Search results for: microbial detection

Authors: Sehrish Jalal, Choon-Mee Kim, Dong-Min Kim

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Background: Many pathogens causing hemorrhagic fevers of medical and veterinary importance have been identified and isolated from rodents in the Republic of Korea (ROK). Objective: We investigated the prevalence of emerging viruses causing hemorrhagic fevers, such as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) and flaviviruses, from wild rodents. Methods: Striped field mice, Apodemus agrarius, (n=39) were captured during 2014-2015 in the south-west of ROK. Using molecular methods, lung samples were evaluated for SFTS virus, HFRS virus and flavivirus, and seropositivity was evaluated in the blood. Results: A high positive rate of Hantavirus (46.2%) was detected in A.agrarius lungs by reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-N-PCR). The monthly prevalence of HFRS virus was 16.7% in October, 86.7% in November and 25% in August of the following year (p < 0.001). Moreover, 17.9% of blood samples were serologically positive for Hantavirus antibodies. The most prevalent strain in A. agrarius was Hantaan virus. All samples were positive for neither SFTS nor flavivirus. Conclusion: Hantan virus was detected in 86.7% of A. agrarius in November (autumn), and thus, virus shedding from A. agrarius can increase the risk of humans contracting HFRS. These findings may help to predict and prevent disease outbreaks in ROK.

Keywords: hemorrhagic fever virus, molecular diagnostic technique, rodents, Korea

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Authors: Sidali Khedidji, Noureddine Yassaa, Riad Ladji

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In this study, n-alkanes which are hazardous for the environment and human health were investigated in Sour El Ghozlane suburban atmosphere at a sampling point from April 2013 to Mai 2013. Ambient concentration measurements of n-Alkanes were carried out at a regional study of the cement industry in Sour El Ghozlane. During sampling, the airborne particulate matter was enriched onto PTFE filters by using a two medium volume samplers with or without a size-selective inlet for PM10 and TSP were used and each sampling period lasted approximately 24 h. The organic compounds were characterized using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometric detection (GC-MS). Total concentrations for n-Alkanes recorded in Sour El Ghozlane suburban ranged from 42 to 69 ng m-3. Gravimeter method was applied to the black smoke concentration data for Springer seasons. The 24 h average concentrations of n-alkanes contain the PM10 and TSP of Sour El Ghozlane suburban atmosphere were found in the range 0.50–7.06 ng/m3 and 0.29–6.97 ng/m3, respectively, in the sampling period. Meteorological factors, such as (relative humidity and temperature) were typically found to be affecting PMs, especially PM10. Air temperature did not seem to be significantly affecting TSP and PM10 mass concentrations. The guide value fixed by the European Community, 40 μg/m3 was not to exceed 35 days, was exceeded in some samples. However, it should be noted that the value limit fixed by the Algerian regulations 80 μg/m3 has been exceeded in 1 sampler during the period study.

Keywords: n-alkanes, PM10, TSP, particulate matter, cement industry

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Authors: Mst Shapna Akter, Hossain Shahriar

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Neural network approaches are machine learning methods used in many domains, such as healthcare and cyber security. Neural networks are mostly known for dealing with image datasets. While training with the images, several fundamental mathematical operations are carried out in the Neural Network. The operation includes a number of algebraic and mathematical functions, including derivative, convolution, and matrix inversion and transposition. Such operations require higher processing power than is typically needed for computer usage. Central Processing Unit (CPU) is not appropriate for a large image size of the dataset as it is built with serial processing. While Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has parallel processing capabilities and, therefore, has higher speed. This paper uses advanced Neural Network techniques such as VGG16, Resnet50, Densenet, Inceptionv3, Xception, Mobilenet, XGBOOST-VGG16, and our proposed models to compare CPU and GPU resources. A system for classifying autism disease using face images of an autistic and non-autistic child was used to compare performance during testing. We used evaluation matrices such as Accuracy, F1 score, Precision, Recall, and Execution time. It has been observed that GPU runs faster than the CPU in all tests performed. Moreover, the performance of the Neural Network models in terms of accuracy increases on GPU compared to CPU.

Keywords: autism disease, neural network, CPU, GPU, transfer learning

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Authors: Ashfaque Hossain Khan, Brian Thomson, Ratan Debnath, Abhishek Motayed, Mulpuri V. Rao

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Though the efforts had been made, the problem of cross-sensitivity for a single metal oxide-based sensor can’t be fully eliminated. In this work, a sensor array has been designed and fabricated comprising of platinum (Pt), copper (Cu), and silver (Ag) decorated TiO2 and ZnO functionalized GaN nanowires using industry-standard top-down fabrication approach. The metal/metal-oxide combinations within the array have been determined from prior molecular simulation study using first principle calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). The gas responses were obtained for both single and mixture of NO2, SO2, ethanol, and H2 in the presence of H2O and O2 gases under UV light at room temperature. Each gas leaves a unique response footprint across the array sensors by which precise discrimination of cross-sensitive gases has been achieved. An unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA) technique has been implemented on the array response. Results indicate that each gas forms a distinct cluster in the score plot for all the target gases and their mixtures, indicating a clear separation among them. In addition, the developed array device consumes very low power because of ultra-violet (UV) assisted sensing as compared to commercially available metal-oxide sensors. The nanowire sensor array, in combination with PCA, is a potential approach for precise real-time gas monitoring applications.

Keywords: cross-sensitivity, gas sensor, principle component analysis (PCA), sensor array

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Authors: Rashmi Gupta

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Rewarding stimuli capture attention involuntarily as a result of an association process that develops quickly during value learning, referred to as the reward or value-driven attentional capture. It is essential to compare reward with punishment processing to get a full picture of value-based modulation in visual attention processing. Hence, the present study manipulated both valence/value (reward as well as punishment) and motivational salience (probability of an outcome: high vs. low) together. Series of experiments were conducted, and there were two phases in each experiment. In phase 1, participants were required to learn to associate specific face stimuli with a high or low probability of winning or losing points. In the second phase, these conditioned stimuli then served as a distractor or prime in a speeded letter search task. Faces with high versus low outcome probability, regardless of valence, slowed the search for targets (specifically the left visual field target) and suggesting that the costs to performance on non-emotional cognitive tasks were only driven by motivational salience (high vs. loss) associated with the stimuli rather than the valence (gain vs. loss). It also suggests that the processing of motivationally salient stimuli is right-hemisphere biased. Together, results of these studies strengthen the notion that our visual attention system is more sensitive to affected by motivational saliency rather than valence, which termed here as motivational-driven attentional capture.

Keywords: attention, distractors, motivational salience, valence

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Authors: Emmanuel Iyamuremye

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Extreme rainfall events have caused significant damage to agriculture, ecology, and infrastructure, disruption of human activities, injury, and loss of life. They also have significant social, economic, and environmental consequences because they considerably damage urban as well as rural areas. Early detection of extreme maximum rainfall helps to implement strategies and measures, before they occur, hence mitigating the consequences. Extreme value theory has been used widely in modeling extreme rainfall and in various disciplines, such as financial markets, the insurance industry, failure cases. Climatic extremes have been analyzed by using either generalized extreme value (GEV) or generalized Pareto (GP) distributions, which provides evidence of the importance of modeling extreme rainfall from different regions of the world. In this paper, we focused on Peak Over Thresholds approach, where the Poisson-generalized Pareto distribution is considered as the proper distribution for the study of the exceedances. This research also considers the use of the generalized Pareto (GP) distribution with a Poisson model for arrivals to describe peaks over a threshold. The research used statistical techniques to fit models that used to predict extreme rainfall in Kigali. The results indicate that the proposed Poisson-GP distribution provides a better fit to maximum monthly rainfall data. Further, the Poisson-GP models are able to estimate various return levels. The research also found a slow increase in return levels for maximum monthly rainfall for higher return periods, and further, the intervals are increasingly wider as the return period is increasing.

Keywords: exceedances, extreme value theory, generalized Pareto distribution, Poisson generalized Pareto distribution

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Authors: A. Fordham, A. Hudson

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Background: Studies have suggested 16-25% of normotensive trauma patients with no clinical signs of shock have abnormal lactate and BD readings evidencing shock; a phenomenon known as occult hypoperfusion (OH). In light of the scarce quantity of evidence currently documenting OH, this study aimed to identify the prevalence of OH in the pre-hospital setting and explore ways to improve its identification and management. Methods: A quantitative retrospective data analysis was carried out on 75 sets of patient records for trauma patients treated by Kent Surrey Sussex Air Ambulance Trust between November 2013 and October 2014. The KSS HEMS notes and subsequent ED notes were collected. Trends between patients’ SBP on the scene, whether or not they received PRBCs on the scene as well as lactate and BD readings in the ED were assessed. Patients’ KSS HEMS notes written by the HEMS crew were also reviewed and recorded. Results: -Suspected OH was identified in 7% of the patients who did not receive PRBCs in the pre-hospital phase. -SBP heavily influences the physicians’ decision of whether or not to transfuse PRBCs in the pre-hospital phase. Preliminary conclusions: OH is an under-studied and underestimated phenomenon. We suggest a prospective trial is carried out to evaluate whether detecting trauma patients’ tissue perfusion status in the pre-hospital phase using portable devices capable of measuring serum BD and/or lactate could aid more accurate detection and management of all haemorrhaging trauma patients, including patients with OH.

Keywords: occult hypoperfusion, PRBC transfusion, point of care testing, pre-hospital emergency medicine, trauma

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Authors: Miguel García-Ferrús, Ana González, María A. Ferrús

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The most demanded organic foods worldwide are those that are consumed fresh, such as fruits and vegetables. However, there is a knowledge gap about some aspects of organic food microbiological quality and safety. Organic fruits and vegetables are more exposed to pathogenic microorganisms due to surface contact with natural fertilizers such as animal manure, wastes and vermicompost used during farming. It has been suggested that some emergent pathogens, such as Helicobacter pylori or Arcobacter spp., could reach humans through the consumption of raw or minimally processed vegetables. Therefore, the objective of this work was to study the contamination of organic fresh green leafy vegetables by Arcobacter spp. and Helicobacter pylori. For this purpose, a total of 24 vegetable samples, 13 lettuce and 11 spinach were acquired from 10 different ecological supermarkets and greengroceries and analyzed by culture and PCR. Arcobacter spp. was detected in 5 samples (20%) by PCR, 4 spinach and one lettuce. One spinach sample was found to be also positive by culture. For H. pylori, the H. pylori VacA gene-specific band was detected in 12 vegetable samples (50%), 10 lettuces and 2 spinach. Isolation in the selective medium did not yield any positive result, possibly because of low contamination levels together with the presence of the organism in its viable but non-culturable form. Results showed significant levels of H. pylori and Arcobacter contamination in organic vegetables that are generally consumed raw, which seems to confirm that these foods can act as transmission vehicles to humans.

Keywords: Arcobacter sp., Helicobacter pylori, Organic Vegetables, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

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Authors: Durata Haciu, Elif Sena Tekin, Gokce Ozturk, Patricia Ramey Balcı

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Coastal zones are under increasing threat due to anthropogenic activities that introduce considerable pollutants such as heavy metals into marine ecosystems. As part of a larger experimental study examining species responses to contaminated marine sediments, surface sediments (top 5cm) were analysed for major trace elements at three locations in Istanbul Straight. Samples were randomly collected by divers (May 2018) using hand-corers from Istinye (n=4), Garipce (n=10) and Poyrazköy (n=6), at water depths of 4-8m. Twelve metals were examined: As, arsenic; Pb, lead; Cd, cadmium; Cr, chromium; Cu, Copper; Fe, Iron; Ni, Nickel; Zn, Zinc; V, vanadium; Mn, Manganese; Ba, Barium; and Ag, silver by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRF) and Inductively Coupled Plasma/Mass Spectroscopy (ICP/MS). Preliminary results indicate that the average concentrations of metals (mg kg⁻¹) varied considerably among locations. In general, concentrations were relatively lower at Garipce compared to either Istinye or Poyrazköy. For most metals mean concentrations were highest at Poyrazköy and Ag and Cd were below detection limits (exception= Ag in a few samples). While Cd and As were undetected in all stations, the concentrations of Fe and Ni fall in the criteria of moderately polluted range and the rest of the metals in the range of low polluted range as compared to Effects Range Low (ERL) and Effects Range median (ERM) values determined by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Keywords: effect-range classification, ICP/MS, marine sediments, XRF

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Authors: Patrícia Severino, Luciana Nalone, Daniele Martins, Marco Chaud, Classius Ferreira, Cristiane Bani, Ricardo Albuquerque

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Hydrogels produced with polymers have been used in the development of dressings for wound treatment and tissue revitalization. Our study on polymer nanocomposites containing silver nanoparticles shows antimicrobial activity and applications in wound healing. The effects are linked with the slow oxidation and Ag⁺ liberation to the biological environment. Furthermore, bacterial cell membrane penetration and metabolic disruption through cell cycle disarrangement also contribute to microbial cell death. The silver antimicrobial activity has been known for many years, and previous reports show that low silver concentrations are safe for human use. This work aims to develop a hydrogel using natural polymers (sodium alginate and gelatin) combined with silver nanoparticles for wound healing and with antimicrobial properties in cutaneous lesions. The hydrogel development utilized different sodium alginate and gelatin proportions (20:80, 50:50 and 80:20). The silver nanoparticles incorporation was evaluated at the concentrations of 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0 mM. The physico-chemical properties of the formulation were evaluated using ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) absorption spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. The morphological characterization was made using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Human fibroblast (L2929) viability assay was performed with a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assessment as well as an in vivo cicatrizant test. The results suggested that sodium alginate and gelatin in the (80:20) proportion with 4 mM of AgNO₃ in the (UV-Vis) exhibited a better hydrogel formulation. The nanoparticle absorption spectra of this analysis showed a maximum band around 430 - 450 nm, which suggests a spheroidal form. The TG curve exhibited two weight loss events. DSC indicated one endothermic peak at 230-250 °C, due to sample fusion. The polymers acted as stabilizers of a nanoparticle, defining their size and shape. Human fibroblast viability assay L929 gave 105 % cell viability with a negative control, while gelatin presented 96% viability, alginate: gelatin (80:20) 96.66 %, and alginate 100.33 % viability. The sodium alginate:gelatin (80:20) exhibited significant antimicrobial activity, with minimal bacterial growth at a ratio of 1.06 mg.mL⁻¹ in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 0.53 mg.mL⁻¹ in Staphylococcus aureus. The in vivo results showed a significant reduction in wound surface area. On the seventh day, the hydrogel-nanoparticle formulation reduced the total area of injury by 81.14 %, while control reached a 45.66 % reduction. The results suggest that silver-hydrogel nanoformulation exhibits potential for wound dressing therapeutics.

Keywords: nanocomposite, wound healing, hydrogel, silver nanoparticle

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Authors: Waleed A. El-Said, Dina M. Fouad, Mohamed H. Aly, Mohamed A. El-Gahami

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Green synthesis of nanomaterials has received increasing attention as an eco-friendly technology in materials science. Here, we have used two types of extractions from green tea leaf (i.e. total extraction and tannin extraction) as reducing agents for a rapid, simple and one step synthesis method of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs)/iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanocomposite based on deposition of Fe3O4 onto MSNPs. MSNPs/Fe3O4 nanocomposite were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, vibrating sample magnetometer, N2 adsorption, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The average mesoporous silica particle diameter was found to be around 30 nm with high surface area (818 m2/gm). MSNPs/Fe3O4 nanocomposite was used for removing lindane pesticide (an environmental hazard material) from aqueous solutions. Fourier transform infrared, UV-vis, High-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography techniques were used to confirm the high ability of MSNPs/Fe3O4 nanocomposite for sensing and capture of lindane molecules with high sorption capacity (more than 89%) that could develop a new eco-friendly strategy for detection and removing of pesticide and as a promising material for water treatment application.

Keywords: green synthesis, mesoporous silica, magnetic iron oxide NPs, adsorption Lindane

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Authors: Golayeh Yousefi, Mehdi Homaee, Ali Akbar Norouzi

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Ongoing monitoring of soil contamination by heavy metals is critical for ecosystem stability and environmental protection, and food security. The conventional methods of determining these soil contaminants are time-consuming and costly. Spectroscopy in the visible near-infrared (VNIR) - short wave infrared (SWIR) region is a rapid, non-destructive, noninvasive, and cost-effective method for assessment of soil heavy metals concentration by studying the spectral properties of soil constituents. The aim of this study is to derive spectral bands and important ranges that are sensitive to heavy metals and can be used to estimate the concentration of these soil contaminants. In other words, the change in the spectral properties of spectrally active constituents of soil can lead to the accurate identification and estimation of the concentration of these compounds in soil. For this purpose, 325 soil samples were collected, and their spectral reflectance curves were evaluated at a range of 350-2500 nm. After spectral preprocessing operations, the partial least-squares regression (PLSR) model was fitted on spectral data to predict the concentration of Cu and Ni. Based on the results, the spectral range of Cu- sensitive spectra were 480, 580-610, 1370, 1425, 1850, 1920, 2145, and 2200 nm, and Ni-sensitive ranges were 543, 655, 761, 1003, 1271, 1415, 1903, 2199 nm. Finally, the results of this study indicated that the spectral data contains a lot of information that can be applied to identify the soil properties, such as the concentration of heavy metals, with more detail.

Keywords: heavy metals, spectroscopy, spectral bands, PLS regression

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Authors: K. Petrosyan, R. Piwowarczyk, K. Ruraż, S. Thijs, J. Vangronsveld, W. Kaca

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Holoparasitic plants are flowering heterotrophic angiosperms which with the help of an absorbing organ - haustorium, attach to another plant, the so-called the host. Due to the different hosts, unusual lifestyle, lack of roots, chlorophylls and photosynthesis, these plants are interesting and unique study objects for global biodiversity. The seeds germination of the parasitic plants also is unique: they germinate only in response to germination stimulants, namely strigolactones produced by the root of an appropriate host. Resistance of the seeds on different environmental conditions allow them to stay viable in the soil for more than 20 years. Among the wide range of plant protection mechanisms the endophytic communities have a specific role. In this way, they have the potential to mitigate the impacts of adverse conditions such as soil salinization. The major objective of our study was to compare the bacterial endo-microbiomes from seeds of two holoparasitic plants from Orobanchaceae family, Cistanche – C. armena (Armenia) and C. phelypaea (Portugal) – from saline habitats different in soil water status. The research aimed to perform how environmental conditions influence on the diversity of the bacterial communities of C. armena and C. phelypaea seeds. This was achieved by comparison of the endophytic microbiomes of two species and isolation of culturable bacteria. A combination of culture-dependent and molecular techniques was employed for the identification of the seed endomicrobiome (culturable and unculturable). Using the V3-V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene, four main taxa were identified: Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, but the relative proportion of the taxa was different in each type of seed. Generally, sixteen phyla, 323 genera and 710 bacterial species were identified, mainly Gram negative, halotolerant bacteria with an environmental origin. However, also some unclassified and unexplored taxonomic groups were found in the seeds of both plants. 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis from both species identified the gram positive, endospore forming, halotolerant and alkaliphile Bacillus spp. which suggests that the endophytic bacteria of examined seeds possess traits that are correlated with the natural habitat of their hosts. The cultivable seed endophytes from C. armena and C. phelypaea were rather similar, notwithstanding the big distances between their growth habitats - Armenia and Portugal. Although the seed endophytic microbiomes of C. armena and C. phelypaea contain a high number of common bacterial taxa, also remarkable differences exist. We demonstrated that the environmental conditions or abiotic stresses influence on diversity of the bacterial communities of holoparasiotic seeds. To the best of our knowledge the research is the first report of endophytes from seeds of holoparasitic Cistanche armena and C. phelypaea plants.

Keywords: microbiome, parasitic plant, salinity, seeds

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Authors: Yao Xing, Hong Ling Liu, Wei Dong Yu

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With the increase of global population, it is of importance for the safe water supply, while, the water-monitoring method with the capability of rapidness, low-cost, green and robustness remains unsolved. In this paper, gold nanoclusters-wool keratin is added into copper ions measured by fluorescent method in order to probe copper ions in aqueous solution. The fluorescent results show that gold nanoclusters-wool keratin exhibits high stability of pHs, while it is sensitive to temperature and time. Based on Gauss fitting method, the results exhibit that the slope of gold nanoclusters-wool keratin with pH resolution under acidic condition is higher compared to it under alkaline solutions. Besides, gold nanoclusters-wool keratin added into copper ions shows a fluorescence turn-off response transferring from red to blue under UV light, leading to the dramatically decreased fluorescent intensity of gold nanoclusters-wool keratin solution located at 690 nm. Moreover, the limited concentration of copper ions tested by gold nanoclusters-wool keratin system is around 1 µmol/L, which meets the need of detection standards. The fitting slope of Stern-Volmer plot at low concentration of copper ions is larger than it at high concentrations, which indicates that aggregated gold nanoclusters are from small amounts to large numbers with the increasing concentration of copper ions. It is expected to provide novel method and materials for copper ions testing with low cost, high efficiency, and easy operability.

Keywords: gold nanoclusters, copper ions, wool keratin, fluorescence

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Authors: Temesgen Geremew

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ZnS/glass and CdS/glass single layers and ZnS/CdS and CdS/ZnS heterojunction thin films were deposited by the chemical bath deposition method using zinc acetate and cadmium acetate as the metal ion sources and thioacetamide as a nonmetallic ion source in acidic medium. Na2EDTA was used as a complexing agent to control the free cation concentration. +e single layer and heterojunction thin films were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), and a UV-VIS spectrometer. +e XRD patterns of the CdS/glass thin film deposited on the soda lime glass substrate crystalized in the cubic structure with a single peak along the (111) plane. +e ZnS/CdS heterojunction and ZnS/glass single layer thin films were crystalized in the hexagonal ZnS structure. +e CdS/ZnS heterojunction thin film is nearly amorphous.The optical analysis results confirmed single band gap values of 2.75 eV and 2.5 eV for ZnS/CdS and CdS/ZnS heterojunction thin films, respectively. +e CdS/glass and CdS/ZnS thin films have more imaginary dielectric components than the real part. The optical conductivity of the single layer and heterojunction films is in the order of 1015 1/s. +e optical study also confirmed refractive index values between 2 and 2.7 for ZnS/glass, ZnS/CdS, and CdS/ZnS thin films for incident photon energies between 1.2 eV and 3.8 eV. +e surface morphology studies revealed compacted spherical grains covering the substrate surfaces with few cracks on ZnS/glass, ZnS/CdS, and CdS/glass and voids on CdS/ZnS thin films. +e EDX result confirmed nearly 1 :1 metallic to nonmetallic ion ratio in the single-layered thin films and the dominance of Zn ion over Cd ion in both ZnS/CdS and CdS/ZnS heterojunction thin films.

Keywords: SERS, sensor, Hg2+, water detection, polythiophene

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Authors: Sandra Tapin-Lingua, Katia Ruel, Jean-Paul Joseleau, Daouia Messaoudi, Olivier Fahy, Michel Petit-Conil

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The preservative efficacy of organic biocides is strongly related to their capacity of penetration and retention within wood tissues. The specific detection of the pyrethroid insecticide is currently obtained after extraction followed by chemical analysis by chromatography techniques. However visualizing the insecticide molecule within the wood structure requires specific probes together with microscopy techniques. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to apply a new methodology based on antibody-antigen recognition and electronic microscopy to visualize directly pyrethroids in the wood material. A polyclonal antibody directed against cypermethrin was developed and implement it on Pinus sylvestris wood samples coated with technical cypermethrin. The antibody was tested on impregnated wood and the specific recognition of the insecticide was visualized in transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The immunogold-TEM assay evidenced the capacity of the synthetic biocide to penetrate in the wood. The depth of penetration was measured on sections taken at increasing distances from the coated surface of the wood. Such results correlated with chemical analyzes carried out by GC-ECD after extraction. In addition, the immuno-TEM investigation allowed visualizing, for the first time at the ultrastructure scale of resolution, that cypermethrin was able to diffuse within the secondary wood cell walls.

Keywords: cypermethrin, insecticide, wood penetration, wood retention, immuno-transmission electron microscopy, polyclonal antibody

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Authors: Ava Zarif Sanayei, Mustafa Farjad-Fard, Mohammad-Reza Mohammadian-Behbahani, Leyli Ebrahimi, Sedigheh Sina

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The fabrication and testing of a low-cost air-filled ion chamber for X-ray dosimetry is studied. The chamber is made of a metal cylinder, a central wire, a BC517 Darlington transistor, a 9V DC battery, and a voltmeter in order to have a cost-effective means to measure the dose. The output current of the dosimeter is amplified by the transistor and then fed to the large internal resistance of the voltmeter, producing a readable voltage signal. The dose-response linearity of the ion chamber is evaluated for different exposure scenarios by the X-ray tube. kVp values 70, 90, and 120, and mAs up to 20 are considered. In all experiments, a solid-state dosimeter (Solidose 400, Elimpex Medizintechnik) is used as a reference device for chamber calibration. Each case of exposure is repeated three times, the voltmeter and Solidose readings are recorded, and the mean and standard deviation values are calculated. Then, the calibration curve, derived by plotting voltmeter readings against Solidose readings, provided a linear fit result for all tube kVps of 70, 90, and 120. A 99, 98, and 100% linear relationship, respectively, for kVp values 70, 90, and 120 are demonstrated. The study shows the feasibility of achieving acceptable dose measurements with a simplified setup. Further enhancements to the proposed setup include solutions for limiting the leakage current, optimizing chamber dimensions, utilizing electronic microcontrollers for dedicated data readout, and minimizing the impact of stray electromagnetic fields on the system.

Keywords: dosimetry, ion chamber, radiation detection, X-ray

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Authors: Walter Bernhofer, Peter Haber, Tobias Mayer, Manfred Mayr, Markus Ziegler

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Current preventive maintenance measures are cost intensive and not efficient. With the available sensor data of state of the art internet of things devices new possibilities of automated data processing emerge. Current advances in data science and in machine learning enable new, so called predictive maintenance technologies, which empower data scientists to forecast possible system failures. The goal of this approach is to cut expenses in preventive maintenance by automating the detection of possible failures and to improve efficiency and quality of maintenance measures. Additionally, a centralization of the sensor data monitoring can be achieved by using this approach. This paper describes the approach of three students to define a reference architecture for a predictive maintenance solution in the internet of things domain with a connected smartphone app for service technicians. The reference architecture is validated by a case study. The case study is implemented with current Microsoft Azure cloud technologies. The results of the case study show that the reference architecture is valid and can be used to achieve a system for predictive maintenance execution with the cloud components of Microsoft Azure. The used concepts are technology platform agnostic and can be reused in many different cloud platforms. The reference architecture is valid and can be used in many use cases, like gas station maintenance, elevator maintenance and many more.

Keywords: case study, internet of things, predictive maintenance, reference architecture

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Authors: L. Malic, X. Zhang, D. Brassard, L. Clime, J. Daoud, C. Luebbert, V. Barrere, A. Boutin, S. Bidawid, N. Corneau, J. Farber, T. Veres

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The incidence of infections caused by foodborne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) poses a great potential threat to public health and safety. These issues are further exacerbated by legal repercussions due to “zero tolerance” food safety standards adopted in developed countries. Unfortunately, a large number of related disease outbreaks are caused by pathogens present in extremely low counts currently undetectable by available techniques. The development of highly sensitive and rapid detection of foodborne pathogens is therefore crucial, and requires robust and efficient pre-analytical sample preparation. Immunomagnetic separation is a popular approach to sample preparation. Microfluidic chips combined with external magnets have emerged as viable high throughput methods. However, external magnets alone are not suitable for the capture of nanoparticles, as very strong magnetic fields are required. Devices that incorporate externally applied magnetic field and microstructures of a soft magnetic material have thus been used for local field amplification. Unfortunately, very complex and costly fabrication processes used for integration of soft magnetic materials in the reported proof-of-concept devices would prohibit their use as disposable tools for food and water safety or diagnostic applications. We present a sample preparation magnetic microfluidic device implemented in low-cost thermoplastic polymers using fabrication techniques suitable for mass-production. The developed magnetic capture chip (M-chip) was employed for rapid capture and release of L. monocytogenes conjugated to immunomagnetic nanoparticles (IMNs) in buffer and beef filtrate. The M-chip relies on a dense array of Nickel-coated high-aspect ratio pillars for capture with controlled magnetic field distribution and a microfluidic channel network for sample delivery, waste, wash and recovery. The developed Nickel-coating process and passivation allows generation of switchable local perturbations within the uniform magnetic field generated with a pair of permanent magnets placed at the opposite edges of the chip. This leads to strong and reversible trapping force, wherein high local magnetic field gradients allow efficient capture of IMNs conjugated to L. monocytogenes flowing through the microfluidic chamber. The experimental optimization of the M-chip was performed using commercially available magnetic microparticles and fabricated silica-coated iron-oxide nanoparticles. The fabricated nanoparticles were optimized to achieve the desired magnetic moment and surface functionalization was tailored to allow efficient capture antibody immobilization. The integration, validation and further optimization of the capture and release protocol is demonstrated using both, dead and live L. monocytogenes through fluorescence microscopy and plate- culture method. The capture efficiency of the chip was found to vary as function of listeria to nanoparticle concentration ratio. The maximum capture efficiency of 30% was obtained and the 24-hour plate-culture method allowed the detection of initial sample concentration of only 16 cfu/ml. The device was also very efficient in concentrating the sample from a 10 ml initial volume. Specifically, 280% concentration efficiency was achieved in 17 minutes only, demonstrating the suitability of the system for food safety applications. In addition, flexible design and low-cost fabrication process will allow rapid sample preparation for applications beyond food and water safety, including point-of-care diagnosis.

Keywords: array of pillars, bacteria isolation, immunomagnetic sample preparation, polymer microfluidic device

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Authors: Azam Fazelpour, Saeed R. Dehghani, Vlastimil Masek, Yuri S. Muzychka

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This study employs a method based on image analyses and structure information to detect accumulated ice on known structures. The icing of marine vessels and offshore structures causes significant reductions in their efficiency and creates unsafe working conditions. Image processing methods are used to measure ice loads automatically. Most image processing methods are developed based on captured image analyses. In this method, ice loads on structures are calculated by defining structure coordinates and processing captured images. A pyramidal structure is designed with nine cylindrical bars as the known structure of experimental setup. Unsymmetrical ice accumulated on the structure in a cold room represents the actual case of experiments. Camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters are used to define structure coordinates in the image coordinate system according to the camera location and angle. The thresholding method is applied to capture images and detect iced structures in a binary image. The ice thickness of each element is calculated by combining the information from the binary image and the structure coordinate. Averaging ice diameters from different camera views obtains ice thicknesses of structure elements. Comparison between ice load measurements using this method and the actual ice loads shows positive correlations with an acceptable range of error. The method can be applied to complex structures defining structure and camera coordinates.

Keywords: camera calibration, ice detection, ice load measurements, image processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 342

Authors: Yu-Hsiu Lin, Wen-Chun Lin, Yen-Chang Cheng, Chia-Ju Yeh, Yu-Chuan Chen, Tai-You Li

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Demand-Side Management (DSM) has the potential to reduce electricity costs and carbon emission, which are associated with electricity used in the modern society. A home Energy Management System (EMS) commonly used by residential consumers in a down-stream sector of a smart grid to monitor, control, and optimize energy efficiency to domestic appliances is a system of computer-aided functionalities as an energy audit for residential DSM. Implementing fault detection and classification to domestic appliances monitored, controlled, and optimized is one of the most important steps to realize preventive maintenance, such as residential air conditioning and heating preventative maintenance in residential/industrial DSM. In this study, a cloud intelligence-based green EMS that comes up with an Internet of Things (IoT) technology stack for residential DSM is developed. In the EMS, Arduino MEGA Ethernet communication-based smart sockets that module a Real Time Clock chip to keep track of current time as timestamps via Network Time Protocol are designed and implemented for readings of load phenomena reflecting on voltage and current signals sensed. Also, a Network-Attached Storage providing data access to a heterogeneous group of IoT clients via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) methods is configured to data stores of parsed sensor readings. Lastly, a desktop computer with a WAMP software bundle (the Microsoft® Windows operating system, Apache HTTP Server, MySQL relational database management system, and PHP programming language) serves as a data science analytics engine for dynamic Web APP/REpresentational State Transfer-ful web service of the residential DSM having globally-Advanced Internet of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Computational Intelligence. Where, an abstract computing machine, Java Virtual Machine, enables the desktop computer to run Java programs, and a mash-up of Java, R language, and Python is well-suited and -configured for AI in this study. Having the ability of sending real-time push notifications to IoT clients, the desktop computer implements Google-maintained Firebase Cloud Messaging to engage IoT clients across Android/iOS devices and provide mobile notification service to residential/industrial DSM. In this study, in order to realize edge intelligence that edge devices avoiding network latency and much-needed connectivity of Internet connections for Internet of Services can support secure access to data stores and provide immediate analytical and real-time actionable insights at the edge of the network, we upgrade the designed and implemented smart sockets to be embedded AI Arduino ones (called embedded AIduino). With the realization of edge analytics by the proposed embedded AIduino for data analytics, an Arduino Ethernet shield WizNet W5100 having a micro SD card connector is conducted and used. The SD library is included for reading parsed data from and writing parsed data to an SD card. And, an Artificial Neural Network library, ArduinoANN, for Arduino MEGA is imported and used for locally-embedded AI implementation. The embedded AIduino in this study can be developed for further applications in manufacturing industry energy management and sustainable energy management, wherein in sustainable energy management rotating machinery diagnostics works to identify energy loss from gross misalignment and unbalance of rotating machines in power plants as an example.

Keywords: demand-side management, edge intelligence, energy management system, fault detection and classification

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Authors: Nurul Aini Abdul Wahab, Nor Syamim Halidin, Sayidatina Aisah Masnan, Nur Izzati Romli

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There are many applications of principle component method for reducing the large set of variables in various fields. Fisher’s Discriminant function is also a popular tool for classification. In this research, the researcher focuses on studying the performance of Principle Component-Fisher’s Discriminant function in helping to classify rice kernels to their defined classes. The data were collected on the smells or odour of the rice kernel using odour-detection sensor, Cyranose. 32 variables were captured by this electronic nose (e-nose). The objective of this research is to measure how well a combination model, between principle component and linear discriminant, to be as a classification model. Principle component method was used to reduce all 32 variables to a smaller and manageable set of components. Then, the reduced components were used to develop the Fisher’s Discriminant function. In this research, there are 4 defined classes of rice kernel which are Aromatic, Brown, Ordinary and Others. Based on the output from principle component method, the 32 variables were reduced to only 2 components. Based on the output of classification table from the discriminant analysis, 40.76% from the total observations were correctly classified into their classes by the PC-Discriminant function. Indirectly, it gives an idea that the classification model developed has committed to more than 50% of misclassifying the observations. As a conclusion, the Fisher’s Discriminant function that was built on a 2-component from PCA (2-PC-D) is not satisfying to classify the rice kernels into its defined classes.

Keywords: classification model, discriminant function, principle component analysis, variable reduction

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Authors: M. R. Mogarekar, Shraddha V. More, Pankaj Kumar

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Gastroenteritis, the third leading killer of children in India today is responsible for 13% of all deaths in children <5 years of age and kills an estimated 300,000 children in India each year. We decided to investigate parameters which can help in early disease detection and prompt treatment. Serum paraoxonase is calcium dependent esterase which is widely distributed among tissues such as liver, kidney, and intestine and is located in the chromosomal region 7q21.3 22.1. Studies show the presence of excessive reactive oxygen metabolites and antioxidant imbalance in the gastrointestinal tract leading to oxidative stress in gastroenteritis. To our knowledge, this is the first ever study done. The objective of present study is to investigate the role of paraoxonase 1 (PON 1) status i.e arylesterase and lactonase activities and Q192R polymorphism and conjugated dienes, in gastroenteritis of paediatric population. The study and control group consists of 40 paediatric patients with and without gastroenteritis. Paraoxonase arylesterase and lactonase activities were assessed and phenotyping was determined. Conjugated dienes were also assessed. PON 1 arylesterase activities in cases (61.494±13.220) and controls (70.942±15.385) and lactonase activities in cases (15.702±1.036) and controls (17.434±1.176) were significantly decreased (p<0.05). There is no significant difference of phenotypic distribution in cases and controls. Conjugated dienes were found significantly increased in patients (0.086±0.024) than the control group (0.064±0.019) (p<0.05). Paraoxonase 1 activities (arylesterase and lactonase) and conjugated dienes may be useful in risk assessment and management in gastroenteritis in paediatric population.

Keywords: paraoxonase 1 polymorphism, arylesterase, lactonase, conjugated dienes, p-nitrophenylacetate, DHC

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Authors: Belgherbi Aicha, Hadjidj Ismahen, Bessaid Abdelhafid

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Interpretation of medical images benefits from anatomical and physiological priors to optimize computer-aided diagnosis applications. Segmentation of liver, spleen and kidneys is regarded as a major primary step in the computer-aided diagnosis of abdominal organ diseases. In this paper, a semi-automated method for medical image data is presented for the abdominal organ segmentation data using mathematical morphology. Our proposed method is based on hierarchical segmentation and watershed algorithm. In our approach, a powerful technique has been designed to suppress over-segmentation based on mosaic image and on the computation of the watershed transform. Our algorithm is currency in two parts. In the first, we seek to improve the quality of the gradient-mosaic image. In this step, we propose a method for improving the gradient-mosaic image by applying the anisotropic diffusion filter followed by the morphological filters. Thereafter, we proceed to the hierarchical segmentation of the liver, spleen and kidney. To validate the segmentation technique proposed, we have tested it on several images. Our segmentation approach is evaluated by comparing our results with the manual segmentation performed by an expert. The experimental results are described in the last part of this work.

Keywords: anisotropic diffusion filter, CT images, morphological filter, mosaic image, simultaneous organ segmentation, the watershed algorithm

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Authors: Shaira L. Kee, Michael Aaron G. Sy, Myles Joshua T. Tan, Hezerul Abdul Karim, Nouar AlDahoul

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Skin diseases are considered the fourth most common disease, with melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer as the most common type of cancer in Caucasians. The alarming increase in Skin Cancer cases shows an urgent need for further research to improve diagnostic methods, as early diagnosis can significantly improve the 5-year survival rate. Machine Learning algorithms for image pattern analysis in diagnosing skin lesions can dramatically increase the accuracy rate of detection and decrease possible human errors. Several studies have shown the diagnostic performance of computer algorithms outperformed dermatologists. However, existing methods still need improvements to reduce diagnostic errors and generate efficient and accurate results. Our paper proposes an ensemble method to classify dermoscopic images into benign and malignant skin lesions. The experiments were conducted using the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC) image samples. The dataset contains 3,297 dermoscopic images with benign and malignant categories. The results show improvement in performance with an accuracy of 88% and an F1 score of 87%, outperforming other existing models such as support vector machine (SVM), Residual network (ResNet50), EfficientNetB0, EfficientNetB4, and VGG16.

Keywords: deep learning - VGG16 - efficientNet - CNN – ensemble – dermoscopic images - melanoma

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Authors: Xiaoying Guo, Xiangyun Wang, Chunhua Jia

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Web page has been one of the most important way of knowing the world. Humans catch a lot of information from it everyday. Thus, understanding where human looks when they surfing the web pages is rather important. In normal scenes, the down-top features and top-down tasks significantly affect humans’ eye movement. In this paper, we investigated if the conventional visual salience algorithm can properly predict humans’ visual attractive region when they viewing the web pages. First, we obtained the eye movement data when the participants viewing the web pages using an eye tracker. By the analysis of eye movement data, we studied the influence of visual saliency and thinking way on eye-movement pattern. The analysis result showed that thinking way affect human’ eye-movement pattern much more than visual saliency. Second, we compared the results of web page visual salience region extracted by Itti model and Spectral Residual (SR) model. The results showed that Spectral Residual (SR) model performs superior than Itti model by comparison with the heat map from eye movements. Considering the influence of mind habit on humans’ visual region of interest, we introduced one of the most important cue in mind habit-fixation position to improved the SR model. The result showed that the improved SR model can better predict the human visual region of interest in web pages.

Keywords: web page salience region, eye-tracker, spectral residual, visual salience

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Authors: Candra Irawan, David Yudianto, Ahsanu Nadiyya, Dewi Anna Br Sitepu, Hanafi, Erna Styani

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Jelly drink was produced from a combination of both natural and synthetic materials, such as acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K) as synthetic sweetener material. Acesulfame-K content in jelly drink could be determined by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), but this method needed validation due to having a change on the reagent addition step which skips the carrez addition and comparison of mix mobile phase (potassium dihydrogen phosphate and acetonitrile) with ratio from 75:25 to 90:10 to be more efficient and cheap. This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of determination method for acesulfame-K content in the jelly drink by HPLC. The method referred to Deutsches Institut fur Normung European Standard International Organization for Standardization (DIN EN ISO):12856 (1999) about Foodstuffs, Determination of acesulfame-K, aspartame and saccharin. The result of the correlation coefficient value (r) on the linearity test was 0.9987 at concentration range 5-100 mg/L. Detection limit value was 0.9153 ppm, while the quantitation limit value was 1.1932 ppm. The recovery (%) value on accuracy test for sample concentration by spiking 100 mg/L was 102-105%. Relative Standard Deviation (RSD) value for precision and homogenization tests were 2.815% and 4.978%, respectively. Meanwhile, the comparative and stability tests were tstat (0.136) < ttable (2.101) and |µ1-µ2| (1.502) ≤ 0.3×CV Horwitz. Obstinacy test value was tstat < ttable. It can be concluded that the HPLC  method for the determination of acesulfame-K in jelly drink product by HPLC has been valid and can be used for analysis with good performance.

Keywords: acesulfame-K, jelly drink, HPLC, validation

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Authors: Hankyu Lee, Seoung Bum Kim

Abstract:

The issue with imbalance and overlapping in the class distribution becomes important in various applications of data mining. The imbalanced dataset is a special case in classification problems in which the number of observations of one class (i.e., major class) heavily exceeds the number of observations of the other class (i.e., minor class). Overlapped dataset is the case where many observations are shared together between the two classes. Imbalanced and overlapped data can be frequently found in many real examples including fraud and abuse patients in healthcare, quality prediction in manufacturing, text classification, oil spill detection, remote sensing, and so on. The class imbalance and overlap problem is the challenging issue because this situation degrades the performance of most of the standard classification algorithms. In this study, we propose a classification procedure that can effectively handle imbalanced and overlapped datasets by splitting data space into three parts: nonoverlapping, light overlapping, and severe overlapping and applying the classification algorithm in each part. These three parts were determined based on the Hausdorff distance and the margin of the modified support vector machine. An experiments study was conducted to examine the properties of the proposed method and compared it with other classification algorithms. The results showed that the proposed method outperformed the competitors under various imbalanced and overlapped situations. Moreover, the applicability of the proposed method was demonstrated through the experiment with real data.

Keywords: classification, imbalanced data with class overlap, split data space, support vector machine

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Authors: Raghunandan Gurumurthy, Aricson Pereira, Sandeep Patil

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The escalating adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) across the globe has underscored the critical importance of advancing battery system technologies. This has catalyzed a shift towards the design and development of battery systems that not only exhibit higher energy efficiency but also boast enhanced thermal performance and sophisticated multi-material enclosures. A significant leap in this domain has been the incorporation of simulation-based design optimization for battery packs and Battery Management Systems (BMS), a move further enriched by integrating artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) approaches. These strategies are pivotal in refining the design, manufacturing, and operational processes for electric vehicles and energy storage systems. By leveraging AI/ML, stakeholders can now predict battery performance metrics—such as State of Health, State of Charge, and State of Power—with unprecedented accuracy. Furthermore, as Li-ion batteries (LIBs) become more prevalent in urban settings, the imperative for bolstering thermal and fire resilience has intensified. This has propelled Battery Thermal Management Systems (BTMs) to the forefront of energy storage research, highlighting the role of machine learning and AI not just as tools for enhanced safety management through accurate temperature forecasts and diagnostics but also as indispensable allies in the early detection and warning of potential battery fires.

Keywords: electric vehicles, battery thermal management, industrial engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, manufacturing

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Authors: Umm-E-Hani, Faiza Babar, Hanif Durad

Abstract:

Malware-detecting approaches suffer many limitations, due to which all anti-malware solutions have failed to be reliable enough for detecting zero-day malware. Signature-based solutions depend upon the signatures that can be generated only when malware surfaces at least once in the cyber world. Another approach that works by detecting the anomalies caused in the environment can easily be defeated by diligently and intelligently written malware. Solutions that have been trained to observe the behavior for detecting malicious files have failed to cater to the malware capable of detecting the sandboxed or protected environment. Machine learning and deep learning-based approaches greatly suffer in training their models with either an imbalanced dataset or an inadequate number of samples. AI-based anti-malware solutions that have been trained with enough samples targeted a selected feature vector, thus ignoring the input of leftover features in the maliciousness of malware just to cope with the lack of underlying hardware processing power. Our research focuses on producing an anti-malware solution for detecting malicious PE files by circumventing the earlier-mentioned shortcomings. Our proposed framework, which is based on automated feature engineering through autoencoders, trains the model over a fairly large dataset. It focuses on the visual patterns of malware samples to automatically extract the meaningful part of the visual pattern. Our experiment has successfully produced a state-of-the-art accuracy of 99.54 % over test data.

Keywords: malware, auto encoders, automated feature engineering, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 46