Search results for: finite domain time difference

Authors: G. Kaushik, A. Gupta, S. Lalwani, K. D. Soni, S. Kumar, S. Sagar

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Objective: Alcohol is a leading risk factor associated with the disability and death due to RTI. Present study aims to demonstrate the demographic profile, injury pattern, physiological parameters of victims of trauma following alcohol consumption arriving in the emergency department (ED) and mortality in alcohol intoxicated trauma patients admitted to Apex Trauma Center in Delhi. Design and Methods: Present study was performed in randomly selected 182 alcohol breath analyzer tested RTI patients from the emergency department of Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Center (JPNATC), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi for over a period of 3 months started from September 2013 to November 2013. Results: A total 182 RTI patients with blunt injury were selected between 30-40 years of age and equally distributed to male and female group. Of these, 93 (51%) were alcohol negative and 89 (49%) were alcohol positive. In 89 alcohol positive patients, 47 (53%) had Artificial Airway as compared to 17 (18%), (p < 0.001) in the other group. The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score was lower (p < 0.001) and higher Injury Severity Score (ISS) was observed in alcohol positive group as compared to other group (p < 0.03). Increased number of patients (58%) were admitted to Intensive Care Unit (ICU), in alcohol positive group (p < 0.001) and they were in ICU for longer time compare to other group (p < 0.001). The alcohol positive patients were on ventilator support for longer duration as compared to non-alcoholic group (p < 0.001). Mortality rate was higher in alcohol intoxicated patients as compared to non-alcoholic RTI patients, however, the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: This study revealed that GCS, mean ISS, ICU stay, ventilation time etc. might have considerable impact on mortality in alcohol intoxicated patients as compared to non-alcoholic group.

Keywords: road traffic injuries, alcohol, trauma, emergency department

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Authors: Parisa Göker

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With the birth of Islam, the definitions of paradise in Quran have spread across three continents since 7^th century, showing itself in the palace gardens as a reflection of Islamic Culture. The design characteristics of Islamic gardens come forth with the influence of religious beliefs, as well as taking its form as per the cultural, climatic and soil characteristics of its geography, and showing its difference. It is possible to see these differences from the garden examples that survived to present time from the civilizations in the lands of Islamic proliferation. The main material of this research is the Islamic gardens in Iran and Spain. Field study was carried out in Alhambra Palace in Spain, Granada and Shah Goli garden in Iran, Tabriz. In this study, the birth of Islamic gardens, spatial perception of paradise, design principles, spatial structure, along with the structural/plantation materials used are examined. Also the characteristics and differentiation of the gardens examined in different cultures and geographies have been revealed. In the conclusion section, Iran and Spain Islamic garden samples were evaluated and their properties were determined.

Keywords: Islamic civilization, Islamic architecture, cultural landscape, Islamic garden

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Authors: Kehinde Agbele, Longe Olumide, Daniel Ekong, Dele Seluwa, Akintoye Onamade

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One major problem of most existing information retrieval systems (IRS) is that they provide even access and retrieval results to individual users specially based on the query terms user issued to the system. When using IRS, users often present search queries made of ad-hoc keywords. It is then up to IRS to obtain a precise representation of user’s information need, and the context of the information. In effect, the volume and range of the Internet documents is growing exponentially and consequently causes difficulties for a user to obtain information that precisely matches the user interest. Diverse combination techniques are used to achieve the specific goal. This is due, firstly, to the fact that users often do not present queries to IRS that optimally represent the information they want, and secondly, the measure of a document's relevance is highly subjective between diverse users. In this paper, we address the problem by investigating the optimization of IRS to individual information needs in order of relevance. The paper addressed the development of algorithms that optimize the ranking of documents retrieved from IRS. This paper addresses this problem with a two-fold approach in order to retrieve domain-specific documents. Firstly, the design of context of information. The context of a query determines retrieved information relevance using personalization and context-awareness. Thus, executing the same query in diverse contexts often leads to diverse result rankings based on the user preferences. Secondly, the relevant context aspects should be incorporated in a way that supports the knowledge domain representing users’ interests. In this paper, the use of evolutionary algorithms is incorporated to improve the effectiveness of IRS. A context-based information retrieval system that learns individual needs from user-provided relevance feedback is developed whose retrieval effectiveness is evaluated using precision and recall metrics. The results demonstrate how to use attributes from user interaction behavior to improve the IR effectiveness.

Keywords: context, document relevance, information retrieval, personalization, user search behaviors

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Authors: Revaz Chigladze

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The purpose of the research is to investigate the surfaces of Jupiter's Galilean moons, namely which moon has the most uniform surface among them, what is the difference between the front (in the direction of motion) and the back sides of each moon's surface, as well as the temporal variations of the moons. Since 1981, the E. Kharadze National Astrophysical Observatory of Georgia has been conducting polarimetric (P) and photometric (M) observations of Jupiter's Galilean moons with telescopes of different diameters (40 cm and 125 cm) and the polarimeter ASEP-78 in combination with them and the latest generation photometer with a polarimeter and modern light receiver SBIG. As it turns out from the analysis of the observed material, the parameters P and M depend on α-the phase angle of the moon (satellite), L- the orbital latitude of the moon (satellite), λ- the wavelength, and t - the period of observation, i.e., P = P (α, L, λ , t), and similarly M = M (α, L, λ. , t). Based on the analysis of the observed material, the following was studied: Jupiter's Galilean moons: dependence of the magnitude and phase angle of the degree of linear polarization for different wavelengths; Dependence of the degree of polarization and the orbital longitude; dependence between the magnitude of the degree of polarization and the wavelength; time dependence of the degree of polarization and the dependence between photometric and polarimetric characteristics (including establishing correlation). From the analysis of the obtained results, we get: The magnitude of the degree of polarization of Jupiter's Galilean moons near the opposition significantly differs from zero. Europa appears to have the most uniform surface, and Callisto the least uniform. Time variations are most characteristic of Io, which confirms the presence of volcanic activity on its surface. Based on the observed material, it can be seen that the intensity of light reflected from the front hemisphere of the first three moons: Io, Europa, and Ganymede, is less than the intensity of light reflected from the rear hemisphere, and in the case of the Callisto it is the opposite. The paper provides a convincing (natural, real) explanation of this fact.

Keywords: Galilean moons, polarization, degree of polarization, photometry, front and rear hemispheres

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Authors: Pawel Flaszynski, Piotr Doerffer, Jan Holnicki-Szulc, Grzegorz Mikulowski

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Results of numerical simulations for transonic flow in a piezoelectric valve are presented. The valve is the main part of an adaptive pneumatic shock absorber. Flow structure in the valve domain and the influence of the flow non-uniformity in the valve on a mass flow rate is investigated. Numerical simulation results are compared with experimental data.

Keywords: pneumatic valve, transonic flow, numerical simulations, piezoelectric valve

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Authors: Anthony Bawa, Konstantinos Banitsas

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Rheumatism is a muscular disorder that affects the muscles of the upper and lower limbs. This condition could potentially progress to impair the movement of patients. This study aims to investigate the hip muscular imbalance in patients with chronic rheumatism. A clinical trial involving a total of 15 participants, made up of 10 patients and 5 control subjects, took place in KATH Hospital between August and September. Participants recruited for the study were of age 54 ± 8years, weight 65± 8kg, and height 176 ± 8cm. Muscle signals were recorded from the rectus femoris, and vastus lateralis on the right and left hip of participants. The parameters used in determining the hip muscular imbalances were the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC%), the mean difference, and hip muscle fatigue levels. The mean signals were compared using a t-test, and the metrics for muscle fatigue assessment were based on the root mean square (RMS), mean absolute value (MAV) and mean frequency (MEF), which were computed between the hip muscles of participants. The results indicated that there were significant imbalances in the muscle coactivity between the right and left hip muscles of patients. The patients’ MVC values were observed to be above 10% when compared with control subjects. Furthermore, the mean difference was seen to be higher with p > 0.002 among patients, which indicated clear differences in the hip muscle contraction activities. The findings indicate significant hip muscular imbalances for patients with rheumatism compared with control subjects. Information about the imbalances among patients will be useful for clinicians in designing therapeutic muscle-strengthening exercises.

Keywords: muscular, imbalances, rheumatism, Hip

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Authors: Ali Abbas

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Industrial Engineering is a broad multidisciplinary field with intersections and applications in numerous areas. In out current environment, the path from a phenomenon to value involves numerous people with expertise in various areas including domain knowledge of a field and the ability to make decisions within an operating environment that lead to value creation. We propose some skills that industrial engineering programs should focus on, and argue that an industrial engineer is a decision maker instead of a problem solver.

Keywords: decision analysis, problem-solving, value creation, industrial engineering

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Authors: Wang Xiaoqing, Fang Youyuan, Zheng Yanxing, Gu Tianyang, Zong Jianjian, Tong Jinrong

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Compared with traditional distributed environment, the net-centric environment brings on more demanding challenges for information sharing with the characteristics of ultra-large scale and strong distribution, dynamic, autonomy, heterogeneity, redundancy. This paper realizes an information sharing model and a series of core services, through which provides an open, flexible and scalable information sharing platform.

Keywords: net-centric environment, information sharing, metadata registry and catalog, cross-domain data access control

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Authors: Jeffrey Chase

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Historically the profession of Occupational Therapy was closely tied to the treatment of those suffering from mental illness; more recently, and especially in the U.S., the percentage of OTs identifying as working in the mental health area has declined significantly despite the estimate that by 2020 behavioral health disorders will surpass physical illnesses as the major cause of disability worldwide. In the U.S. less than 10% of OTs identify themselves as working with the mentally ill and/or practicing in mental health settings. Such a decline has implications for both those suffering from mental illness and the profession of Occupational Therapy. One reason cited for the decline of OT in mental health has been the limited research in the discipline addressing mental health practice. Despite significant advances in technology and growth in the field of neuroscience, major institutions and funding sources such as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have noted that research into the etiology and treatment of mental illness have met with limited success over the past 25 years. One major reason posited by NIMH is that research has been limited by how we classify individuals, that being mostly on what is observable. A new classification system being developed by NIMH, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoc), has the goal to look beyond just descriptors of disorders for common neural, genetic, and physiological characteristics that cut across multiple supposedly separate disorders. The hope is that by classifying individuals along RDoC measures that both reliability and validity will improve resulting in greater advances in the field. As a result of this change NIH and NIMH will prioritize research funding to those projects using the RDoC model. Multiple disciplines across many different setting will be required for RDoC or similar classification systems to be developed. During this shift in research methodology OT has an opportunity to reassert itself into the research and treatment of mental illness, both in developing new ways to more validly classify individuals, and to document the legitimacy of previously ill-defined and validated disorders such as sensory integration.

Keywords: global mental health and neuroscience, research opportunities for ot, greater integration of ot in mental health research, research and funding opportunities, research domain criteria (rdoc)

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Authors: Yasaman Samani, Ali Golmohammadi

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Introduction: The degree of conversion and depth of cure affects the clinical success of resin composite restorations directly. One of the main challenges in achieving a successful composite restoration is the achievement of sufficient depth of cure. The insufficient polymerization may lead to a decrease in the physical/mechanical and biological properties of resin composites and, as a result of that, unsuccessful composite restoration. Thus, because of the importance of studying and evaluating the depth of cure and degree of conversion in bulk-fill composites, we decided to evaluate and compare the degree of conversion and depth of cure in two bulk-fill composites; x-tra fill (Voco, Germany) and Opus Bulk fill APS (FGM, Brazil). Materials and Methods: Composite resin specimens (n=10) per group were prepared as cylinder blocks (4×8 mm) with bulk-fill composites, x-tra fil (Voco, Germany) designated as Group A, and Opus Bulk fill APS (FGM, Brazil) designated as Group B. Depth of cure was determined according to “ISO 4049; Depth of Cure” method, In which each specimen were cured (iLED, Woodpecker, China) 40 seconds and FTIR spectroscopy method was used to estimate the degree of conversion of both the bulk-fill composites. The degree of conversion of monomer to polymer was estimated individually in the coronal half (Group A1 and B1) and pulpal half (Group A2 and Group B2) by dividing each specimen into two halves. The data were analyzed using a Student’s t-test and one-way ANOVA at a 5% level of significance. Results: The mean depth of cure in x-tra fil (Voco, Germany) was 3.99 (±0.16), and for Opus Bulk fill, APS (FGM, Brazil) was 2.14 (±0.3). The degree of conversion percentage in Group A1 was 82.7 (±6.1), in group A2 was 73.4 (±5.2), in group B1 was 63.3 (±4.7) and in Group B2 was 56.5 (±7.7). Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in the depth of cure between the two bulk-fill composites with x-tra fil (Voco, Germany) higher than Opus Bulk fill APS (FGM, Brazil) (P<0.001). The degree of conversion percentage also showed a significant difference, Group A1 being higher than A2 (P=0.0085), B1, and B2 (P<0.001). Group A2 was also higher than B1 (P=0.003) and B2 (P<0.001). There was no significant difference between B1 and B2 (P=0.072). Conclusion: The results indicate that x-tra fill has more depth of cure and a higher percentage of the degree of conversion than Opus Bulk fill APS. The coronal half of x-tra fil had the highest depth of cure percentage (82.66%), and the pulpal half of Opus Bulk fill APS had the lowest percentage (56.45%). Even though both bulk-fill composite materials had an acceptable degree of conversion (55% and higher), x-tra fill has shown better results.

Keywords: depth of cure, degree of conversion, bulk-fill composite, FTIR

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Authors: Rahul Srivastava, Priti Pundir, Y. R. Sood, Rajnish Shrivastava

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For the interpretation of the signatures of sweep frequency response analysis(SFRA) of transformer different types of statistical techniques serves as an effective tool for doing either phase to phase comparison or sister unit comparison. In this paper with the discussion on SFRA several statistics techniques like cross correlation coefficient (CCF), root square error (RSQ), comparative standard deviation (CSD), Absolute difference, mean square error(MSE),Min-Max ratio(MM) are presented through several case studies. These methods require sample data size and spot frequencies of SFRA signatures that are being compared. The techniques used are based on power signal processing tools that can simplify result and limits can be created for the severity of the fault occurring in the transformer due to several short circuit forces or due to ageing. The advantages of using statistics techniques for analyzing of SFRA result are being indicated through several case studies and hence the results are obtained which determines the state of the transformer.

Keywords: absolute difference (DABS), cross correlation coefficient (CCF), mean square error (MSE), min-max ratio (MM-ratio), root square error (RSQ), standard deviation (CSD), sweep frequency response analysis (SFRA)

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Authors: Y. Yulnafatmawita, H. Hermansah

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Topography is a factor affecting soil characteristics. Chemical characteristics of a soil is a factor determining the productivity of the land. A research was conducted in Bukit Sarasah Padang, an area receiving > 5000 mm rainfall annually. The purpose of this research was to determine the chemical characteristics of soils at sequence topography in hill-slope of Bukit Sarasah. Soils were sampled at 3 different altitudes in the research area from 315 m – 515 m asl with 100 m interval. At each location, soil samples were taken from two depths (0-20 cm and 30-50 cm) for soil chemical characteristics (pH, CEC, organic-C, N-total, C/N, Ca-, Mg-, K-, Na-, Al-, and H-exchangeable). Based on the data resulted, it was found that there was a tendency of decreasing soil organic matter (SOC) content by increasing location from 315 to 515 m asl as well as from the top 0-20 cm to 30-50 cm soil depth. The same tendency was also found for the CEC, pH, N-total, and C/N ratio of the soil. On the other hand, exchangeable-Al and -H tended to increase by increasing elevation in Bukit Sarasah. There was no significant difference found for the concentration of exchangeable cations among the elevations and between the depths. The soil chemical characteristics on the top 20 cm were generally better than those on 30-50 cm soil depth, however, different elevation did not gave significant difference of the concentration.

Keywords: soil chemical characteristics, soil depths, topo-sequence, wet tropical area

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Authors: Shamim Akhtar

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The purpose of the present research was to analyse the performance level of district administrators and school heads teachers at secondary school level. The sample of the study was head teachers and teachers of secondary schools. In survey three scales were used, two scales were for the head teachers, one five point scale was for analysing the working efficiency of educational administrators and other seven points scale was for head teachers for analysing their own performance and one another seven point rating scale similar to head teacher was for the teachers for analysing the working performance of their head teachers. The results of the head teachers’ responses revealed that the performance of their District Educational Administrators was average and for the performance efficiency of the head teachers, researcher constructed the rating scales on seven parameters of management likely academic management, personnel management, financial management, infra-structure management, linkage and interface, student’s services, and managerial excellence. Results of percentages, means, and graphical presentation on different parameters of management showed that there was an obvious difference in head teachers and teachers’ responses and head teachers probably were overestimating their efficiency; but teachers evaluated that they were performing averagely on majority statements. Results of t-test showed that there was no significance difference in the responses of rural and urban teachers but significant difference in male and female teachers’ responses showed that female head teachers were performing their responsibilities better than male head teachers in public sector schools. When efficiency of the head teachers on different parameters of management were analysed it was concluded that their efficiency on academic and personnel management was average and on financial management and on managerial excellence was highly above of average level but on others parameters like infra-structure management, linkage and interface and on students services was above of average level on most statements but highly above of average on some statements. Hence there is need to improve the working efficiency in academic management and personnel management.

Keywords: educational administration, educational management, parameters of management, education

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Authors: Samaila Muazu Bawa

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Hydration process, crack potential and setting time of concrete grade C30, C40 and C50 were separately monitored using non-contact electrical resistivity apparatus, a plastic ring mould and penetration resistance method respectively. The results show highest resistivity of C30 at the beginning until reaching the acceleration point when C50 accelerated and overtaken the others, and this period corresponds to its final setting time range, from resistivity derivative curve, hydration process can be divided into dissolution, induction, acceleration and deceleration periods, restrained shrinkage crack and setting time tests demonstrated the earliest cracking and setting time of C50, therefore, this method conveniently and rapidly determines the concrete’s crack potential. The highest inflection time (ti), the final setting time (tf) were obtained and used with crack time in coming up with mathematical models for the prediction of concrete’s cracking age for the range being considered. Finally, ANSYS numerical simulations supports the experimental findings in terms of the earliest crack age of C50 and the crack location that, highest stress concentration is always beneath the artificially introduced expansion joint of C50.

Keywords: concrete hydration, electrical resistivity, restrained shrinkage crack, ANSYS simulation

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Authors: Yaxuan Wang

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It has long been a mystery that why the Mongolian possessive suffix, which is constrained by Condition A of binding theory, has the ability to probe a potential antecedent outside of its binding domain. This squib argues that binding theory alone is not sufficient to explain the linguistic facts and proposes an analysis adopting the Agree operation. The current analysis correctly predicts all the possible and impossible structures, with an additional hypothesis that Mongolian possessive suffixes serve as an antecedent for PROs in adjunct. The findings thus provide insights into how Agree operates in Mongolian language.

Keywords: syntax, Mongolian, agreement, possessive particles

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Authors: Dominik Kowitzke

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Housing constructions have direct and indirect environmental impacts especially caused by soil sealing and gray energy consumption related to the use of construction materials. Accordingly, the German government introduced regulations limiting additional annual soil sealing. At the same time, in many regions like metropolitan areas the demand for further housing is high and of current concern in the media and politics. It is argued that meeting this demand by making better use of the existing housing supply is more sustainable than the construction of new housing units. In this context, targeting the phenomenon of so-called over the housing of empty nest households seems worthwhile to investigate for its potential to free living space and thus, reduce the need for new housing constructions and related environmental harm. Over housing occurs if no space adjustment takes place in household lifecycle stages when children move out from home and the space formerly created for the offspring is from then on under-utilized. Although in some cases the housing space consumption might actually meet households’ equilibrium preferences, frequently space-wise adjustments to the living situation doesn’t take place due to transaction or information costs, habit formation, or government intervention leading to increasing costs of relocations like real estate transfer taxes or tenant protection laws keeping tenure rents below the market price. Moreover, many detached houses are not long-term designed in a way that freed up space could be rent out. Findings of this research based on socio-economic survey data, indeed, show a significant difference between the living space of empty nest and a comparison group of households which never had children. The approach used to estimate the average difference in living space is a linear regression model regressing the response variable living space on a two-dimensional categorical variable distinguishing the two groups of household types and further controls. This difference is assumed to be the under-utilized space and is extrapolated to the total amount of empty nests in the population. Supporting this result, it is found that households that move, despite market frictions impairing the relocation, after children left their home tend to decrease the living space. In the next step, only for areas with tight housing markets in Germany and high construction activity, the total under-utilized space in empty nests is estimated. Under the assumption of full substitutability of housing space in empty nests and space in new dwellings in these locations, it is argued that in a perfect market with empty nest households consuming their equilibrium demand quantity of housing space, dwelling constructions in the amount of the excess consumption of living space could be saved. This, on the other hand, would prevent environmental harm quantified in carbon dioxide equivalence units related to average constructions of detached or multi-family houses. This study would thus provide information on the amount of under-utilized space inside dwellings which is missing in public data and further estimates the external effect of over housing in environmental terms.

Keywords: empty nests, environment, Germany, households, over housing

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Authors: Jean Pierre Kabue, Emma Meader, Afsatou Ndama Traore, Paul R. Hunter, Natasha Potgieter

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Norovirus is now considered the most common cause of outbreaks of nonbacterial gastroenteritis. Limited data are available for Norovirus strains in Africa, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. Despite the excessive burden of diarrhea disease in developing countries, Norovirus infections have been to date mostly reported in developed countries. There is a need to investigate intensively the role of viral agents associated with diarrhea in different settings in Africa continent. To determine the prevalence and genetic diversity of Norovirus strains circulating in the rural communities in the Limpopo Province, South Africa and investigate the genetic relationship between Norovirus strains, a cross-sectional study was performed on human stools collected from rural communities. Between July 2014 and April 2015, outpatient children under 5 years of age from rural communities of Vhembe District, South Africa, were recorded for the study. A total of 303 stool specimens were collected from those with diarrhea (n=253) and without (n=50) diarrhea. NoVs were identified using real-time one-step RT-PCR. Partial Sequence analyses were performed to genotype the strains. Phylogenetic analyses were performed to compare identified NoVs genotypes to the worldwide circulating strains. Norovirus detection rate was 41.1% (104/253) in children with diarrhea. There was no significant difference (OR=1.24; 95% CI 0.66-2.33) in Norovirus detection between symptomatic and asymptomatic children. Comparison of the median CT values for NoV in children with diarrhea and without diarrhea revealed significant statistical difference of estimated GII viral load from both groups, with a much higher viral burden in children with diarrhea. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting on the differences in estimated viral load of GII and GI NoV positive cases and controls. GII.Pe (n=9) were the predominant genotypes followed by GII.Pe/GII.4 Sydney 2012 (n=8) suspected recombinant and GII.4 Sydney 2012 variants(n=7). Two unassigned GII.4 variants and an unusual RdRp genotype GII.P15 were found. With note, the rare GIIP15 identified in this study has a common ancestor with GIIP15 strain from Japan previously reported as GII/untypeable recombinant strain implicated in a gastroenteritis outbreak. To our knowledge, this is the first report of this unusual genotype in the African continent. Though not confirmed predictive of diarrhea disease in this study, the high detection rate of NoV is an indication of subsequent exposure of children from rural communities to enteric pathogens due to poor sanitation and hygiene practices. The results reveal that the difference between asymptomatic and symptomatic children with NoV may possibly be related to the NoV genogroups involved. The findings emphasize NoV genetic diversity and predominance of GII.Pe/GII.4 Sydney 2012, indicative of increased NoV activity. An uncommon GII.P15 and two unassigned GII.4 variants were also identified from rural settings of the Vhembe District/South Africa. NoV surveillance is required to help to inform investigations into NoV evolution, and to support vaccine development programmes in Africa.

Keywords: asymptomatic, common, outpatients, norovirus genetic diversity, sporadic gastroenteritis, South African rural communities, symptomatic

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Authors: Nicola Menga, Giuseppe Carbone

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Although contact mechanics has been widely focused on the study of contacts between half-space, it has been recently pointed out that in presence of finite thickness elastic layers the results of the contact problem show significant difference in terms of the main contact quantities (e.g. contact area, penetration, mean pressure, etc.). Actually, there exist a wide range of industrial application demanding for this kind of studies, such as seals leakage prediction or pressure-sensitive coatings for electrical applications. In this work, we focus on the contact between a rigid profile and an elastic layer of thickness h confined under two different configurations: rigid constrain and applied uniform pressure. The elastic problem at hand has been formalized following Green’s function method and then numerically solved by means of a matrix inversion. We study different contact conditions, both considering and neglecting adhesive interactions at the interface. This leads to different solution techniques: Adhesive contacts equilibrium solution is found, in term of contact area for given penetration, making stationary the total free energy of the system; whereas, adhesiveless contacts are addressed defining an equilibrium criterion, again on the contact area, relying on the fracture mechanics stress intensity factor KI. In particular, we make the KI vanish at the edges of the contact area, as peculiar for adhesiveless elastic contacts. The results are obtained in terms of contact area, penetration, and mean pressure for both adhesive and adhesiveless contact conditions. As expected, in the case of a uniform applied pressure the slab turns out much more compliant than the rigidly constrained one. Indeed, we have observed that the peak value of the contact pressure, for both the adhesive and adhesiveless condition, is much higher for the rigidly constrained configuration than in the case of applied uniform pressure. Furthermore, we observed that, for little contact area, both systems behave the same and the pull-off occurs at approximately the same contact area and mean contact pressure. This is an expected result since in this condition the ratio between the layers thickness and the contact area is very high and both layer configurations recover the half-space behavior where the pull-off occurrence is mainly controlled by the adhesive interactions, which are kept constant among the cases.

Keywords: contact mechanics, adhesion, friction, thick layer

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Authors: M. Yousefi, N. Nasirzadeh

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In this paper, behavior of an oscillator under injection of another signal has been investigated. Also, variation of output signal amplitude versus injected signal phase variation, the effect of varying the amplitude of injected signal and quality factor of the oscillator has been investigated. The results show that the locking time depends on phase and the best locking time happens at 180-degrees phase. Also, the effect of injected lock has been discussed. Simulations show that the locking time decreases with signal injection to bulk. Locking time has been investigated versus various phase differences. The effect of phase and amplitude changes on locking time of a typical LC oscillator in 180 nm technology has been investigated.

Keywords: analysis, oscillator, injection-lock oscillator, phase modulation

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Authors: Aya Al Masri, Stefaan Carpentier, Fabrice Leroy, Thibault Julien, Safoin Aktaou, Malorie Martin, Fouad Maaloul

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Introduction: During an 'Interventional Radiology (IR)' procedure, the patient's skin-dose may become very high for a burn, necrosis and ulceration to appear. In order to prevent these deterministic effects, an accurate calculation of the patient skin-dose mapping is essential. For most machines, the 'Dose Area Product (DAP)' and fluoroscopy time are the only information available for the operator. These two parameters are a very poor indicator of the peak skin dose. We developed a mathematical model that reconstructs the magnitude (delivered dose), shape, and localization of each irradiation field on the patient skin. In case of critical dose exceeding, the system generates warning alerts. We present the results of its comparison with clinical studies. Materials and methods: Two series of comparison of the skin-dose mapping of our mathematical model with clinical studies were performed: 1. At a first time, clinical tests were performed on patient phantoms. Gafchromic films were placed on the table of the IR machine under of PMMA plates (thickness = 20 cm) that simulate the patient. After irradiation, the film darkening is proportional to the radiation dose received by the patient's back and reflects the shape of the X-ray field. After film scanning and analysis, the exact dose value can be obtained at each point of the mapping. Four experimentation were performed, constituting a total of 34 acquisition incidences including all possible exposure configurations. 2. At a second time, clinical trials were launched on real patients during real 'Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO)' procedures for a total of 80 cases. Gafchromic films were placed at the back of patients. We performed comparisons on the dose values, as well as the distribution, and the shape of irradiation fields between the skin dose mapping of our mathematical model and Gafchromic films. Results: The comparison between the dose values shows a difference less than 15%. Moreover, our model shows a very good geometric accuracy: all fields have the same shape, size and location (uncertainty < 5%). Conclusion: This study shows that our model is a reliable tool to warn physicians when a high radiation dose is reached. Thus, deterministic effects can be avoided.

Keywords: clinical experimentation, interventional radiology, mathematical model, patient's skin-dose mapping.

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Authors: Renukswamy Chikkamath, Vishvapalsinhji Ramsinh Parmar, Christoph Hewel, Markus Endres

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Given a patent document, identifying distinct semantic annotations is an interesting research aspect. Text annotation helps the patent practitioners such as examiners and patent attorneys to quickly identify the key arguments of any invention, successively providing a timely marking of a patent text. In the process of manual patent analysis, to attain better readability, recognising the semantic information by marking paragraphs is in practice. This semantic annotation process is laborious and time-consuming. To alleviate such a problem, we proposed a dataset to train machine learning algorithms to automate the highlighting process. The contributions of this work are: i) we developed a multi-class dataset of size 150k samples by traversing USPTO patents over a decade, ii) articulated statistics and distributions of data using imperative exploratory data analysis, iii) baseline Machine Learning models are developed to utilize the dataset to address patent paragraph highlighting task, and iv) future path to extend this work using Deep Learning and domain-specific pre-trained language models to develop a tool to highlight is provided. This work assists patent practitioners in highlighting semantic information automatically and aids in creating a sustainable and efficient patent analysis using the aptitude of machine learning.

Keywords: machine learning, patents, patent sentiment analysis, patent information retrieval

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Authors: Henok Hailemariam, Frank Wuttke

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Collapsible soils are weak soils that appear to be stable in their natural state, normally dry condition, but rapidly deform under saturation (wetting), thus generating large and unexpected settlements which often yield disastrous consequences for structures unwittingly built on such deposits. In this study, a prediction model for the relative subsidence of stressed collapsible soils based on dielectric permittivity measurement is presented. Unlike most existing methods for soil subsidence prediction, this model does not require moisture content as an input parameter, thus providing the opportunity to obtain accurate estimation of the relative subsidence of collapsible soils using dielectric measurement only. The prediction model is developed based on an existing relative subsidence prediction model (which is dependent on soil moisture condition) and an advanced theoretical frequency and temperature-dependent electromagnetic mixing equation (which effectively removes the moisture content dependence of the original relative subsidence prediction model). For large scale sub-surface soil exploration purposes, the spatial sub-surface soil dielectric data over wide areas and high depths of weak (collapsible) soil deposits can be obtained using non-destructive high frequency electromagnetic (HF-EM) measurement techniques such as ground penetrating radar (GPR). For laboratory or small scale in-situ measurements, techniques such as an open-ended coaxial line with widely applicable time domain reflectometry (TDR) or vector network analysers (VNAs) are usually employed to obtain the soil dielectric data. By using soil dielectric data obtained from small or large scale non-destructive HF-EM investigations, the new model can effectively predict the relative subsidence of weak soils without the need to extract samples for moisture content measurement. Some of the resulting benefits are the preservation of the undisturbed nature of the soil as well as a reduction in the investigation costs and analysis time in the identification of weak (problematic) soils. The accuracy of prediction of the presented model is assessed by conducting relative subsidence tests on a collapsible soil at various initial soil conditions and a good match between the model prediction and experimental results is obtained.

Keywords: collapsible soil, dielectric permittivity, moisture content, relative subsidence

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Authors: Abhijit Dasgupta

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This paper explores the everyday lives of the Christians residing in a Bengali Christian neighborhood in Kolkata, termed here as the larger Christian para (para meaning neighborhood in Bengali). Through ethnography and reading of secondary sources, the paper discerns how various Christians across denominations – Protestants, Catholics and Pentecostals implicate the role of bishwas (faith and belief) in their interpersonal neighborhood relations. The paper attempts to capture the role of bishwas in producing, transforming and revising the meaning of 'neighbourhood' and 'neighbours' and puts forward the argument of the neighbourhood as a theological product. By interrogating and interpreting bishwas through everyday theological discussions and reflections, the paper examines and analyses the ways everyday theology becomes an essential source of power and knowledge for the Bengali Christians in reimagining their neighbourhood compared to the nearby Hindu neighbourhoods. Borrowing literature from everyday theology, faith and belief, the paper reads and analyses various interpretations of theological knowledge across denominations to probe the prominence of bishwas within the Christian community and its role in creating a difference in their place of dwelling. The paper argues that the meaning of neighbourhood is revisited through prayers, sermons and biblical verses. At the same time, the divisions and fissures are seen among Protestants and Catholics and also among native Bengali Protestants and non-native Protestant pastors, which informs us about the complexity of theology in constituting everyday life. Thus, the paper addresses theology's role in creating an ethical Christian neighbourhood amidst everyday tensions and hostilities of diverse religious persuasions. At the same time, it looks into the processes through which multiple theological knowledge leads to schism and interdenominational hostilities. By attempting to answer these questions, the paper brings out Christians' negotiation with the neighbourhood.

Keywords: anthropology, bishwas, christianity, neighbourhood, theology

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Authors: Ni Komang Desy Arya Pinatih

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Transnational crime is a crime with 'unique' feature because the activities benefit the lack of state monitoring on the borders so dealing with it cannot be based on conventional engagement but also need joint operation with other countries. On the other hand with the flow of globalization and the growth of information technology and transportation, states become more vulnerable to transnational crime threats especially human trafficking. This paper would examine transnational crime activities, especially human trafficking in Indonesia. With the case study on the mapping of human trafficking crime in East Java province, Indonesia, this paper would try to analyze how the difference in human trafficking crime trends at the national and sub-national levels. The findings of this research were first, there is difference in human trafficking crime trends whereas at the national level the trend is rising, while at sub-national (province) level the trend is declining. Second, regarding the decline of human trafficking number, it’s interesting to see how the method to decrease human trafficking crime in East Jawa Province in order to reduce transnational crime accounts in the region. These things are hopefully becoming a model for transnational crimes engagement in other regions to reduce human trafficking numbers as much as possible.

Keywords: transnational crime, human trafficking, southeast Asia, anticipation model on transnational crimes

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Authors: Fernandes A. C. B. C. J., de Jesus V. C., Sepideh N., Vilela OFGG, Somarin K. K., França R., Pinheiro F. H. S. L.

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to look at the effect of pre-treatment of enamel with pumice and/or 37% phosphoric acid on the shear bond strength (SBS) of orthodontic tubes bonded to enamel while simultaneously evaluating the efficacy of orthodontic tubes bonded by self-etch primer (SEP). Materials and Methods: 39 of the crown halves were divided into 3 groups at random. Group, I was the control group utilizing both prophy paste and the conventional double etching pre-treatment method. Group II excluded the use of prophy paste prior to double etching. Group III excluded the use of both prophy paste and double etching and only utilized SEP. Bond strength of the orthodontic tubes was measured by SBS. One way ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD test were used to compare SBS values between the three groups. The statistical significance was set to p<0.05. Results: The difference in SBS values of groups I (36.672 ± 9.315 Mpa), II (34.242 ± 9.986 Mpa), and III (39.055 ± 5.565) were not statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study suggested that the use of prophy paste or pre-acid etch of the enamel surface did not provide a statistically significant difference in SBS between the three groups.

Keywords: shear bond strength, orthodontic bracket, self-etch primer, pumice, prophy

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Authors: Z. M. Iqbal, M. Abdullah, K. Javed, M. A. Jabbar, A. Haque, M. Saadullah, F. Shahzad

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The current study was conducted to set the appropriate concentrate level for Nili-Ravi buffalo heifers. Twenty seven buffalo heifers were randomly divided into three different groups A, B and C having nine animals in each group. All the heifers were given free access to chopped green fodder and fresh water. In addition, heifers of group A, B and C were given concentrate at the rate of 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of their body weight. The average daily dry matter intake was 2.69, 3.06 and 3.83 kg with average daily gain of 456.09, 398.56 and 515.87 gm in group A, B and C, respectively. The feed conversion ratio of heifers of these groups was 5.89, 7.74 and 7.52, respectively. There was non-significant (P>0.05) difference in the body measurements (height at wither, body length and heart girth), final body condition and scoring and blood serum (glucose, total protein and cholesterol) of heifers of all the three groups. The results of current study shows that there is non-significant (P>0.05) difference in the growth rate of Nili-Ravi heifers at varying levels of concentrate so, it is cost effective to raise 6-8 month calves by offering concentrate at the rate of 0.5% body weight along with free access of green fodder.

Keywords: concentrate level, buffalo heifer, body measurement, green fodder

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Authors: Mohsen Hababalahi, Morteza Bastami

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Buried pipeline damage correlations are critical part of loss estimation procedures applied to lifelines for future earthquakes. The vulnerability of buried pipelines against earthquake and liquefaction has been observed during some of previous earthquakes and there are a lot of comprehensive reports about this event. One of the main reasons for impairment of buried pipelines during earthquake is liquefaction. Necessary conditions for this phenomenon are loose sandy soil, saturation of soil layer and earthquake intensity. Because of this fact that pipelines structure are very different from other structures (being long and having light mass) by paying attention to the results of previous earthquakes and compare them with other structures, it is obvious that the danger of liquefaction for buried pipelines is not high risked, unless effective parameters like earthquake intensity and non-dense soil and other factors be high. Recent liquefaction researches for buried pipeline include experimental and theoretical ones as well as damage investigations during actual earthquakes. The damage investigations have revealed that a damage ratio of pipelines (Number/km ) has much larger values in liquefied grounds compared with one in shaking grounds without liquefaction according to damage statistics during past severe earthquakes, and that damages of joints and pipelines connected with manholes were remarkable. The purpose of this research is numerical study of buried pipelines under the effect of liquefaction by case study of the 2013 Dashti (Iran) earthquake. Water supply and electrical distribution systems of this township interrupted during earthquake and water transmission pipelines were damaged severely due to occurrence of liquefaction. The model consists of a polyethylene pipeline with 100 meters length and 0.8 meter diameter which is covered by light sandy soil and the depth of burial is 2.5 meters from surface. Since finite element method is used relatively successfully in order to solve geotechnical problems, we used this method for numerical analysis. For evaluating this case, some information like geotechnical information, classification of earthquakes levels, determining the effective parameters in probability of liquefaction, three dimensional numerical finite element modeling of interaction between soil and pipelines are necessary. The results of this study on buried pipelines indicate that the effect of liquefaction is function of pipe diameter, type of soil, and peak ground acceleration. There is a clear increase in percentage of damage with increasing the liquefaction severity. The results indicate that although in this form of the analysis, the damage is always associated to a certain pipe material, but the nominally defined “failures” include by failures of particular components (joints, connections, fire hydrant details, crossovers, laterals) rather than material failures. At the end, there are some retrofit suggestions in order to decrease the risk of liquefaction on buried pipelines.

Keywords: liquefaction, buried pipelines, lifelines, earthquake, finite element method

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Authors: B. Varaprasad, C. Srinivasa Rao

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In the manufacturing sector, hard turning has emerged as vital machining process for cutting hardened steels. Besides many advantages of hard turning operation, one has to implement to achieve close tolerances in terms of surface finish, high product quality, reduced machining time, low operating cost and environmentally friendly characteristics. In the present study, three-dimensional CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) based simulation of  hard turning by using commercial software DEFORM 3D has been compared to experimental results of  stresses, temperatures and tool forces in machining of AISI D3 steel using mixed Ceramic inserts (CC6050). In the present analysis, orthogonal cutting models are proposed, considering several processing parameters such as cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut. An exhaustive friction modeling at the tool-work interfaces is carried out. Work material flow around the cutting edge is carefully modeled with adaptive re-meshing simulation capability. In process simulations, feed rate and cutting speed are constant (i.e.,. 0.075 mm/rev and 155 m/min), and analysis is focused on stresses, forces, and temperatures during machining. Close agreement is observed between CAE simulation and experimental values.

Keywords: hard turning, computer aided engineering, computational machining, finite element method

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Authors: Zineddine Bouyahiaoui, Rabah Haoui

Abstract:

The aim of this work is to analyze a flow around the axisymmetric blunt body taken into account the chemical and vibrational nonequilibrium flow. This work concerns the entry of spacecraft in the atmosphere of the planet Mars. Since the equations involved are non-linear partial derivatives, the volume method is the only way to solve this problem. The choice of the mesh and the CFL is a condition for the convergence to have the stationary solution.

Keywords: blunt body, finite volume, hypersonic flow, viscous flow

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Authors: R. Al-Dujele, K. A. Cashell

Abstract:

A tubular flange girder is an I-shaped steel girder with either one of both of the usual flat flange plates replaced with a hollow section. Typically, these hollow sections are either rectangular or circular in shape. Concrete filled tubular flange girders (CFTFGs) are unconventional I-shaped beams that use a hollow structural section as the top flange which is filled with concrete. The resulting section offers very high lateral torsional buckling strength and stiffness compared with conventional steel I-beams of similar depth, width and weight, typically leading to a reduction in lateral bracing requirements. This paper is focussed on investigating the ultimate capacity of concrete filled rectangular tubular flange girders (CFRTFGs). These are complex members and their behaviour is governed by a number of inter-related parameters. The FE model is developed using ABAQUS software, 3-D finite element (FE) model for simply supported CFRTFGs subjected to two point loads applied at the third-span points is built. An initial geometrical imperfection of (L/1000), as well as geometrical and material nonlinearities, are introduced into the model, where L denotes the span of the girder. In this numerical model, the concrete and steel materials are modelled using eight-node solid and four-node shell elements, respectively. In addition to the FE model, simplified analytical expressions for the flexural capacity are also proposed, and the results are compared to those from the FE analyses. The analytical expressions, which are suitable for design, are also shown to be capable of providing an accurate depiction of the bending moment capacity.

Keywords: concrete-filled rectangular tubular flange girders, ultimate capacity, confining effect, finite element analysis

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