinetobacter baumannii using traditional biochemical tests, CHROM agar, MicroScan and PCR amplification of blaoxa-51like gene. Acinetobacterbaumannii isolates were grouped into carbapenem resistant group (GP1), cefotaxime, ceftazidime and cefoxitin resistant group (GP2) and carbapenem and cephalosporin non-resistant group (GP3). Carbapenemase activity was screened using modified Hodge test (MHT) for GP1.Metallo-β-lactamases screening was performed for MHT positive isolates using double disk synergy test (DDST) and combined disk test (CDT). Amp C activity was screened using Amp C disk test with Tris-EDTA, DDST, and CDT for GP2. Finally, PCR amplification of blaoxa-51like, blaoxa-23like, blaIMP-like, blaVIM-like, and blaADC-like genes was performed for isolates that showed, at least, two positive results of three for both AmpC and carbapenemases phenotypic screening tests (obvious activity), in addition to GP3 (for comparison). Detection of blaoxa-51like and blaADC-like genes preceded by ISAba1 was also performed. Results: Antibiogram of 69 pure Acinetobacter baumannii isolates resulted in 57, 64, and 2 isolates enrolled into GP1, GP2, and GP3, respectively. Carbapenemase activity was shown by 49(85.9%) isolate using MHT. Metallo-β-lactamases screening revealed 32(65.3%) and 35(71.4%) using DDST and CDT, respectively.AmpC activity was shown by 43(67.2%) and 50 (78.1%) isolates using AmpC disk test with Tris-EDTA, and both DDST and CDT, respectively. Twenty-seven isolates showed obvious activity, all of them (100%) were harboring blaoxa-51like and blaADC-like genes, while blaoxa-23like, blaIMP-like andblaVIM-like genes were harbored by 23(85.2%), 9 (33.%) and no isolate respectively. Only 12 (44.4%) isolates harbored blaoxa-51like and blaADC-like genes preceded by ISAba1. GP3 isolates showed only positive blaoxa-51like and blaADC-like genes. Conclusion: It is not possible to correlate resistance with presence of blaoxa-51like and blaADC-like genes and presence of ISAba1 was immediate as transcriptional promoter. A blaoxa-23like gene played an important role in carbapenem resistance when compared with blaIMP-like and blaVIM-like gene.

Keywords: acinetobacter, beta-lactams, resistance, antimicrobial agents

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Authors: Laura Boschis, Elena D. Ozzello, Enzo Mastromatteo

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Point of care diagnostic finds growing interest in medicine and agri-food because of faster intervention and prevention. EliChip is a microfluidic platform to perform Point of Care immunoenzymatic assay based on ready-to-use kits and a portable instrument to manage fluidics and read reliable quantitative results. Thanks to miniaturization, analyses are faster and more sensible than conventional ELISA. EliChip is one of the crucial assets of the Europen-founded Flamingo project for in-line measuring inflammatory markers.

Keywords: lab on chip, point of care, immunoenzymatic analysis, synovial arthritis

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Authors: Kaige Shi, Chao Jiang, Xin Li

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The swirl gripper is an electrically activated noncontact handling device that uses swirling airflow to generate a lifting force. This force can be used to pick up a workpiece placed underneath the swirl gripper without any contact. It is applicable, for example, in the semiconductor wafer production line, where contact must be avoided during the handling and moving of a workpiece to minimize damage. When a workpiece levitates underneath a swirl gripper, the gap height between them is crucial for safe handling. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method to estimate the levitation gap height by detecting pressure at two points. The method is based on theoretical model of the swirl gripper, and has been experimentally verified. Furthermore, the force between the gripper and the workpiece can also be estimated using the detected pressure. As a result, the nonlinear relationship between the force and gap height can be linearized by adjusting the rotating speed of the fan in the swirl gripper according to the estimated force and gap height. The linearized relationship is expected to enhance handling stability of the workpiece.

Keywords: swirl gripper, noncontact handling, levitation, gap height estimation

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Authors: Nabin Raj Chaulagain

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Most of the concrete bridges in Nepal constructed during 90's and before are made up of low strength ordinary concrete which might be one of the reasons for damage in higher magnitude earthquake. Those bridges were designed by the outdated bridge codes which might not account the large seismic loads. This research investigates the seismic vulnerability of the existing single column ordinary concrete bridge pier by finite element modeling, using the software Seismostruct. The existing bridge pier capacity has been assessed using nonlinear pushover analysis and performance is compared after retrofitting those pier models with CFRP. Furthermore, the seismic evaluation was made by conducting cyclic loading test at different drift percentage. The performance analysis of bridge pier by nonlinear pushover analysis is further validated by energy dissipation phenomenon measured from the hysteric loop for each model of ordinary concrete piers.

Keywords: finite element modeling, ordinary concrete bridge pier, performance analysis, retrofitting

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Authors: Giovanni Gonzalez Araujo, Michael Kyrilov, Angelo Kyrilov

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STEAMplug is a web-based innovative educational platform which makes teaching easier and learning more effective. It requires no setup, eliminating the barriers to entry, allowing students to focus on their learning throughreal-world development environments. The student-centric tools enable easy collaboration between peers and teachers. Analyzing user interactions with the system enables us to predict student performance and identify at-risk students, allowing early instructor intervention.

Keywords: plagiarism detection, identifying at-Risk Students, education technology, e-learning system, collaborative development, learning and teaching with technology

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Authors: Yunusa Odiba

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Islam, from its root is a divine religion and it does not exercise anything except within the scope of its divinity-its culture, tradition morality, and the like. The damage done to the legacies, traditions, culture, morality, viability, continued existence and relevance of the Islamic religious way of life by the prevalent western secular education system in the Muslim world has become a thing of interest to many scholars especially, the Muslim scholars, hence, advocating the integration of Islamic education with the western circular educational system. The aim is to produce a new generation of dedicated Muslims whose education has prepared them for the challenges of contemporary materialistic circulation alongside real Islamic knowledge. This paper, however, examines the process of integrating Islamic schools with the contemporary western based schools that would under-take the unification which should function as basic organ of Muslim ideological revivalism, cultural retention, identity formation, socio-economic development, and scientific and ecological inventiveness.

Keywords: challenges, integrating, Islamic education, secular system, Igalaland

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Authors: Min Sik Kim, Hwa Sung Shin

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From 2013, small eel farms, which are located in Han River Estuary, South Korea suffer damage because of unknown massive perish. In the middle of discussion that the cause of perish could be environmental changes or waste water, a large amount of unknown nemertean was discovered during that time. Some nemerteans are known releasing neurotoxin substance. In this study, we isolated intestinal bacteria using selective media and conducted 16s rDNA microbial identification by gene alignment. As a result, there was a type of bacteria producing TTX, blocks sodium-channel inducing organism’s death. TTX production from the bacteria was confirmed by ELISA and liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometer. Additionally, the activated-charcoal which has an ability to absorb small molecules like toxin was applied to fibrous mesh to prevent ingestion of aquatic organisms and increase applicable area. The viability of zebrafish in the water with TTX and charcoal fiber mat were not decreased meaning it could be used for solving the perishing problem in fish farm.

Keywords: nemertean, TTX, fiber mat, activated charcoal, zebrafish

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Authors: Mentor Sulollari

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Albania, according to (UNU-EHS) United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security studies for 2015, is listed as the number one country in Europe for the possibility to be caught by natural catastrophes. This is conditioned by unstudied human activity, which has seriously damaged the environment. Albanian part of Ohrid graben that lies in Southeast of Albania, is endangered by landslides and floods, as a result of uncontrolled urban development and low level of investment in infrastructure, rugged terrain in its western part and capricious climate caused by global warming. To be dealt with natural disasters, which cause casualties and material damage, it is important to study them in order to anticipate and reduce damages in future. As part of this study is the construction of natural hazards map, which show us where they are distributed, and which are the vulnerable areas. This article will also be dealing with socio-economic and environmental costs of those events and what are the measures to be taken to reduce them.

Keywords: flooding, landslides, natural catastrophes mapping, Pogradec, lake Ohrid, Albanian part of Ohrid graben

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Authors: Marcio Freire Cruz, Naoaki Ono, Shigehiko Kanaya, Carlos Arthur Mattos Teixeira Cavalcante

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The systems that record patient care information, known as Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and those that monitor vital signs of patients, such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure have been extremely valuable for the effectiveness of the patient’s treatment. Several kinds of research have been using data from EMRs and vital signs of patients to predict illnesses. Among them, we highlight those that intend to predict, classify, or, at least identify patterns, of sepsis illness in patients under vital signs monitoring. Sepsis is an organic dysfunction caused by a dysregulated patient's response to an infection that affects millions of people worldwide. Early detection of sepsis is expected to provide a significant improvement in its treatment. Preceding works usually combined medical, statistical, mathematical and computational models to develop detection methods for early prediction, getting higher accuracies, and using the smallest number of variables. Among other techniques, we could find researches using survival analysis, specialist systems, machine learning and deep learning that reached great results. In our research, patients are modeled as points moving each hour in an n-dimensional space where n is the number of vital signs (variables). These points can reach a sepsis target point after some time. For now, the sepsis target point was calculated using the median of all patients’ variables on the sepsis onset. From these points, we calculate for each hour the position vector, the first derivative (velocity vector) and the second derivative (acceleration vector) of the variables to evaluate their behavior. And we construct a prediction model based on a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Network, including these derivatives as explanatory variables. The accuracy of the prediction 6 hours before the time of sepsis, considering only the vital signs reached 83.24% and by including the vectors position, speed, and acceleration, we obtained 94.96%. The data are being collected from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) Database, a public database that contains vital signs, laboratory test results, observations, notes, and so on, from more than 60.000 patients.

Keywords: dynamic analysis, long short-term memory, prediction, sepsis

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Authors: Nabin Prasad Joshi, Samiksha Neupane

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Since its emergence in December 2019, Corona Virus disease has impacted several countries, affecting many people. The first cases were recorded in Wuhan, China, between December 2019 and January 2020. Italy is one of the affected countries in Europe. The relations between India and Nepal have reverted to the pre-pandemic period as both countries have open borders. The study focused on the overall psychosocial impact among covid-19 survivors in their life what are the changes they are facing after covid also how are their relations with friends and relatives after they have covid in different municipalities of Kathmandu valley, where people from different regions are living in rent and have their own houses. Support from friends and family during a pandemic can prevent it if it is strong enough. Nonetheless, there were risk factors for psychosocial damage, including a lack of or insufficient family and social support, psychiatric assistance, and inadequate insurance or compensation. Poorer mental health outcomes were inversely correlated with social rejection or isolation.

Keywords: stress, anxiety, depression, Kathmandu

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Authors: S. Tartaya, R. Bagtache, A. M. Djaballah, M. Trari

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Due to the increase in the trade of colored products and their applications in various fields such as cosmetic, food, textile, pharmaceutical industries, etc. Dyes constitute a large part of the contaminants in wastewater and cause serious damage in the environment and the aquatic system. Photocatalytic systems are highly efficient processes for treating wastewater in the presence of semiconductor photocatalysts. In this field, we report our contribution by synthesizing a potassium vanadium fluorophosphate compound KVPO4F (which is abbreviated KVPOF) by a simplified hydrothermal method at 180°C for 5 days. The as synthesized product has been characterized physically and photoelectrochemically. The indirect optical transition of 1.88 eV, determined from the diffuse reflectance, was assigned to the charge transfer. Moreover, the curve (C-2–E) of the KVPOF displayed n-type character of the semiconductor. Even more, interestingly, the photocatalytic performance was evaluated through the photo-degradation of cationic dye Methyl Violet (MV). An abatement of 61% was obtained after 6 h of irradiation under visible light.

Keywords: KVPO4F, photocatalysis, semiconductor, wastewater, environment

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Authors: B. Zerouali, M. Kara, B. Hamaidi, H. Mahdjoub, S. Rouabhia

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In this paper, a safety analysis for crude oil tanks to prevent undesirable events that may cause catastrophic accidents. The estimation of the probability of damage to industrial systems is carried out through a series of steps, and in accordance with a specific methodology. In this context, this work involves developing an assessment tool and risk analysis at the level of crude oil tanks system, based primarily on identification of various potential causes of crude oil tanks fire and explosion by the use of Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), then improved risk modelling by Bayesian Networks (BNs). Bayesian approach in the evaluation of failure and quantification of risks is a dynamic analysis approach. For this reason, have been selected as an analytical tool in this study. Research concludes that the Bayesian networks have a distinct and effective method in the safety analysis because of the flexibility of its structure; it is suitable for a wide variety of accident scenarios.

Keywords: bayesian networks, crude oil tank, fault tree, prediction, safety

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Authors: Abdelkader Soumaya, Noureddine Ben Ayed, Ali Kadri, Said Maouche, Hayet Khayati Ammar, Ahmed Braham

Abstract:

The historic sites of Bulla Regia and Chemtou are among the most important archaeological monuments in northwestern Tunisia, which flourished as large, wealthy settlements during the Roman and Byzantine periods (2nd to 7th centuries AD). An archaeoseismological study provides the first indications about the impact of a possible ancient strong earthquake in the destruction of these cities. Based on previous archaeological excavation results, including numismatic evidence, pottery, economic meltdown and urban transformation, the abrupt ruin and destruction of the cities of Bulla Regia and Chemtou can be bracketed between 613 and 647 AD. In this study, we carried out the first attempt to use the analysis of earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs) that were observed during our field investigations in these two historic cities. The damage includes different types of EAEs: folds on regular pavements, displaced and deformed vaults, folded walls, tilted walls, collapsed keystones in arches, dipping broken corners, displaced-fallen columns, block extrusions in walls, penetrative fractures in brick-made walls and open fractures on regular pavements. These deformations are spread over 10 different sectors or buildings and include 56 measured EAEs. The structural analysis of the identified EAEs can indicate an ancient destructive earthquake that probably destroyed the Bulla Regia and Chemtou archaeological sites. We then analyzed these measurements using structural geological analysis to obtain the maximum horizontal strain of the ground (e.g., S ₕₘₐₓ) on each building-oriented damage. After the collection and analysis of these strain datasets, we proceed to plot the orientation of Sₕₘₐₓ trajectories on the map of the archaeological site (Bulla Regia). We concluded that the obtained Sₕₘₐₓ trajectories within this site could then be related to the mean direction of ground motion (oscillatory movement of the ground) triggered by a seismic event, as documented for some historical earthquakes across the world. These Sₕₘₐₓ orientations closely match the current active stress field, as highlighted by some instrumental events in northern Tunisia. In terms of the seismic source, we strongly suggest that the reactivation of a neotectonic strike-slip fault trending N50E must be responsible for this probable historic earthquake and the recent instrumental seismicity in this area. This fault segment, affecting the folded quaternary deposits south of Jebel Rebia, passes through the monument of Bulla Regia. Stress inversion of the observed and measured data along this fault shows an N150 - 160 trend of Sₕₘₐₓ under a transpressional tectonic regime, which is quite consistent with the GPS data and the state of the current stress field in this region.

Keywords: NW Tunisia, archaeoseismology, earthquake archaeological effect, bulla regia - Chemtou, seismotectonic, neotectonic fault

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Authors: Roscoe McLean, Jared Padayachee, Glen Bright

Abstract:

There is currently a gap in the technology covering the rapid establishment of control after a reconfiguration in a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System. This gap involves the detection of the factory floor state and the communication link between the factory floor and the high-level software. In this paper, a thin, hardware-supported Middleware Management System (MMS) is proposed and its design and implementation are discussed. The research found that a cost-effective localization technique can be combined with intelligent software to speed up the ramp-up of a reconfigured system. The MMS makes the process more intelligent, more efficient and less time-consuming, thus supporting the industrial implementation of the RMS paradigm.

Keywords: intelligent systems, middleware, reconfigurable manufacturing, management system

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Authors: Ebrahim Ghanbari, Mohammad Reza Nematollahi

Abstract:

Integrating deterministic and probabilistic safety assessment (IDPSA) is one of the most commonly used issues in the field of safety analysis of power plant accident. It has also been recognized today that the role of human error in creating these accidents is not less than systemic errors, so the human interference and system errors in fault and event sequences are necessary. The integration of these analytical topics will be reflected in the frequency of core damage and also the study of the use of water resources in an accident such as the loss of all electrical power of the plant. In this regard, the SBO accident was simulated for the pressurized water reactor in the deterministic analysis issue, and by analyzing the operator's behavior in controlling the accident, the results of the combination of deterministic and probabilistic assessment were identified. The results showed that the best performance of the plant operator would reduce the risk of an accident by 10%, as well as a decrease of 6.82 liters/second of the water sources of the plant.

Keywords: IDPSA, human error, SBO, risk

Procedia PDF Downloads 115

Authors: Mohammad Y. Alfaifi

Abstract:

Anything that poses a challenge or a threat to our well-being is a stress. Understanding the genetic material and cellular response of rats threatened with Repeated swimming stress provides insights that can influence human health. The aim of the present study was to assess the genetical damage and cytological changes caused by exposure of the test organism (Rattus rattus) to forced swimming stress. For this purpose, animals have been submerged in water path 15 minutes daily for 2 weeks. Following that, we performed a micronuclei (MN) test using MNNCE (Micronucleated normocromatic erythrocytes) and MNPCE (Micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes), NDI (Nuclear division index) and cytological parameters using NDCI (nuclear division cytotoxicity index), necrotic and apoptotic cells in rat's bone marrow samples. Results showed that there was a slightly but not significant increase in the frequency of micronucleated as well as in cytological parameters in bone marrow cells.

Keywords: submergence stress, micronucleus, NDI, NDCI, toxicity, chromosomal aberrations

Procedia PDF Downloads 379

Authors: Juan Heredia, Naci Dilekli

Abstract:

The Ecuadorian Rainforest has been polluted for almost 60 years with little to no regard to oversight, law, or regulations. The consequences have been vast environmental damage such as pollution and deforestation, as well as sickness and the death of many people and animals. The aim of this paper is to quantify and localize the polluted zones, which something that has not been conducted and is the first step for remediation. To approach this problem, multi-spectral Remote Sensing imagery was utilized using a novel algorithm developed for this study, based on four normalized indices available in the literature. The algorithm classifies the pixels in polluted or healthy ones. The results of this study include a new algorithm for pixel classification and quantification of the polluted area in the selected image. Those results were finally validated by ground control points found in the literature. The main conclusion of this work is that using hyperspectral images, it is possible to identify polluted vegetation. The future work is environmental remediation, in-situ tests, and more extensive results that would inform new policymaking.

Keywords: remote sensing, oil pollution quatification, amazon forest, hyperspectral remote sensing

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Morteza Habibi, Reza Amrollahi

Abstract:

The Aluminum made targets were placed at the central part of a Fillipov type (90KJ) plasma focus cathode. These targets were exposed to perpendicular dense plasma stream incidence. Melt layer erosion by melt motion, surface smoothing, and bubble formation were some of different effects caused by diverse working conditions. Micro hardness of surface layer tends to decrease particularly in the central region of the sample where destruction is more intense. The most pronouced melt motion is registered in the region of the maximum gradient of pressure and the etching of aluminium surface is noticeable in the central part of target. The crater with a maximum depth of 200µm, and the diameter of about 8.5mm is observed close to the mountains. Adding Krypton admixture to the Deuterium gas lead to collapsing bubbles and greater surface damage.

Keywords: fillipov type plasma focus, al target interaction, bubbling effect, melt layer motion, surface smoothing

Procedia PDF Downloads 518