Search results for: paired domination number

Authors: Hamid Abchir, Mohammed Sabak2

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We construct an infinite family of links which are both almost alternating and quasi-alternating from a given either almost alternating diagram representing a quasi-alternating link, or connected and reduced alternating tangle diagram. To do that we use what we call a dealternator extension which consists in replacing the dealternator by a rational tangle extending it. We note that all non-alternating and quasi-alternating Montesinos links can be obtained in that way. We check that all the obtained quasi-alternating links satisfy Conjecture 3.1 of Qazaqzeh et al. (JKTR 22 (6), 2013), that is the crossing number of a quasi-alternating link is less than or equal to its determinant. We also prove that the converse of Theorem 3.3 of Qazaqzeh et al. (JKTR 24 (1), 2015) is false.

Keywords: quasi-alternating links, almost alternating links, tangles, determinants

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Authors: Viktor Kochkodan

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The main problem arising upon water treatment and desalination using pressure driven membrane processes such as microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis is membrane fouling that seriously hampers the application of the membrane technologies. One of the main approaches to mitigate membrane fouling is to minimize adhesion interactions between a foulant and a membrane and the surface coating of the membranes with polyelectrolytes seems to be a simple and flexible technique to improve the membrane fouling resistance. In this study composite polyamide membranes NF-90, NF-270, and BW-30 were modified using electrostatic deposition of polyelectrolyte multilayers made from various polycationic and polyanionic polymers of different molecular weights. Different anionic polyelectrolytes such as: poly(sodium 4-styrene sulfonate), poly(vinyl sulfonic acid, sodium salt), poly(4-styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) sodium salt, poly(acrylic acid) sodium salt (PA) and cationic polyelectrolytes such as poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride), poly(ethylenimine) and poly(hexamethylene biguanide were used for membrane modification. An effect of deposition time and a number of polyelectrolyte layers on the membrane modification has been evaluated. It was found that degree of membrane modification depends on chemical nature and molecular weight of polyelectrolytes used. The surface morphology of the prepared composite membranes was studied using atomic force microscopy. It was shown that the surface membrane roughness decreases significantly as a number of the polyelectrolyte layers on the membrane surface increases. This smoothening of the membrane surface might contribute to the reduction of membrane fouling as lower roughness most often associated with a decrease in surface fouling. Zeta potentials and water contact angles on the membrane surface before and after modification have also been evaluated to provide addition information regarding membrane fouling issues. It was shown that the surface charge of the membranes modified with polyelectrolytes could be switched between positive and negative after coating with a cationic or an anionic polyelectrolyte. On the other hand, the water contact angle was strongly affected when the outermost polyelectrolyte layer was changed. Finally, a distinct difference in the performance of the noncoated membranes and the polyelectrolyte modified membranes was found during treatment of seawater in the non-continuous regime. A possible mechanism of the higher fouling resistance of the modified membranes has been discussed.

Keywords: contact angle, membrane fouling, polyelectrolytes, surface modification

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Authors: Ashwaq Alsulami, Jianhua Shao

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Various organisations often need to understand discussions on social media, such as what trending topics are and characteristics of the people engaged in the discussion. A number of approaches have been proposed to extract attributes that would characterise a discussion group. However, these approaches are largely based on supervised learning, and as such they require a large amount of labelled data. We propose an approach in this paper that does not require labelled data, but rely on lexical sources to detect meaningful attributes for online discussion groups. Our findings show an acceptable level of accuracy in detecting attributes for Twitter discussion groups.

Keywords: attributed community, attribute detection, community, social network

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Authors: Nooraisah Katmon, Hartini Jaafar, Hazianti Abdul Halim, Jessnor Elmy Mat Jizat

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Our study empirically examines the effect of student activities on Facebook and religion on academic performance. We extend prior research in this area in a number of ways. First, given the paucity of the research in this area particularly from the Asian context, we provide the evidence from developing country like Malaysia. Second, our sample drawn from Sultan Idris Education University in Malaysia, where graduates from these universities are unique since they are expected to be able to work in both education and industry environment, and presumed to play significant roles in shaping the development of future student’s intellectual at the Malaysian secondary school and Malaysian economy in general. Third, we control for religiosity aspect when examining the association between Facebook and academic performance, something that has been predominantly neglected by the prior studies. Fourth, unlike prior studies that circulating around the Christian sphere in measuring religiosity, we provide evidence from the Islamic perspective where the act of worships and practices are much more comprehensive rather than the Christian counterparts. Fifth, we examine whether Facebook activities and religiosity are complementary or substitutive each other in improving student’s academic performance. Our sample comprise of 60 undergraduates. Our result exhibit that students with high number of friends on facebook and frequent engagement on facebook activities, such as sharing links, send message, posting photo, tagging video as well as spending long hours on facebook generally are associated with lower academic performance. Our results also reported that student’s engagement in religious activities promotes better academic performance. When we examine the potential interaction effect between facebook and religiosity, our result revealed that religiosity is effective in reducing student’s interest on facebook, hence lead to better academic achievement. In other words, religious student will be less interested in joining activities on facebook and make them more perform than their counterparts. Our findings from this study should be able to assist the university management in shaping university policies and curriculum to regulate and manage student’s activities in order to enhance overall student’s quality. Moreover, the findings from this study are also of use to the policy maker such as Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commissions to regulate the policy on the student’s access and activities on facebook.

Keywords: facebook, religiosity, academic performance, effect of student activities

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Authors: Hassan Sheikh, Mehdi Nilipour, Amiraslan Fila

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Many conventional town planning processes do little to give children and young people a voice on what is important about the urban environment. As a result of paying little attention to the children, their physical, social and mental needs are hardly met in urban environments. Therefore, urban spaces are impotent to attract children, while their recreational space has been confined to home or virtual spaces. Since children are just taking the first steps to learn the world beyond house borders, their living environment will profoundly influence almost all aspects of their lives. This puts a great deal of responsibility on the shoulders of planners, who need to balance a number of different issues in urban design to make places more child-friendly. The main purpose of present research is to analyze and plan a child-friendly environment in an on-going urban settlement development for the benefit of all residents. Assessing children’s needs and regard them in development strategies and policies will help to “plan for children”. Following this purpose, based on child-friendly environment studies, indicators of child-friendly environments were collected. Then three distinct characteristics of case study, which are being under-construction, lack of social ties between dwellers and high-rise building, determined seven indicators included basic services, Urban and environmental qualities, Family, kin, peers and community, Sense of belonging and continuity, participation, Safety, security and freedom of movement and human scale. With the survey, Informal observation and participation in small communities, essential data has been collected and analyzed by SPSS software. The field study is Shahid-Keshvari town in Isfahan, Iran. Eighty-six middle childhood, children (ages 8-13) participated. The results show Children's satisfaction is correlated with basic services and the quality of the environment, social environment and the safety and security. The considerable number of children and youth (55%) like to live somewhere other than the town. Satisfaction and sense of belonging and continuity have a strong inverse correlation with age. In other words, as age increases, satisfaction and consequently a sense of belonging will be reduced; thus children and youth consider their future somewhere out of the town. The main reason for dissatisfaction was the basic services and social environment. More than half of children (55%) expressed their wish to develop basic services in terms of availability, hierarchy, and quality. Among all recreational places, children showed more interest to the parks. About three-quarters (76%) considered building a park as a crucial item for residents. The significant number of children (54%) want to have a relationship with more friends. This could be due to the serious shortage of the leisure spaces such as parks or playgrounds. Also, the space around the house or space between the apartments has not been designed for play or children’s activities. Moreover, the presence of strangers and construction workers have a negative impact on children's sense of peace and security; 60% of children are afraid of theft and 36% of children found strangers as a menace. The analysis of children’s issues and suggestions provides an insight to plan and design of child-friendly environment in new towns.

Keywords: child-friendly city (CFC), child-friendly environment, child participation, under-construction environment, Isfahan Shahid-Keshvari Town

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Authors: Ivna Mororó, Lise P. Labéjof, Stephanie Ribeiro, Kely Almeida

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Lipid droplets (LDs) are normally presented in greater or lesser number in the cytoplasm of almost all eukaryotic and some prokaryotic cells. They are independent organelles composed of a lipid ester core and a surface phospholipid monolayer. As a lipid storage form, they provide an available source of energy for the cell. Recently it was demonstrated that they play an important role in other many cellular processes. Among the many unresolved questions about them, it is not even known how LDs is formed, how lipids are recruited to LDs and how they interact with the other organelles. Excess fat in the organism is pathological and often associated with the development of some genetic, hormonal or behavioral diseases. The formation and accumulation of lipid droplets in the cytoplasm can be increased by exogenous physical or chemical agents. It is well known that ionizing radiation affects lipid metabolism resulting in increased lipogenesis in cells, but the details of this process are unknown. To better understand the mode of formation of LDs in liver cells, we investigate their ultrastructural morphology after irradiation. For that, Wistar rats were exposed to whole body gamma radiation from 60-cobalt at various single doses. Samples of the livers were processed for analysis under a conventional transmission electron microscope. We found that when compared to controls, morphological changes in liver cells were evident at the higher doses of radiation used. It was detected a great number of lipid droplets of different sizes and homogeneous content and some of them merged each other. In some cells, it was observed diffused LDs, not limited by a monolayer of phospholipids. This finding suggests that the phospholipid monolayer of the LDs was disrupted by ionizing radiation exposure that promotes lipid peroxydation of endo membranes. Thus the absence of the phospholipid monolayer may prevent the realization of some cellular activities as follow: - lipid exocytosis which requires the merging of LDs membrane with the plasma membrane; - the interaction of LDs with other membrane-bound organelles such as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the golgi and mitochondria and; - lipolysis of lipid esters contained in the LDs which requires the presence of enzymes located in membrane-bound organelles as ER. All these impediments can contribute to lipid accumulation in the cytoplasm and the development of diseases such as liver steatosis, cirrhosis and cancer.

Keywords: radiobiology, hepatocytes, lipid metabolism, transmission electron microscopy

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Authors: B. Rusyidi

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Since 2009, the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs has been implementing Program Kesejahteraan Sosial Anak (PKSA) (Child Welfare Program) a conditional cash transfer program that targets neglected children, children with disabilities, street children, children in conflict with the law, and children in need of special protection, all from poor households. PKSA integrates three elements: Transfer of cash, care and social services through social workers, and institutional childcare assistance. This qualitative study analyzed the roles and the challenges of social workers in implementing PKSA and lays out recommendations to inform policy changes. Data were collected in late 2014 from national and local government and non-government child welfare agencies, social workers, and childcare institution representatives through interviews and Focused Group Discussions (FGDs). Field work took place in six districts in the provinces of Jakarta, Central Java and South Sulawesi. The study found that the social workers’ role was significant in facilitating cash transfer, providing education and guidance, and linking children and families to basic social services. This improved utilization of basic social services enhanced children and families’ behaviors and contributed to the well being of the children. However, only a small number of childcare institutions have social workers, leaving many children and families without care and social service linkages, depriving them of rehabilitative components to help them regain their social functions. Some social workers reported their struggles with heavy workloads, lack of professional competencies and training, limited job security, and inadequate professional acknowledgment from other professions. Parts of those challenges were due to the centralized nature of the program and the lack of shared vision and commitment about the child protection system among related government agencies both at the national and local levels. The study highlights the necessity to implement an integrated child protection system, decentralize the PKSA program, and increase the number, competence, case management, and management and monitoring of social workers. The most recent progress of the program and its impacts on social workers are also discussed.

Keywords: child protection, conditional cash transfer, program decentralization, social worker, working conditions

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Authors: Ranbir Singh, Deepinder Kaur

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Network security is an important aspect in every field like government offices, Educational Institute and any business organization. Network security consists of the policies adopted to prevent and monitor forbidden access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network. Network security is very complicated subject and deal by only well trained and experienced people. However, as more and more people become wired, an increasing number of people need to understand the basics of security in a networked world. The history of the network security included an introduction to the TCP/IP and interworking. Network security starts with authenticating, commonly with a username and a password. In this paper, we study about various types of attacks on network security and how to handle or prevent this attack.

Keywords: network security, attacks, denial, authenticating

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Authors: Amine Ait-Ouahmed, Didier Josselin, Fen Zhou

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Free-Float car-sharing is an one-way car-sharing service where cars are available anytime and anywhere in the streets such that no dedicated stations are needed. This means that after driving a car you can park it anywhere. This car-sharing system creates an imbalance car distribution in the cites which can be regulated by staff agents through the redistribution of cars. In this paper, we aim to solve the car-reservation and agents traveling problem so that the number of successful cars’ reservations could be maximized. Beside, we also tend to minimize the distance traveled by agents for cars redistribution. To this end, we present a mixed integer linear programming formulation for the car-sharing problem.

Keywords: one-way car-sharing, vehicle redistribution, car reservation, linear programming

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Authors: Jaber Nikpouri, Arsalan Amralizadeh

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In robotics manipulators, the trajectory should be optimum, thus the torque of the robot can be minimized in order to save power. This paper includes an optimal path planning scheme for a robotic manipulator. Recently, techniques based on metaheuristics of natural computing, mainly evolutionary algorithms (EA), have been successfully applied to a large number of robotic applications. In this paper, the improved BBO algorithm is used to minimize the objective function in the presence of different obstacles. The simulation represents that the proposed optimal path planning method has satisfactory performance.

Keywords: biogeography-based optimization, path planning, obstacle detection, robotic manipulator

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Authors: Deeba N. Baig, Ateeqa Ijaz, Saloome Rafiq

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Camel is a religious and culturally significant animal in Asian and African regions. In Pakistan Dromedary and Bactrian are common camel breeds. Other than the transportation use, it is a pivotal source of milk and meat. The quality of its milk and meat is predominantly dependent on the geographical location and variety of vegetation available for the diet. Camel milk (CM) is highly nutritious because of its reduced cholesterol and sugar contents along with enhanced minerals and vitamins level. The absence of beta-lactoglobulin (like human milk), makes CM a safer alternative for infants and children having Cow Milk Allergy (CMA). In addition to this, it has a unique probiotic profile both in raw and fermented form. Number of Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) including lactococcus, lactobacillus, enterococcus, streptococcus, weissella, pediococcus and many other bacteria have been detected. From these LAB Lactobacilli, Bifidobacterium and Enterococcus are widely used commercially for fermentation purpose. CM has high therapeutic value as its effectiveness is known against various ailments like fever, arthritis, asthma, gastritis, hepatitis, Jaundice, constipation, postpartum care of women, anti-venom, dropsy etc. It also has anti-diabetic, anti-microbial, antitumor potential along with its robust efficacy in the treatment of auto-immune disorders. Recently, the role of CM has been explored in brain-gut axis for the therapeutics of neurodevelopmental disorders. In this connection, a lot of grey area was available to explore the probiotics and therapeutics latent in the CM available in Pakistan. Thus, current study was designed to explore the predominant probiotic flora and antimicrobial potential of CM from different local breeds of Pakistan. The probiotics have been identified through biochemical, physiological and ribo-typing methods. In addition to this, bacteriocins (antimicrobial-agents) were screened through PCR-based approach. Results of this study revealed that CM from different breeds of camel depicted a number of similar probiotic candidates along with the range of limited variability. However, the nucleotide sequence analysis of selected anti-listerial bacteriocins exposed least variability. As a conclusion, the CM has sufficient probiotic availability and significant anti-microbial potential.

Keywords: bacteriocins, camel milk, probiotics potential, therapeutics

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Authors: Hemant Kumar, Nilendu Das

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A study based on ANN structure gives us the information to predict the size of the future in realizing a past event. ANN, IMD (Indian meteorological department) data and remote sensing were used to enable a number of parameters for calculating the size that may occur in the future. A threshold selected specifically above the high-frequency harvest reached the area during the selected seismic activity. In the field of human and local biodiversity it remains to obtain the right parameter compared to the frequency of impact. But during the study the assumption is that predicting seismic activity is a difficult process, not because of the parameters involved here, which can be analyzed and funded in research activity.

Keywords: ANN, Bayesion class, earthquakes, IMD

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Authors: T. Holecki, J. Wozniak-Holecka, P. Romaniuk

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Due to the highly centralized model of financing health care in Poland, local self-government rarely undertook their own initiatives in the field of public health, particularly health promotion. However, since 2017 the possibility of applying for a subsidy to health policy programs has been allowed, with the additional resources to be retrieved from the National Health Fund, which is the dominant payer in the health system. The amount of subsidy depends on the number of inhabitants in a given unit and ranges about 40% of the total cost of the program. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of newly implemented solutions in financing health policy on the management of public finances, as well as on the activity provided by local self-government in health promotion. An effort to estimate the amount of expenses that both local governments, and the National Health Fund, spent on local health policy programs while implementing the new solutions. The research method is the analysis of financial data obtained from the National Health Fund and from local government units, as well as reports published by the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Pricing, which holds substantive control over the health policy programs, and releases permission for their implementation. The study was based on a comparative analysis of expenditures on the implementation of health programs in Poland in years 2010-2018. The presentation of the results includes the inclusion of average annual expenditures of local government units per 1 inhabitant, the total number of positively evaluated applications and the percentage share in total expenditures of local governments (16 voivodships areas). The most essential purpose is to determine whether the assumptions of the subsidy program are working correctly in practice, and what are the real effects of introducing legislative changes into local government levels in the context of public health tasks. The assumption of the study was that the use of a new motivation tool in the field of public management would result in multiplication of resources invested in the provision of health policy programs. Preliminary conclusions show that financial expenditures changed significantly after the introduction of public funding at the level of 40%, obtaining an increase in funding from own funds of local governments at the level of 80 to 90%.

Keywords: health care system, health policy programs, local self-governments, public health management

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Authors: L. Janská, J. Kubrický

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The article describes a research focused on the influence of the information and communication technology (ICT) on the pupils' learning. The investigation deals with the influences that distinguish between the group of pupils influenced by ICT and the group of pupils not influenced by ICT. The group influenced by ICT should evince a different approach in number of areas (in managing of two and more activities at once, in a quick orientation and searching for information on the Internet, in an ability to quickly and effectively assess the data sources, in the assessment of attitudes and opinions of the other users of the network, in critical thinking, in the preference to work in teams, in the sharing of information and personal data via the virtual social networking, in insisting on the immediate reaction on their every action etc.).

Keywords: ICT influence, digital natives, pupil´s learning

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Authors: Dmitriy Yu. Korulkin, Ravshan M. Nuraliev, Raissa A. Muzychkina

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In this research paper, we investigated the main regularities of a radical bromination reaction of decalin. We studied the temperature effect, durations of reaction, frequency rate of process, ratio of initial components, type and number of the initiator on decalin bromination degree. We found specified optimum conditions of synthesis of a perbromodecalin by the method of a decalin bromination. We developed the technological flowchart of receiving a perbromodecalin and the mass balance of process on the first and the subsequent loadings of components. The results of the research of antibacterial and antifungal activity of synthesized bromoderivatives have been represented.

Keywords: decalin, optimum technology, perbromodecalin, radical bromination

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Authors: Sourabh Joshi, Tarun Sharma, Anurag Sharma

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Ant Colony Optimization is heuristic Algorithm which has been proven a successful technique applied on number of combinatorial optimization problems. Two variants of Ant Colony Optimization algorithm named Ant System and Max-Min Ant System are implemented in MATLAB to solve travelling Salesman Problem and the results are compared. In, this paper both systems are analyzed by solving the some Travelling Salesman Problem and depict which system solve the problem better in term of cost and time.

Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization, Travelling Salesman Problem, Ant System, Max-Min Ant System

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Authors: Wei Wang, Yannick Liu, Lu Zhen, H. Wang

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Maritime transport plays an important role in global economic development but also inevitably faces increasing pressures from all sides, such as ship operating cost reduction and environmental protection. An ideal innovation to address these pressures is electric ships. The electric ship is in the early stage. Considering the special characteristics of electric ships, i.e., travel range limit, to guarantee the efficient operation of electric ships, the service network needs to be re-designed carefully. This research designs a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly service network for electric ships, including the location of charging stations, charging plan, route planning, ship scheduling, and ship deployment. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model with the objective of minimizing total cost comprised of charging cost, the construction cost of charging stations, and fixed cost of ships. A case study using data of the shipping network along the Yangtze River is conducted to evaluate the performance of the model. Two operating scenarios are used: an electric ship scenario where all the transportation tasks are fulfilled by electric ships and a conventional ship scenario where all the transportation tasks are fulfilled by fuel oil ships. Results unveil that the total cost of using electric ships is only 42.8% of using conventional ships. Using electric ships can reduce 80% SOx, 93.47% NOx, 89.47% PM, and 42.62% CO2, but will consume 2.78% more time to fulfill all the transportation tasks. Extensive sensitivity analyses are also conducted for key operating factors, including battery capacity, charging speed, volume capacity, and a service time limit of transportation task. Implications from the results are as follows: 1) it is necessary to equip the ship with a large capacity battery when the number of charging stations is low; 2) battery capacity will influence the number of ships deployed on each route; 3) increasing battery capacity will make the electric ship more cost-effective; 4) charging speed does not affect charging amount and location of charging station, but will influence the schedule of ships on each route; 5) there exists an optimal volume capacity, at which all costs and total delivery time are lowest; 6) service time limit will influence ship schedule and ship cost.

Keywords: cost reduction, electric ship, environmental protection, sustainable shipping

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Authors: C. Scurr, J. Jeans, S. Srivastava

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Introduction: Acute type two respiratory failure (T2RF) has become a common presentation over the last two decades primarily due to an increase in the prevalence of chronic lung disease. Acute exacerbations can be managed either medically or in combination with non-invasive ventilation (NIV) which should be monitored with regular arterial blood gas samples (ABG). Arterial lines allow more frequent arterial blood sampling with less patient discomfort. We present the experience from a teaching hospital emergency department (ED) and level 2 medical high-dependency unit (HDU) that together form the pathway for management of acute type 2 respiratory failure. Methods: Patients acutely presenting to Charing Cross Hospital, London, with T2RF requiring non-invasive ventilation (NIV) over 14 months (2011 to 2012) were identified from clinical coding. Retrospective data collection included: demographics, co-morbidities, blood gas numbers and timing, if arterial lines were used and who performed this. Analysis was undertaken using Microsoft Excel. Results: Coding identified 107 possible patients. 69 notes were available, of which 41 required NIV for type 2 respiratory failure. 53.6% of patients had an arterial line inserted. Patients with arterial lines had 22.4 ABG in total on average compared to 8.2 for those without. These patients had a similar average time to normalizing pH of (23.7 with arterial line vs 25.6 hours without), and no statistically significant difference in mortality. Arterial lines were inserted by Foundation year doctors, Core trainees, Medical registrars as well as the ICU registrar. 63% of these were performed by the medical registrar rather than ICU, ED or a junior doctor. This is reflected in that the average time until an arterial line was inserted was 462 minutes. The average number of ABGs taken before an arterial line was 2 with a range of 0 – 6. The average number of gases taken if no arterial line was ever used was 7.79 (range of 2-34) – on average 4 times as many arterial punctures for each patient. Discussion: Arterial line use was associated with more frequent arterial blood sampling during each inpatient admission. Additionally, patients with an arterial line have less individual arterial punctures in total and this is likely more comfortable for the patient. Arterial lines are normally sited by medical registrars, however this is normally after some delay. ED clinicians could improve patient comfort and monitoring thus allowing faster titration of NIV if arteral lines were regularly inserted in the ED. We recommend that ED doctors insert arterial lines when indicated in order improve the patient experience and facilitate medical management.

Keywords: non invasive ventilation, arterial blood gas, acute type, arterial line

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Authors: Canga Mimoza, Irene Malagnino, Giulia Malagnino, Vito Malagnino

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Aim: This study aims at evaluating the impact of total dust (LGS) and mineral dust (PM10), in the cardio vascular and respiratory systems. Also proving that these air polluters are the cause of several diseases, such as bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, bronchitis, angina pectoris and cardiac insufficiency. Material and Method: The study is concentrated in the cities of Fier and Vlora. This is a clinic-epidemiological study conducted during the time period 2014-2019. Some of the data of LGS and PM10 were obtained from the database of the Institute of Public Health. The formula to measure the mean value of LGS and PM10 is ∆X=X (mean)-Xᵢ. Results: Based on the calculations made, we noticed that: The mean value of LGS in the city of Fieri was 227,33, while the mean value of LGS in the city of Vlora was 177,4. Whereas, the mean value of PM10 in the city of Fieri was 105.5 and the mean value of PM10 in the city of Vlore was 77.5. According to, our statistics the values of LGS were 1.2 times higher in Fier than in Vlora and the PM10 values were 1.36 times higher in Fier than in Vlora. Based on the data, in the city of Fier, the incidence of the bronchopneumonia was 56.53 sick patients/1000 inhabitants, but in Vlora, it was 22 sick patients/1000 inhabitants, so the number of the sick patients was 2.5 times higher in the city of Fieri compared with Vlora city, (P=0.001). The number of the patients with bronchitis, in the city of Fier, was 18 patients/1000 inhabitants, whereas, in Vlora, it was 9 patients/1000 inhabitants, (P=0.005). Based on the data, 8 patients/1000 inhabitants in the city of Fier, suffered from the pneumonia disease, while in Vlora city, were 4 patients/1000 inhabitants, (P=0.005). Another disease taken in consideration was angina pectoris. This study can claim that in the city of Fier, 9.5 patients/1000 inhabitants suffered from this disease, while in Vlora city, were only 4 patients /1000 inhabitants, (P=0.001). Findings of the present study proved that 3.7 patients/1000 inhabitants in the city of Fieri, had cardiac insufficiency, whereas in the city of Vlora, were 1.8 patients/1000 inhabitants, (P=0.05). Conclusions: LGS and PM10 have an influential impact on the cardio vascular and respiratory system; that’s why their levels should be kept under control. The pollution levels are 1.2 and 1.4 times higher in Fier than in Vlora; also the incidences of the diseases are 2 times higher in Fier than in Vlora. Recommendations: In order to prevent the cardio vascular and respiratory diseases, we should avoid places where pollution is higher than the norm. This can be achieved by frequenting places where the air pollution is lower, such as parks, gardens, top floors, etc.

Keywords: impact of total dust, LGS, mineral dust, PM 10, cardio vascular pathologies, respiratory disease

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Authors: Evgeniya Y. Yuzbasheva, Tigran V. Yuzbashev, Natalia I. Perkovskaya, Elizaveta B. Mostova

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Cell-surface display of lipase is of great interest as it has many applications in the field of biotechnology owing to its unique advantages: simplified product purification, and cost-effective downstream processing. One promising area of application for whole-cell biocatalysts with surface displayed lipase is biodiesel synthesis. Biodiesel is biodegradable, renewable, and nontoxic alternative fuel for diesel engines. Although the alkaline catalysis method has been widely used for biodiesel production, it has a number of limitations, such as rigorous feedstock specifications, complicated downstream processes, including removal of inorganic salts from the product, recovery of the salt-containing by-product glycerol, and treatment of alkaline wastewater. Enzymatic synthesis of biodiesel can overcome these drawbacks. In this study, Lip2p lipase was displayed on Yarrowia lipolytica cells via C- and N-terminal fusion variant. The active site of lipase is located near the C-terminus, therefore to prevent the activity loosing the insertion of glycine-serine linker between Lip2p and C-domains was performed. The hydrolytic activity of the displayed lipase reached 12,000–18,000 U/g of dry weight. However, leakage of enzyme from the cell wall was observed. In case of C-terminal fusion variant, the leakage was occurred due to the proteolytic cleavage within the linker peptide. In case of N-terminal fusion variant, the leaking enzyme was presented as three proteins, one of which corresponded to the whole hybrid protein. The calculated number of recombinant enzyme displayed on the cell surface is approximately 6–9 × 105 molecules per cell, which is close to the theoretical maximum (2 × 106 molecules/cell). Thus, we attribute the enzyme leakage to the limited space available on the cell surface. Nevertheless, cell-bound lipase exhibited greater stability to short-term and long-term temperature treatment than the native enzyme. It retained 74% of original activity at 60°C for 5 min of incubation, and 83% of original activity after incubation at 50°C during 5 h. Cell-bound lipase had also higher stability in organic solvents and detergents. The developed whole-cell biocatalyst was used for recycling biodiesel synthesis. Two repeated cycles of methanolysis yielded 84.1–% and 71.0–% methyl esters after 33–h and 45–h reactions, respectively.

Keywords: biodiesel, cell-surface display, lipase, whole-cell biocatalyst

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Authors: Emanuela Chiarella, Clelia Nisticò, Nicola Lombardo, Giovanna Lucia Piazzetta, Nadia Lobello, Maria Mesuraca

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Killian’s Antrochoanal Polyp is a benign lesion of the maxillary sinus characterized by unilateral nasal obstruction, pus discharge, and headache. It affects, more commonly children and young adults. Although its etiology still remains unclear, chronic inflammation, autoreactivity, allergies, and viral infections are strongly associated with its formation and development, resulting in nasal tissue remodeling. We aimed to investigate the stem cells components which reside in this pathological tissue. In particular, we adopted a protocol for the isolation and culturing of mesenchymal stem cells from surgical biopsies of three Killian nasal polyp patients (KNP-MSCs) as well as from their healthy nasal tissue (HNT-MSCs) that were used as controls. The immunophenotype profile of HNT-MSCs and KNP-MSCs was more similar, with a marked positivity for CD73, CD90, and CD105 expression, while being negative for CD34 and CD14 haematopoietic genes. Cell proliferation assay showed that KNP-MSCs had a replicative disadvantage compared to HNT-MSCs, as evidenced by the significantly lower number of cells in the S-phase of the cell cycle. KNP-MSCs also took longer to close a wound than HNT-MSCs, indicating a partial epithelial phenotype in which low levels of ICAM-1 mRNA and a significant increase in E-CAD transcript were detectable. Subsequently, the differentiation potential of both MSCs populations was analyzed by inducing osteoblastic or adipocyte differentiation for up to 20 days. KNP-MSCs showed the ability to differentiate into osteoblasts, although ALP activity as well as the number and size of calcium deposits were lower than osteogenic induced-HNT-MSCs. Also, mRNA levels of osteoblastic marker genes (OCN, OPN, OSX, RUNX2) resulted lower compared to control cell population. Instead, the analysis of the adipogenic differentiation potential showed a similar behavior between KNP-MSCs and HNT-MSCs considering that the amount of lipid droplets, the expression of adipocyte-specific genes (FABP4, AdipoQ, PPARγ2, LPL) and the content of triacylglycerols were almost overlapping. Taken together, these results first demonstrated that Killian's nasal polyp is a source of mesenchymal stem cells with self-renewal and multi-differentiative capabilities.

Keywords: Mesenchymal stem cells, adipogenic differentiation, osteogenic differentiation, EMT

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Authors: Heiko Diefenbach, Christoph H. Glock

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Order picking, i.e., the order-based retrieval of items in a warehouse, is an important time- and cost-intensive process for many logistic systems. Despite the ongoing trend of automation, most order picking systems are still manual picker-to-parts systems, where human pickers walk through the warehouse to collect ordered items. Human work in warehouses is not free from errors, and order pickers may at times pick the wrong or the incorrect number of items. Errors can cause additional costs and significant correction efforts. Moreover, age might increase a person’s likelihood to make mistakes. Hence, the negative impact of picking errors might increase for an aging workforce currently witnessed in many regions globally. A significant amount of research has focused on making order picking systems more efficient. Among other factors, storage assignment, i.e., the assignment of items to storage locations (e.g., shelves) within the warehouse, has been subject to optimization. Usually, the objective is to assign items to storage locations such that order picking times are minimized. Surprisingly, there is a lack of research concerned with picking errors and respective prevention approaches. This paper hypothesize that the storage assignment of items can affect the probability of pick errors. For example, storing similar-looking items apart from one other might reduce confusion. Moreover, storing items that are hard to count or require a lot of counting at easy-to-access and easy-to-comprehend self heights might reduce the probability to pick the wrong number of items. Based on this hypothesis, the paper discusses how to incorporate error-prevention measures into mathematical models for storage assignment optimization. Various approaches with respective benefits and shortcomings are presented and mathematically modeled. To investigate the newly developed models further, they are compared to conventional storage assignment strategies in a computational study. The study specifically investigates how the importance of error prevention increases with pickers being more prone to errors due to age, for example. The results suggest that considering error-prevention measures for storage assignment can reduce error probabilities with only minor decreases in picking efficiency. The results might be especially relevant for an aging workforce.

Keywords: an aging workforce, error prevention, order picking, storage assignment

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Authors: L. Abubakar, B. M. Sokoto, I. U. Mohammed, M. S. Na’allah, A. Mohammad, A. N. Garba, T. S. Bubuche

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Onion (Allium cepa var. cepa L.) is the most important species of the Allium group belonging to family Alliaceae and genus Allium. It can be regarded as the single important vegetable species in the world after tomatoes. Despite the similarities, which bring the species together, the genus is a strikingly diverse one, with more than five hundred species, which are perennial and mostly bulbous plants. Out of these, only seven species are in cultivation, and five are the most important species of the cultivated Allium. However, Allium cepa (onion) and Allium sativum (Garlic) are the two major cultivated species grown all over the world of which the onion crop is the most important. North Western Nigeria (Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States) constitute the major onion producing zone in Nigeria, which is primarily during the dry season. However, onion production in the zone is seriously affected by two main factors i.e. diseases and storage losses, in addition to other constraints that limits the cultivation of the crop during the rainy season which include lack of prolonged rainy season to allow for proper maturation of the crop. The major onion disease in this zone is purple blotch caused by a fungus Alternaria porri and currently efforts are on to develop onion hybrids resistant to the disease. Genetic diversity plays an important role in plant breeding either to exploit heterosis or to generate productive recombinants. Assessment of a large number of genotypes for a genetic diversity is the first step in this direction. The objective of this research therefore is to evaluate the genetic potentials of the onion cultivars of North Western Nigeria, with a view of developing new cultivars that address the major production challenges to onion cultivation in North Western, Nigeria. Thirteen onion cultivars were collected during an expedition covering North western Nigeria and Southern part of Niger Republic during 2013, which are areas noted for onion production. The cultivars were evaluated at two locations; Sokoto, in Sokoto State and Jega in Kebbi State all in Nigeria during the 2013/14 onion season (dry season) under irrigation. The objective of the research was to determine the genetic potentials of onion cultivars of north western Nigeria as a basis for breeding purposes. Combined analysis of the results revealed highly significant variation between the cultivars across the locations with respect to plant height, number of leaves/plant, bolting %, bulb height, bulb weight, mean bulb yield and cured bulb weight, with significant variation in terms of bulb diameter. Tasa from Warra Local Government Area of Kebbi State (V4) recorded the greatest mean fresh bulb yield with Jar Albasa (V8) from Illela Local Government Area of Sokoto State recording the least. Similarly Marsa (V5) from Silame Local Government Area recorded the greatest mean cured bulb yield (marketable bulb)with Kiba (V11) from Goronyo Local Government of Sokoto State recording the least. Significant variation was recorded between the locations with respect to all characters, with Sokoto being better in terms of plant height, number of leaves/plant, bolting % and bulb diameter. Jega was better in terms of bulb height, bulb yield and cured bulb weight. Significant variation was therefore observed between the cultivars.

Keywords: evaluation, genetic, onions, North Western Nigeria

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Authors: Dhruv Saini, Megha Sharma, Sharad Gupta

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This research is showing the use of celebrity endorsement and social media influencers and how they help in enhancing the brand loyalty of the consumers. The study aims at keeping brand image of the brand as the link between the two. However, choosing the right celebrity or social media influencer is not an easy task and it is very essential for a brand to select the right ambassador for advertising their products and for selling the product to the ultimate consumer. The purpose of the study is to create a relationship of Celebrity endorsement with brand image and with brand loyalty and creating a relationship of Social media influencers with brand image and with brand loyalty and then making a comparison between the two by measuring the effects of both simultaneously. And then by analyzing which among the two has a greater impact on brand loyalty of the consumers. The study mainly focuses on four major variables namely Celebrity endorsement, Social media influencers, Brand image and Brand loyalty. The study also focuses on interdependence and relationships that these variables have with each other and how they are linked with each other. The study also aims at looking which among Celebrity endorsement and Social media influencer has a greater impact on increasing or enhancing the loyalty for a brand. Earlier celebrity endorsers had a major impact on brand loyalty of the consumers but with time social media influencers are also playing a very vital role in impacting the brand loyalty of the consumers and are giving a fight to the celebrity endorsers as well. Also, Brand image also has a very vital role to play in enhancing the brand loyalty of a brand in the minds of the consumers as a well-known and a better perception of a brand leads to retention of more and more consumers. Also, both Celebrity endorsement and Social media influencers are two-way swords as both have a number of positives and a number of negatives as well, so these are to be compared keeping in mind their adverse effects. Examination of the current market situation has shown that the recommendations of celebrities when properly integrated by comparing product strengths. Advertisers agree that celebrity authorization does not guarantee sales but it can create buzz and make the consumer feel better by-product, which is also what customers should expect as a real star by delivering the promise. On the other hand, depending on the results of the studies, there should be a variety of conclusions planned. Some of the influential people on social media had a positive impact on the product portrait. One of the conclusions is that the product image had a positive impact on consumers. Moreover, the results of the following study states that the most influential influencers consumers in their intended purpose of the purchase, but instead produced a positive result indirectly with Brand image which would further lead to brand loyalty .

Keywords: brand image, brand loyalty, celebrity endorsement, social media influencer

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Authors: Sana Maidullah, Ankita Sharma

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The present study takes naturalistic decision-making approach to examine the role of personality in information processing in consumer decision making. In the technological era, most of the information comes in form of HTML or similar language via the internet; processing of this situation could be ambiguous, laborious and painful. The present study explores the role of impulsivity in creating an extreme effect on consumer decision making. Specifically, the study explores the role of impulsivity in extreme effect, i.e., extremeness avoidance (compromise effect) and extremeness seeking; the role of demographic variables, i.e. age and gender, in the relation between impulsivity and extreme effect. The study was conducted with the help of a questionnaire and two experiments. The experiment was designed in the form of two shopping websites with two product types: Hotel choice and Mobile choice. Both experimental interfaces were created with the Xampp software, the frontend of interfaces was HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT and backend was PHP MySQL. The mobile experiment was designed to measure the extreme effect and hotel experiment was designed to measure extreme effect with alignability of attributes. To observe the possibilities of the combined effect of individual difference and context effects, the manipulation of price, a number of alignable attributes and number of the non-alignable attributes is done. The study was conducted on 100 undergraduate and post-graduate engineering students within the age range of 18-35. The familiarity and level of use of internet and shopping website were assessed and controlled in the analysis. The analysis was done by using a t-test, ANOVA and regression analysis. The results indicated that the impulsivity leads to compromise effect and at the same time it also increases the relationship between alignability of attribute among choices and the compromise effect. The demographic variables were found to play a significant role in the relationship. The subcomponents of impulsivity were significantly influencing compromise effect, but the cognitive impulsivity was significant for women, and motor impulsivity was significant for males only. The impulsivity was significantly positively predicted by age, though there were no significant gender differences in impulsivity. The results clearly indicate the importance of individual factors in decision making. The present study, with precise and direct results, provides a significant suggestion for market analyst and business providers.

Keywords: impulsivity, extreme effect, personality, alignability, consumer decision making

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Authors: H. S. Kang

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Coupled electrical and optical model for conversion of electrical energy into coherent optical energy for transmitter-receiver link by solid state device is presented. Probability distribution for travelling laser beam switching time intervals and the number of switchings in the time interval is obtained. Selector function mapping is employed to regulate optical data transmission speed. It is established that regulated laser transmission from PhotoActive Laser transmitter follows principal of invariance. This considerably simplifies design of PhotoActive Laser Transmission networks.

Keywords: computational mathematics, finite difference Markov chain methods, sequence spaces, singularly perturbed differential equations

Procedia PDF Downloads 431

Authors: Rasool Sadeghi, Sayed Mahdi Faghih Imani, Negar Najafi

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The inherent features of Named Data Networking (NDN) provides a robust solution for Internet of Thing (IoT). Therefore, NDN-IoT has emerged as a combined architecture which exploits the benefits of NDN for interconnecting of the heterogeneous objects in IoT. In NDN-IoT, caching schemes are a key role to improve the network performance. In this paper, we consider the effectiveness of cache replacement schemes in NDN-IoT scenarios. We investigate the impact of replacement schemes on average delay, average hop count, and average interest retransmission when replacement schemes are Least Frequently Used (LFU), Least Recently Used (LRU), First-In-First-Out (FIFO) and Random. The simulation results demonstrate that LFU and LRU present a stable performance when the cache size changes. Moreover, the network performance improves when the number of consumers increases.

Keywords: NDN-IoT, cache replacement, performance, ndnSIM

Procedia PDF Downloads 365

Authors: Brouri Adil, Giri Fouad

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The problem of identifying Wiener-Hammerstein systems is addressed in the presence of two linear subsystems of structure totally unknown. Presently, the nonlinear element is allowed to be noninvertible. The system identification problem is dealt by developing a two-stage frequency identification method such a set of points of the nonlinearity are estimated first. Then, the frequency gains of the two linear subsystems are determined at a number of frequencies. The method involves Fourier series decomposition and only requires periodic excitation signals. All involved estimators are shown to be consistent.

Keywords: Wiener-Hammerstein systems, Fourier series expansions, frequency identification, automation science

Procedia PDF Downloads 537

Authors: Ngoc-Hieu Vu

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Dairy production in Vietnam is a relatively new agricultural activity and milk production increased remarkably in recent years. Smallholders are still the main drivers for this development, especially in the southern part of the country. However, information on the farming practices is very limited. Therefore, this study aimed to determine factors influencing milk yield and quality (milk fat, total solids, solids-not-fat, total number of bacteria, and somatic cell count) and revenue of dairy farms in Southern Vietnam. The collection of data was at the farm level; individual animal records were unavailable. The 539 studied farms were located in the provinces Lam Dong (N=111 farms), Binh Duong (N=69 farms), Long An (N=174 farms), and Ho Chi Minh city (N=185 farms). The dataset included 9221 monthly test-day records of the farms from January 2013 to May 2015. Seasons were defined as rainy and dry. Farms sizes were classified as small (< 10 milking cows), medium (10 to 19 milking cows) and large (≥ 20 milking cows). The model for each trait contained year-season and farm region-farm size as subclass fixed effects, and individual farm and residual as random effects. Results showed that year-season, region, and farm size were determining sources of variation affecting all studied traits. Milk yield was higher in dry than in rainy seasons (P < 0.05), while it tended to increase from years 2013 to 2015. Large farms had higher yields (445.6 kg/cow) than small (396.7 kg/cow) and medium (428.0 kg/cow) farms (P < 0.05). Small farms, in contrast, were superior to large farms in terms of milk fat, total solids, solids-not-fat, total number of bacteria, and somatic cell count than large farms (P < 0.05). Revenue per cow was higher in large compared with medium and small farms. In conclusion, large farms achieved higher milk yields and revenues per cow, while small farms were superior in milk quality. Overall, milk yields were low and better training, financial support and marketing opportunities for farmers are needed to improve dairy production and increase farm revenues in Southern Vietnam.

Keywords: farm size, milk yield and quality, season, Southern Vietnam

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Authors: Sunita Gakkhar, Arti Mishra

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In this paper, a nonlinear host vector model has been proposed and analyzed for the two strain dengue dynamics incorporating ADE effect. The model considers that the asymptomatic infected people are more responsible for secondary infection than that of symptomatic ones and differentiates between them. The existence conditions are obtained for various equilibrium points. Basic reproduction number has been computed and analyzed to explore the effect of secondary infection enhancement parameter on dengue infection. Stability analyses of various equilibrium states have been performed. Numerical simulation has been done for the stability of endemic state.

Keywords: dengue, ade, stability, threshold, asymptomatic, infection

Procedia PDF Downloads 430