Search results for: Daniel Suarez Alonso

Authors: Rocío González-Sánchez, Sara Alonso-Muñoz

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Food waste implies an inefficient management of the final stages in the food supply chain. Referring to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by United Nations, the SDG 12.3 proposes to halve per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and to reduce food losses. In the linear system, food waste is disposed and, to a lesser extent, recovery or reused after consumption. With the negative effect on stocks, the current food consumption system is based on ‘produce, take and dispose’ which put huge pressure on raw materials and energy resources. Therefore, greater focus on the circular management of food waste will mitigate the environmental, economic, and social impact, following a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach and consequently the SDGs fulfilment. A mixed methodology is used. A total sample of 311 publications from Web of Science database were retrieved. Firstly, it is performed a bibliometric analysis by SciMat and VOSviewer software to visualise scientific maps about co-occurrence analysis of keywords and co-citation analysis of journals. This allows for the understanding of the knowledge structure about this field, and to detect research issues. Secondly, a systematic literature review is conducted regarding the most influential articles in years 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the most representative period under study. Thirdly, to support the development of this field it is proposed an agenda according to the research gaps identified about circular economy and food waste management. Results reveal that the main topics are related to waste valorisation, the application of waste-to-energy circular model and the anaerobic digestion process towards fossil fuels replacement. It is underlined that the use of food as a source of clean energy is receiving greater attention in the literature. There is a lack of studies about stakeholders’ awareness and training. In addition, available data would facilitate the implementation of circular principles for food waste recovery, management, and valorisation. The research agenda suggests that circularity networks with suppliers and customers need to be deepened. Technological tools for the implementation of sustainable business models, and greater emphasis on social aspects through educational campaigns are also required. This paper contributes on the application of circularity to food waste management by abandoning inefficient linear models. Shedding light about trending topics in the field guiding to scholars for future research opportunities.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis, circular economy, food waste management, future research lines

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Authors: Daniel D'Souza, Ping Zou

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The period before, during, and after menopause is a sensitive time for women as they experience intense physical and psychological health changes and symptoms. These changes accompany the hormonal changes that mark the end of a woman’s reproductive age. To help mitigate and cope with these changes, prompt and correct treatment is needed. eHealth has emerged as a branch of telemedicine in the past few decades as an alternate avenue for patients to receive care quickly and conveniently, as it relies on the Internet and computers. Within the past few years, eHealth has also given rise to mHealth, which is the use of personal mobile devices to receive treatment and care. However, there is a lack of study on their use for menopause. This review aimed to review and summarize the literature for eHealth or mHealth and menopause. Several databases related to women’s health and digital health were searched for original studies about eHealth or mHealth and menopause. The search yielded 25 results. The results were generally positive, with these interventions being feasible and having positive effects on physical and psychosocial outcomes. However, several issues were raised regarding their design process that may inadvertently prevent these interventions from addressing the needs of all potential users. Therefore, while eHealth and mHealth certainly represent a future model of healthcare delivery for menopausal women, further research and design modifications are needed before this can happen.

Keywords: eHealth, menopause, mHealth, midlife women

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Authors: Thorsten Herrmann, Alexander Laukemann, Hansgeorg Binz, Daniel Roth

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For the analysis of already identified and existing problems, the pertinent literature provides a comprehensive collection of approaches as well as methods in order to analyze the problems in detail. But coming up with problems, which are assets worth pursuing further, is often challenging. However, the importance of well-formulated problem ideas and their influence of subsequent creative processes are incontestable and proven. In order to meet the covered challenges, the Institute for Engineering Design and Industrial Design (IKTD) developed the Emoji Method. This paper presents the Emoji Method, which support designers to generate problem ideas in a structured way. Considering research findings from knowledge management and innovation management, research into emojis and emoticons reveal insights by means of identifying and formulating problem ideas within the early design phase. The simple application and the huge supporting potential of the Emoji Method within the early design phase are only few of the many successful results of the conducted evaluation. The Emoji Method encourages designers to identify problem ideas and describe them in a structured way in order to start focused with generating solution ideas for the revealed problem ideas.

Keywords: emojis, problem ideas, innovation management, knowledge management

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Authors: Daniel Osorio, Janneth Gonzalez, Andres Pinzon

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In this work, proteins and metabolic pathways associated with the neuroprotective response mediated by the synthetic neurosteroid tibolone under a palmitate-induced inflammatory model were identified by flux balance analysis (FBA). Three different metabolic scenarios (‘healthy’, ‘inflamed’ and ‘medicated’) were modeled over a gene expression data-driven constructed tissue-specific metabolic reconstruction of mature astrocytes. Astrocyte reconstruction was built, validated and constrained using three open source software packages (‘minval’, ‘g2f’ and ‘exp2flux’) released through the Comprehensive R Archive Network repositories during the development of this work. From our analysis, we predict that tibolone executes their neuroprotective effects through a reduction of neurotoxicity mediated by L-glutamate in astrocytes, inducing the activation several metabolic pathways with neuroprotective actions associated such as taurine metabolism, gluconeogenesis, calcium and the Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor signaling pathways. Also, we found a tibolone associated increase in growth rate probably in concordance with previously reported side effects of steroid compounds in other human cell types.

Keywords: astrocytes, flux balance analysis, genome scale metabolic reconstruction, inflammation, neuroprotection, tibolone

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Authors: Lucian Stefanita Grigore, Damian Gorgoteanu, Cristian Molder, Amado Stefan, Daniel Constantin

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The purpose of this article is to present an analytical-numerical study on the structural behavior of a sunken autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for emergency intervention. The need for such a study was generated by the key objective of the ERL-Emergency project. The project aims to develop a system of collaborative robots for emergency response. The system consists of two robots: unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) on tracks and the second is an AUV. The system of collaborative robots, AUV and UGV, will be used to perform missions of monitoring, intervention, and rescue. The main mission of the AUV is to dive into the maritime space of an industrial port to detect possible leaks in a pipeline transporting petroleum products. Another mission is to close and open the valves with which the pipes are provided. Finally, you will need to be able to lift a manikin to the surface, which you can take to land. Numerical analysis was performed by the finite element method (FEM). The conditions for immersing the AUV at 100 m depth were simulated, and the calculations for different fluid flow rates were repeated. From a structural point of view, the stiffening areas and the enclosures in which the command-and-control elements and the accumulators are located have been especially analyzed. The conclusion of this research is that the AUV meets very well the established requirements.

Keywords: analytical-numerical, emergency, FEM, robotics, underwater

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Authors: Ian McCulloh, Andrew Placona, Darren Stewart, Daniel Gause, Kevin Kiernan, Morgan Stuart, Christopher Zinner, Laura Cartwright

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An estimated 22-25% of viable deceased donor kidneys are discarded every year in the US, while waitlisted candidates are dying every day. As many as 85% of transplanted organs are refused at least once for a patient that scored higher on the match list. There are hundreds of clinical variables involved in making a clinical transplant decision and there is rarely an ideal match. Decision makers exhibit an optimism bias where they may refuse an organ offer assuming a better match is imminent. We propose a semi-parametric Cox proportional hazard model, augmented by an accelerated failure time model based on patient specific suitable organ supply and demand to estimate a time-to-next-offer. Performance is assessed with Cox-Snell residuals and decision curve analysis, demonstrating improved decision support for up to a 5-year outlook. Providing clinical decision makers with quantitative evidence of likely patient outcomes (e.g., time to next offer and the mortality associated with waiting) may improve decisions and reduce optimism bias, thus reducing discarded organs and matching more patients on the waitlist.

Keywords: decision science, KDPI, optimism bias, organ transplant

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Authors: Daniel Marra

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This paper analyses from a semantic-diachronic viewpoint the change of meanings that two lexical items of Brazilian-Portuguese language have gone through. Cerrado and Vereda designate currently the second largest Brazilian biome and one of its most important subsystems. Nevertheless, these two words have long individual histories that can be traced back to their Latin etymons. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to highlight the process by which meaning instantiated itself in these words’ formation and to discuss how semantic change installed subsequently in them. As this paper shows, the aforementioned words have been, in different past, synchronizes, created, and undergone changes of meanings by metaphor and metonymy. Besides, it is argued here that semantic change takes place due to external causes, such as generalization and specialization of meaning. It happens when a specialized use of a lexical item, restricted to a particular linguistic group, is adopted by other groups, having its meaning generalized by them. In these processes, the etymological idea of the word is generally lost, which gains, in the new group, less specific meaning in relation to its etymology, sometimes with no relation to the original idea. As a final point, it is claimed that both the creation of a lexical item and its change of meaning involve pragmatic goals, such as the need the language users have to express a new meaning related to a certain reality in the empirical world.

Keywords: Brazilian biomes, metaphor and metonymy, Portuguese lexicon, semantic change

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Authors: Daniel M. Wolff, Patricia Gray, Rafael de la Parra Venegas

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An unsupervised machine listening system is constructed and applied to a dataset of 17,195 30-second marine hydrophone recordings. The system is then heuristically supplemented with anecdotal listening, contextual recording information, and supervised learning techniques to reduce the number of false positives. Features for classification are assembled by extracting the following data from each of the audio files: the spectral centroid, root-mean-squared values for each frequency band of a 10-octave filter bank, and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients in 5-second frames. In this way both time- and frequency-domain information are contained in the features to be passed to a clustering algorithm. Classification is performed using the k-means algorithm and then a k-nearest neighbors search. Different values of k are experimented with, in addition to different combinations of the available feature sets. Hypothesized class labels are 'primarily anthrophony' and 'primarily biophony', where the best class result conforming to the former label has 104 members after heuristic pruning. This demonstrates how a large audio dataset has been made more tractable with machine learning techniques, forming the foundation of a framework designed to acoustically monitor and gauge biological and anthropogenic activity in a marine environment.

Keywords: anthrophony, hydrophone, k-means, machine learning

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Authors: Yacine Babou, Nitesh Ranjan, Branimir Radisavljevic , Martin Seeger, Daniel Over, Torsten Votteler, Bernardo Galletti, Paulo Cristini

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In the frame of replacement of Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas as insulating and switching medium, diverse alternative gases, offering acceptable Global Warming Potential and fulfilling requirements in terms of heat dissipation, insulation and arc quenching performances are currently investigated for High Voltage Circuit Breaker applications. Among the potential gases, CO₂ seems a promising candidate for replacing SF6, because on one hand it is environmentally friendly, harmless, non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-flammable and on the other hand previous studies have demonstrated its fair interruption capabilities. The present study aims at investigating the performance of CO₂ for the thermal interruption in high voltage self-blast circuit breakers. In particular, the correlation between thermal interruption performance and arc voltage is considered and the effect of the arc-network interaction on the performance is rigorously analyzed. For the considered designs, the thermal interruption was evaluated by varying the slope at current zero (i.e., di/dt) for which the breaker could interrupt. Besides, the characteristics of the post-arc current are examined in detail for various rated voltages and currents. The outcome of these experimental investigations will be reported and analyzed.

Keywords: current zero measurement, high voltage circuit breaker, thermal arc discharge, thermal interruption

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Authors: Juan Harold Sosa-Arnao, Daniel José de Oliveira Ferreira, Caice Guarato Santos, Justo Emílio Alvarez, Leonardo Paes Rangel, Song Won Park

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A comprehensive CFD model is developed to represent heterogeneous combustion and two burner designs of supply sugar-cane bagasse into a furnace. The objective of this work is to compare the insertion and burning of a Brazilian south-eastern sugar-cane bagasse using a new swirl burner design against an actual geometry under operation. The new design allows control the particles penetration and scattering inside furnace by adjustment of axial/tangential contributions of air feed without change their mass flow. The model considers turbulence using RNG k-, combustion using EDM, radiation heat transfer using DTM with 16 ray directions and bagasse particle tracking represented by Schiller-Naumann model. The obtained results are favorable to use of new design swirl burner because its axial/tangential control promotes more penetration or more scattering than actual design and allows reproduce the actual design operation without change the overall mass flow supply.

Keywords: comprehensive CFD model, sugar-cane bagasse combustion, swirl burner, contributions

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Authors: Khairul Anuar, Wai Yee Lee, Daniel C. S. Bien, Hing Wah Lee, Ishak Azid

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This paper investigates the effect of ultrasonic treatment on ZnO nutrient solution prior to the growth of ZnO nanorods, where the seed layer is annealed at 50 and 100°C. The results show that the ZnO nanorods are successfully grown on the sample annealed at 50°C in the sonicated ZnO nutrient solution with a length and a diameter of approximately 8.025 µm and 92 nm, respectively. However, no ZnO nanorods structures are observed for the sample annealed at 50°C and grown in unsonicated ZnO nutrient solution. Meanwhile, the ZnO nanorods for the sample annealed at 100°C are successfully grown in both sonicated and unsonicated ZnO nutrient solutions. The length and diameter of the nanorods for the sample grown in the sonicated solution are 8.681 µm and 1.033 nm, whereas those for the sample grown in the unsonicated solution are 7.613 µm and 1.040 nm. This result shows that with ultrasonic treatment, the length of the ZnO nanorods increases by 14%, whereas their diameter is reduced by 0.7%, resulting in an increase of aspect ratio from 7:1 to 8:1. Electroconductivity and pH sensors are used to measure the conductivity and acidity level of the sonicated and unsonicated solutions, respectively. The result shows that the conductivity increases from 87 mS/cm to 10.4 mS/cm, whereas the solution pH decreases from 6.52 to 6.13 for the sonicated and unsonicated solutions, respectively. The increase in solution conductivity and acidity level elucidates the higher amount of zinc nutrient in the sonicated solution than in the unsonicated solution.

Keywords: ultrasonic treatment, low annealing temperature, ZnO nanostructure, nanorods

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Authors: Daniel C. Bonzo

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Practical considerations lead to the use of unit of analysis within subjects, e.g., bleeding episodes or treatment-related adverse events, in rare disease settings. This is coupled with data augmentation techniques such as extrapolation to enlarge the subject base. In general, one can think about extrapolation of data as extending information and conclusions from one estimand to another estimand. This approach induces hierarchichal clustered data with varying cluster sizes. Extrapolation of clinical trial data is being accepted increasingly by regulatory agencies as a means of generating data in diverse situations during drug development process. Under certain circumstances, data can be extrapolated to a different population, a different but related indication, and different but similar product. We consider here the problem of estimation (point and interval) using a mixed-models approach under an extrapolation. It is proposed that estimators (point and interval) be constructed using weighting schemes for the clusters, e.g., equally weighted and with weights proportional to cluster size. Simulated data generated under varying scenarios are then used to evaluate the performance of this approach. In conclusion, the evaluation result showed that the approach is a useful means for improving statistical inference in rare disease settings and thus aids not only signal detection but risk-benefit evaluation as well.

Keywords: clustered data, estimand, extrapolation, mixed model

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Authors: Hsin-Yang Wang, K. M. A. Salam, Ying-Jia Lin, Daniel Tan, Tzu-Hsuan Chou, Hung-Yu Kao

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Detecting user intent from natural language expression has a wide variety of use cases in different natural language processing applications. Recently few-shot training has a spike of usage on commercial domains. Due to the lack of significant sample features, the downstream task performance has been limited or leads to an unstable result across different domains. As a state-of-the-art method, the pre-trained BERT model gathering the sentence-level information from a large text corpus shows improvement on several NLP benchmarks. In this research, we are proposing a method to change multi-class classification tasks into binary classification tasks, then use the confidence score to rank the results. As a language model, BERT performs well on sequence data. In our experiment, we change the objective from predicting labels into finding the relations between words in sequence data. Our proposed method achieved 71.0% accuracy in the internal intent detection dataset and 63.9% accuracy in the HuffPost dataset. Acknowledgment: This work was supported by NCKU-B109-K003, which is the collaboration between National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and SoftBank Corp., Tokyo.

Keywords: OSML, BERT, text classification, one shot

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Authors: Daniel Fulus Fom, Gau Patrick Damulak

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In this study, the Autoregressive Fractional Integrated Moving Average (ARFIMA) and Jordan Recurrent Neural Network (JRNN) models were employed to model the forecasting performance of the daily turbidity flow of White Clay Creek (WCC). The two methods were applied to the log difference series of the daily turbidity flow series of WCC. The measurements of error employed to investigate the forecasting performance of the ARFIMA and JRNN models are the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and the Mean Absolute Error (MAE). The outcome of the investigation revealed that the forecasting performance of the JRNN technique is better than the forecasting performance of the ARFIMA technique in the mean square error sense. The results of the ARFIMA and JRNN models were obtained by the simulation of the models using MATLAB version 8.03. The significance of using the log difference series rather than the difference series is that the log difference series stabilizes the turbidity flow series than the difference series on the ARFIMA and JRNN.

Keywords: auto regressive, mean absolute error, neural network, root square mean error

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Authors: Sarah E. Nelson, Casey Weiner, Alexander Sigmon, Jun Hua, Haris I. Sair, Jose I. Suarez, Robert D. Stevens

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Graph-theoretical information from structural connectomes indicated significant connectivity changes and improved acute prognostication in a Random Forest (RF) model in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), which can lead to significant morbidity and mortality and has traditionally been fraught by poor methods to predict outcome. This study’s hypothesis was that structural connectivity changes occur in canonical brain networks of acute aSAH patients, and that these changes are associated with functional outcome at six months. In a prospective cohort of patients admitted to a single institution for management of acute aSAH, patients underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as part of a multimodal MRI scan. A weighted undirected structural connectome was created of each patient’s images using Constant Solid Angle (CSA) tractography, with 176 regions of interest (ROIs) defined by the Johns Hopkins Eve atlas. ROIs were sorted into four networks: Default Mode Network, Executive Control Network, Salience Network, and Whole Brain. The resulting nodes and edges were characterized using graph-theoretic features, including Node Strength (NS), Betweenness Centrality (BC), Network Degree (ND), and Connectedness (C). Clinical (including demographics and World Federation of Neurologic Surgeons scale) and graph features were used separately and in combination to train RF and Logistic Regression classifiers to predict two outcomes: dichotomized modified Rankin Score (mRS) at discharge and at six months after discharge (favorable outcome mRS 0-2, unfavorable outcome mRS 3-6). A total of 56 aSAH patients underwent DTI a median (IQR) of 7 (IQR=8.5) days after admission. The best performing model (RF) combining clinical and DTI graph features had a mean Area Under the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve (AUROC) of 0.88 ± 0.00 and Area Under the Precision Recall Curve (AUPRC) of 0.95 ± 0.00 over 500 trials. The combined model performed better than the clinical model alone (AUROC 0.81 ± 0.01, AUPRC 0.91 ± 0.00). The highest-ranked graph features for prediction were NS, BC, and ND. These results indicate reorganization of the connectome early after aSAH. The performance of clinical prognostic models was increased significantly by the inclusion of DTI-derived graph connectivity metrics. This methodology could significantly improve prognostication of aSAH.

Keywords: connectomics, diffusion tensor imaging, graph theory, machine learning, subarachnoid hemorrhage

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Authors: R. M. Chandima Ratnayake, Daniel Dyakov

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Super steel materials play vital role in construction and fabrication of structural, piping and pipeline components. They enable to minimize the life cycle costs in assuring the integrity of onshore and offshore operating systems. In this context, Duplex stainless steel (DSS) material related welding on constructions and fabrications play a significant role in maintaining and assuring integrity at an optimal expenditure over the life cycle of production and process systems as well as associated structures. In DSS welding, the factors such as gap geometry, shielding gas supply rate, welding current, and type of the welding process play a vital role on the final joint performance. Hence, an experimental investigation has been performed using engineering robust design approach (ERDA) to investigate the optimal settings that generate optimal super DSS (i.e. UNS S32750) joint performance. This manuscript illustrates the mathematical approach and experimental design, optimal parameter settings and results of verification experiment.

Keywords: duplex stainless steel welding, engineering robust design, mathematical framework, optimal parameter settings

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Authors: Carolina Gutierrez-Cortes, Hector Suarez, Gustavo Buitrago

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Bacteriocins are antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria as a competitive strategy for substrate and habitat. Those peptides have a potential use as food biopreservatives due to their antimicrobial activity against foodborne pathogens, avoiding the use of additives that can be harmful to consumers. The industrial production of bacteriocins is currently expensive; one of the options to be competitive is the development of economic culture media, for example, with the use of agro-industrial wastes such as whey. This study evaluated the growth and production of bacteriocins from four strains: Pediococcus pentosaceus 63, Pediococcus pentosaceus 145, Pediococcus pentosaceus 146 and Pediococcus pentosaceus 147 isolated from ‘minas cheese’ (artisanal cheese made from raw milk in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil) in order to select a strain with growth at high rates and higher antimicrobial activity against Listeria monocytogenes 104 after incubation on the culture medium designed with whey and other components. The media used were: MRS broth, modified MRS broth (using different sources of carbon and nitrogen and different amounts of micronutrients) and a culture medium designed by a factorial design using whey and other components. The final biomass concentrations of the four strains in MRS broth after 24 hours of incubation were very similar 9.25, 9.33, 9.25 and 9.22 (log CFU/mL) for P. pentosaceus 63, P. pentosaceus 145, P. pentosaceus 146 and P. pentosaceus 147 respectively. In the same assays, antimicrobial activity of 3200 AU/mL for the first three and of 12800 AU/mL for P. pentosaceus 147 were obtained. Culture of P. pentosaceus 63 on modified MRS broth, showed the effect of some sources of carbon on the activity of bacteriocin, obtaining 12800 AU/mL with dextrose and 25600 AU/mL with maltose. Cultures of P. pentosaceus 145, 146 and 147 with these same sugars presented activity of 12800 AU/mL. It was observed that the modified MRS medium using whey increased the antimicrobial activity of the strains at 16000, 6400, 16000 and 19200 AU/mL for each strain respectively, keeping the biomass at values close to 9 log units. About nitrogen sources, it was observed that the combination of peptone (10 g /L), meat extract (10 g/L) and yeast extract (5 g/L) promoted the highest activity (12800 AU/mL), and in all cases MgSO4, MnSO4, K2HPO4 and ammonium citrate at low concentrations adversely affected bacteriocin production. Because P. pentosaceus 147 showed the highest antimicrobial activity in the presence of whey, it was used to evaluate the culture medium (peptone (10 g/L), meat extract (8 g/L), yeast extract (2 g/L), Tween® 80 (1 g/L), ammonium citrate (2 g/L), sodium acetate (5 g/L), MgSO4 (0.2 g/L), MnSO4 (0.04 g/L)). With the designed medium added with whey, 9.34 log units of biomass concentration and 19200 AU/mL were achieved for P. pentosaceus 147. The above suggest that the new medium promotes the antimicrobial activity of P. pentosaceus 147 allowing the use of an economic medium using whey.

Keywords: antimicrobial activity, bacteriocins, pediococcus, whey

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Authors: Jorge Lus Nisperuza Toledo, Juan Pablo Rubio Ospina, Daniel Santiago Umana, Hector Alejandro Alvarez

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This work develops and implements computational codes to calculate the optimal launch trajectories for sending a probe from the earth to different planets of the Solar system, making use of trajectories of the Hohmann and No-Hohmann type and gravitational assistance in intermediate steps. Specifically, the orbital elements, the graphs and the dynamic simulations of the trajectories for sending a probe from the Earth towards the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are obtained. A detailed study was made of the state vectors of the position and orbital velocity of the considered planets in order to determine the optimal trajectories of the probe. For this purpose, computer codes were developed and implemented to obtain the orbital elements of the Mariner 10 (Mercury), Magellan (Venus), Mars Global Surveyor (Mars) and Voyager 1 (Jupiter and Saturn) missions, as an exercise in corroborating the algorithms. This exercise gives validity to computational codes, allowing to find the orbital elements and the simulations of trajectories of three future interplanetary missions with specific launch windows.

Keywords: gravitational assistance, Hohmann’s trajectories, interplanetary mission, orbital elements

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Authors: Daniel E. Martin, Chenghai Yang

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Variable-rate aerial application systems are becoming more readily available; however, aerial applicators typically only use the systems for constant-rate application of materials, allowing the systems to compensate for upwind and downwind ground speed variations. Much of the resistance to variable-rate aerial application system adoption in the U.S. pertains to applicator’s trust in the systems to turn on and off automatically as desired. The objectives of this study were to evaluate a commercially available variable-rate aerial application system under field conditions to demonstrate both the response and accuracy of the system to desired application rate inputs. This study involved planting oats in a 35-acre fallow field during the winter months to establish a uniform green backdrop in early spring. A binary (on/off) prescription application map was generated and a variable-rate aerial application of glyphosate was made to the field. Airborne multispectral imagery taken before and two weeks after the application documented actual field deposition and efficacy of the glyphosate. When compared to the prescription application map, these data provided application system response and accuracy information. The results of this study will be useful for quantifying and documenting the response and accuracy of a commercially available variable-rate aerial application system so that aerial applicators can be more confident in their capabilities and the use of these systems can increase, taking advantage of all that aerial variable-rate technologies have to offer.

Keywords: variable-rate, aerial application, remote sensing, precision application

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Jaehyouk Choi

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Link-to-column connection in eccentrically braced frames (EBF) has been a critical problem since the link flange connected to the column fractured prior to the required link rotation. Even though the problem in link-to-column connection still exist, the use of an eccentrically braced frame (EBF) is increasing day by day as EBF have high elastic stiffness, stable inelastic response under repeated lateral loading, and excellent ductility and energy dissipation capacity. In order to address this problem, a reduced web and flange link section is proposed and evaluated in this study. Reducing the web with holes makes the link to control the failure at the edge of holes introduced. Reducing the flange allows the link to control the location at which the plastic hinge is formed. Thus, the failure supposed to occur in the link flange connected at the connection move to the web and to the reduced link flange. Nonlinear FE analysis and experimental investigations have been done on the developed links, and the result shows that the link satisfies the plastic rotation limit recommended in AICS-360-10. Design equations that define the behavior of the proposed link have been recommended, and the equations were verified through the experimental and FE analysis results.

Keywords: EBFs, earthquake disaster, link-to-column connection, reduced link section

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Authors: Jia Yin Tan, Daniel Rambei, Kate Mann, Samuel price, Ahmed Aboelela

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Introduction: Breastfeeding is a complex process, influenced by various factors. Tongue-tie may lead to breastfeeding difficulties due to an inability to suck effectively, causing sore nipples and poor infant weight gain. In the UK, most frenotomies on infants are performed by doctors, nurses, health visitors or midwives. Objectives: Evaluation of safety and efficacy of a multispecialty nurse-led rapid access tongue-tie service at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, run jointly by the ENT and paediatric surgery departments. Methodology: A retrospective observational study, including all patients attending the ENT and paediatric surgery nurse-led tongue tie clinics between 1/10/2021 and 30/09/2022. Results: During the study period there were 1135 referrals for frenotomy, with a mean of 15 days between referral to clinic episode. 86.8% of referred patients underwent frenotomy, with a complication rate of 0.1% and revision rate of 5.4%. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that our rapid access nurse-led outpatient tongue tie service is safe and efficacious, with low complication and revision rates. This suggests a potential for developing a community-based service, allowing safe and effective care closer to home.

Keywords: tongue tie, frenotomy, cost, nurse-led

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Authors: Daniel Rosero, Johan S. Arana, Sebastian Arango, Alejandro Cruz, Isabel Gomez-Gutierrez, Peter Thomson

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Santiago de Cali is located in the southwestern Colombia in a high seismic hazard zone. About 50% of the city is on the banks of the Cauca River, which is the second most important hydric affluent in the country and whose alluvial deposits contain potentially liquefiable sands. Among the methods used to study a site's liquefaction potential is the finite elements method which use constitutive models to simulate the soil response for different load types. Among the different constitutive models, the Modified UBCSand stands out to study the seismic behavior of sands, and especially the liquefaction phenomenon. In this paper, the dynamic behavior of a potentially liquefiable sand of Santiago de Cali is studied by cyclic triaxial and CPTu tests. Subsequently, the behavior of the sand is simulated using the Modified UBCSand constitutive model, whose parameters are calibrated using the results of cyclic triaxial and CPTu tests. The above with the aim of analyze the constitutive model applicability for studying the geotechnical problems associated to liquefaction in the city.

Keywords: constitutive model, cyclic triaxial test, dynamic behavior, liquefiable sand, modified ubcsand

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Authors: Jaime Carpio-García, Elena Blanco-Fernández, Jorge Rodríguez-Hernández, Daniel Castro-Fresno

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Geosynthetic mechanical behavior vs temperature or vs aging has been widely studied independently during the last years, both in laboratory and in outdoor conditions. This paper studies this behavior deeper, considering that geosynthetics have to perform adequately at different outdoor temperatures once they have been subjected to a certain degree of aging, and also considering the different geosynthetic structures made of the same material. This combining effect has been not considered so far, and it is important to ensure the performance of geosynthetics, especially where high temperatures are expected. In order to fill this gap, six commercial geosynthetics with different internal structures made of polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), bitumen and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), or even a combination of some of them have been mechanically tested at mild temperature (20ºC or 23ºC) and at warm temperature (45ºC) before and after specific exposition to air at standardized high temperature in order to simulate 25 years of aging due to oxidation. Besides, for 45ºC tests, an innovative heating system during test for high deformable specimens is proposed. The influence of the combining effect of aging, structure and temperature in the product behavior have been analyzed and discussed, concluding that internal structure is more influential than aging in the mechanical behavior of a geosynthetic versus temperature.

Keywords: geosynthetics, mechanical behavior, temperature, aging, internal structure

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Authors: Larissa Negris de Souza, Ana Regina Mizrahy Cuperschmid, Daniel de Carvalho Moreira

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Augmented Reality (AR) alters the elaboration of the architectural project, which relates to project cognition: representation, visualization, and perception of information. Understanding these features from the earliest stages of the design can facilitate the study of relationships, zoning, and overall dimensions of the forms. This paper’s goal was to explore a new approach for information visualization during the early stages of architectural design using Augmented Reality (AR). A three-dimensional marker inspired by the Rubik’s Cube was developed, and its performance, evaluated. This investigation interwovens the acquired knowledge of traditional briefing methods and contemporary technology. We considered the concept of patterns (Alexander et al. 1977) to outline geometric forms and associations using visual programming. The Design Science Research was applied to develop the study. An SDK was used in a game engine to generate the AR app. The tool's functionality was assessed by verifying the readability and precision of the reconfigurable 3D marker. The results indicated an inconsistent response. To use AR in the early stages of architectural design the system must provide consistent information and appropriate feedback. Nevertheless, we conclude that our framework sets the ground for looking deep into AR tools for briefing design.

Keywords: augmented reality, cuboid marker, early design stages, graphic representation, patterns

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Authors: Sandile Daniel Ngidi

Abstract:

A brickforce is a product consisting of two main parallel wires joined by in-line welded cross wires. Embedded in the normal thickness of the brickwork joint, the wires are manufactured to a flattened profile to simplify location into the mortar joint without steel build-up problems at lap positions corners/junctions or when used in conjunction with wall ties. A brickforce has been in continuous use since 1918. It is placed in the cement between courses of bricks. Brickforce is used in every course of the foundations and every course above lintel height. Otherwise, brickforce is used every fourth course in between the foundations and lintel height or a concrete slab and lintel height. The brickforce strengthens and stabilizes the wall, especially if you are building on unstable ground. It provides brickwork increased resistance to tensional stresses. Brickforce uses high tensile steel wires, which can withstand high forces but with a very little stretch. This helps to keep crack widths to a minimum. Recently a debate has opened about the purpose of using brickforce in single-story buildings. The debate has been compounded by the fact that there is no consensus about the spacing of brickforce in brickwork or masonry. In addition, very little information had been published on the relative merits of using the same size of brickforce for the different atmospheric conditions in South Africa. This paper aims to compare different types of brickforce systems used in different countries. Conclusions are made to identify the point and location of brickforce that optimize the system.

Keywords: brickforce, masonry concrete, reinforcement, strengthening, wall panels

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Authors: Tien Wei Daniel Hwang

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The computer program inventors, particularly in Fintech, are unwilling to apply for patents in Taiwan after 2014. Passing the ‘statutory subject matter eligibility’ test and becoming the system patent are not the only cause to the reduction in the number of application. Taiwanese court needs to resolve whether the defendants had ‘used’ that software patent in patent direct infringement suit. Both 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) and article 58 paragraph 2 of Taiwan Patent Law don’t define the meaning of ‘use’ in the statutes. Centillion Data Sys., LLC v. Qwest Commc’ns Int’l, Inc. reconsidered the meaning of ‘use’ in system patent infringement, and held that ‘a party must put the invention into service, i.e., control the system as a whole and obtain benefit from it.’ In Taiwan, Intellectual Property Office, Ministry of Economic Affairs, has explained that ‘using’ the patent is ‘achieving the technical effect of the patent.’ Nonetheless, this definition is too broad to apply to not only the software patent but also the traditional patent. To supply the friendly environment for Fintech corporations, this article aims to let Taiwanese court realize why and how United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division and United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit defined the meaning of ‘use’ in 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). However, this definition is so lax and confuses many defendants in United States. Accordingly, this article indicates the elements in Taiwan Patent Law are different with 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), so Taiwanese court can follow the interpretation of ‘use’ in Centillion Data case without the same obstacle.

Keywords: direct infringement, FinTech, software patent, use

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Authors: Daniel Barros, Carlos Mota, Raul Fangueiro, Pedro Rosa, Gonçalo Domingos, Alfredo Passanha, Norberto Almeida

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The main aim of the work was to compare the ballistic performance of developed composites using different types of fiber woven fabrics [0,90] and different layers orientation (Angle-ply). The ballistic laminate composites were developed using E-glass, S-glass and aramid fabrics impregnated with thermosetting epoxy resin and using different layers orientation (0,0)º and (0,15)º. The idea of the study is to compare the ballistic performance of each laminate produced by studying the velocity loss of the fragment fired into the laminate surface. There are present some mechanical properties for laminates produced using the different types of fiber, where tensile, flexural and impact Charpy properties were studied. Overall, the angle-ply laminates produced using orientations of (0,15)º, despite the slight loss of mechanical properties compared to the (0,0)º orientation, presents better ballistic resistance and dissipation of energy, for lower ballistic impact velocities (under 290 m/s-1). After treatment of ballistic impact results, the S-Glass with (0,15)º laminate presents better ballistic perforce compared to the other combinations studied.

Keywords: ballistic impact, angle-ply, ballistic composite, s-glass fiber, aramid fiber, fabric fiber, energy dissipation, mechanical performance

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Authors: Ben Clapperton, Daniel Stahl, Kimberley Goldsmith, Trudie Chalder

Abstract:

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a condition characterised by chronic disabling fatigue and other symptoms that currently can't be explained by any underlying medical condition. Although clinical trials support the effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), the success rate for individual patients is modest. Patients vary in their response and little is known which factors predict or moderate treatment outcomes. The aim of the project is to develop a prediction model from baseline characteristics of patients, such as demographics, clinical and psychological variables, which may predict likely treatment outcome and provide guidance for clinical decision making and help clinicians to recommend the best treatment. The project is aimed at identifying subgroups of patients with similar baseline characteristics that are predictive of treatment effects using modern cluster analyses and data mining machine learning algorithms. The characteristics of these groups will then be used to inform the types of individuals who benefit from a specific treatment. In addition, results will provide a better understanding of for whom the treatment works. The suitability of different clustering methods to identify subgroups and their response to different treatments of CFS patients is compared.

Keywords: chronic fatigue syndrome, latent class analysis, prediction modelling, self-organizing maps

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Authors: Alejandro Ruiz-Olivares, M. del Carmen González-Chávez, Rogelio Carrillo-González, Martha Reyes-Ramos, Javier Suárez Espinosa

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Use of automobiles has increased and proportionally, the demand for batteries to impulse them. When the device is aged, all the battery materials are reused through lead acid battery recycling (LABR). Importation of used lead acid batteries in Mexico has increased in the last years since many recycling factories have been settled in the country. Inadequate disposal of lead-acid battery recycling (LABR) wastes left soil severely polluted with Pb, Cu, and salts (Na+, SO2− 4, PO3− 4). Soil organic amendments may contribute with essential nutrients and sequester (scavenger compounds) metals to allow plant establishment. The objective of this research was to revegetate a former lead-acid battery recycling site aided with organic amendments. Seven tree species (Acacia farnesiana, Casuarina equisetifolia, Cupressus lusitanica, Eucalyptus obliqua, Fraxinus excelsior, Prosopis laevigata and Pinus greggii) and two organic amendments (vermicompost and vermicompost + sawdust mixture) were tested for phytoremediation of a defunct LABR site. Plants were irrigated during the dry season. Monitoring of the soils was carried out during the experiment: Available metals, salts concentrations and their spatial pattern in soil were analyzed. Plant species and amendments were compared through analysis of covariance and longitudinal analysis. High concentrations of extractable (DTPA-TEA-CaCl₂) metals (up to 15,685 mg kg⁻¹ and 478 mg kg⁻¹ for Pb and Cu) and soluble salts (292 mg kg-1 and 23,578 mg kg-1 for PO3− 4and SO2− 4) were found in the soil after three and six months of setting up the experiment. Lead and Cu concentrations were depleted in the rhizosphere after amendments addition. Spatial pattern of PO3− 4, SO2− 4 and DTPA-extractable Pb and Cu changed slightly through time. In spite of extreme soil conditions the plant species planted: A. farnesiana, E. obliqua, C. equisetifolia and F. excelsior had 100% of survival. Available metals and salts differently affected each species. In addition, negative effect on growth due to Pb accumulated in shoots was observed only in C. lusitanica. Many specimens accumulated high concentrations of Pb ( > 1000 mg kg-1) in shoots. C. equisetifolia and C. lusitanica had the best rate of growth. Based on the results, all the evaluated species may be useful for revegetation of Pb-polluted soils. Besides their use in phytoremediation, some ecosystem services can be obtained from the woodland such as encourage wildlife, wood production, and carbon sequestration. Further research should be conducted to analyze these services.

Keywords: heavy metals, inadequate disposal, organic amendments, phytoremediation with trees

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Authors: Daniel Phifer, Anna Prokhodtseva

Abstract:

DualBeam (FIB-SEM) has long been the technology of choice to sub-sample and characterize materials at site-specific locations which are difficult or impossible to extract by conventional embedding/polishing methods. Whereas Ga based FIB provides excellent resolution and enables precise material removal, the current is usually limited and only allows the extraction of small material biopsies typically ranging from 5-70um wide. Xe Plasma FIB, by contrast, has around 38x more current and can remove more material at the same time to extract significant sized chunks (100-1000um) of materials for further analysis. This increased volume has enabled time-prohibitive investigations like large grain 3D serial sectioning and EBSD and micro-machining for micro-mechanical testing. Investigation of the pore spaces with 3D modeling can determine the relative characteristics of the materials to help design or select properties for best function. Pore spaces can be described with a tortuosity number which is calculated by modules in the 3D analysis software. Xe Plasma FIB technology provides a workflow with sufficient volume to characterize porosity when both large-volume 3D materials characterization and nanometer resolution is required to understand the system.

Keywords: dual-beam, FIB-SEM, porosity, SOFC, solid oxide fuel cell

Procedia PDF Downloads 183