Search results for: net gain

Authors: Bit-Na Kwon, Hyun-Jee Yang, Dong-Hyun Ha, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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In this paper, an adaptive cooperative scheme in the cell edge is proposed. The proposed scheme considers the location of a user and applies the suitable cooperative scheme. In cellular systems, the performance of communication is degraded if the user is located in the cell edge. In conventional scheme, two base stations are used in order to obtain diversity gain. However, the performance of communication is not sufficiently improved since the distance between each base station and a user is still distant. Therefore, we propose a scheme that the relays are used and the cooperative scheme is adaptively applied according to the user location. Through simulation results, it is confirmed that the proposed scheme has better performance than the conventional scheme.

Keywords: adaptive transmission, cooperative communication, diversity gain, OFDM

Procedia PDF Downloads 543

Authors: Abed Al-Bial, S. Alazazie, A. Shami

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The data were collected from 1992 to 2009 of White Boni sheep maintained at the Regional Research Station in the Central Highlands of Yemen. Data were analyzed to study the growth related traits and their genetic control. The least square means for body weights were 2.26±0.67, 11.14±0.46 and 19.21±1.25 kg for birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), six-month weight (WM6), respectively. The pre- and post-weaning average daily weight gains (ADG1 and ADG2) were 106.04±4.98g and 46.21±8.36 g/ day. Significant differences associated with the year of lambing were observed in body weight and weight gain at different stages of growth. Males were heavier and had a higher weight gain than females at almost all stages of growth and differences tended to increase with age. Single-born lambs had a distinct advantage over those born in twin births at all stages of growth. The lambs in the dam’s second to fourth parities were generally of heavier weight and higher daily weight gain than those in other parities. The heritabilities of all body weights, weight gains at different stages of growth were moderate (0.11-0.43). The phenotypic and genetic correlation among the different body weights were positive and high. The genetic correlations of the pre- and post-weaning average daily gains with body weights were hight to moderate, except BW with ADG2.

Keywords: breed, genetics, growth traits, heritability, sheep

Procedia PDF Downloads 477

Authors: Lubabatu Sada Sodangi

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The rapid growth in exchange and accessibility of information via the internet makes many organisations acquire data on their own operation. The aim of data mining is to analyse the different behaviour of a dataset using observation. Although, the subset of the dataset being analysed may not display all the behaviours and relationships of the entire data and, therefore, may not represent other parts that exist in the dataset. There is a range of techniques used in data mining to determine the hidden or unknown information in datasets. In this paper, the performance of two algorithms Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) and multilayer perceptron (MLP) would be matched using an Adult dataset to find out the percentage of an/the adults that earn > 50k and those that earn <= 50k per year. The two algorithms were studied and compared using IBM SPSS statistics software. The result for CHAID shows that the most important predictors are relationship and education. The algorithm shows that those are married (husband) and have qualification: Bachelor, Masters, Doctorate or Prof-school whose their age is > 41<57 earn > 50k. Also, multilayer perceptron displays marital status and capital gain as the most important predictors of the income. It also shows that individuals that their capital gain is less than 6,849 and are single, separated or widow, earn <= 50K, whereas individuals with their capital gain is > 6,849, work > 35 hrs/wk, and > 27yrs their income will be > 50k. By comparing the two algorithms, it is observed that both algorithms are reliable but there is strong reliability in CHAID which clearly shows that relation and education contribute to the prediction as displayed in the data visualisation.

Keywords: data mining, CHAID, multi-layer perceptron, SPSS, Adult dataset

Procedia PDF Downloads 355

Authors: Zwalnan Selfa Johnson, Caleb Nanchen Nimyel, Gideon Duvuna Ayuba

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Air conditioning accounts for a significant share of the overall energy consumed in residential buildings. Solar thermal gains in buildings account for a significant component of the air conditioning load in buildings. This study compares the solar thermal gain and air conditioning load of a proposed building design with a typical conventional building in the climatic conditions of Jos, Nigeria, using a combined experimental and computational method using TRNSYS software. According to the findings of this study, the proposed design building's annual average solar thermal gains are lower compared to the reference building's average solar heat gains. The study case building's decreased solar heat gain is mostly attributable to the lower temperature of the building zones because of the greater building volume and lower fenestration ratio (ratio external opening area to the area of the external walls). This result shows that the proposed building design adjusts to the local climate better than the standard conventional construction in Jos to maintain a suitable temperature within the building. This finding means that the air-conditioning electrical energy consumption per volume of the proposed building design will be lower than that of a conventional building design.

Keywords: solar heat gain, building zone, cooling energy, air conditioning, zone temperature

Procedia PDF Downloads 57

Authors: Bingchun Liu, Pei-Chann Chang, Natasha Huang, Dun Li

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Machine Learning and Data Mining are the two important tools for extracting useful information and knowledge from large datasets. In machine learning, classification is a wildly used technique to predict qualitative variables and is generally preferred over regression from an operational point of view. Due to the enormous increase in air pollution in various countries especially China, Air Quality Classification has become one of the most important topics in air quality research and modelling. This study aims at introducing a hybrid classification model based on information theory and Support Vector Machine (SVM) using the air quality data of four cities in China namely Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin from Jan 1, 2014 to April 30, 2016. China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has classified the daily air quality into 6 levels namely Serious Pollution, Severe Pollution, Moderate Pollution, Light Pollution, Good and Excellent based on their respective Air Quality Index (AQI) values. Using the information theory, information gain (IG) is calculated and feature selection is done for both categorical features and continuous numeric features. Then SVM Machine Learning algorithm is implemented on the selected features with cross-validation. The final evaluation reveals that the IG and SVM hybrid model performs better than SVM (alone), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) models in terms of accuracy as well as complexity.

Keywords: machine learning, air quality classification, air quality index, information gain, support vector machine, cross-validation

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Authors: Abrha Reta, Ajebu Nurfeta, Genet Mengistu, Mohammed Beyan

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Fodder trees such as Ziziphus spina-christi have the potential to enhance the utilization of natural grazing resources and also to mitigate seasonal feed shortages. The experiment was conducted with the objective of evaluating the effect of supplementing Ziziphus spina-christi leaf meal (ZSCLM) to natural pasture hay on feed intake, body weight gain, digestibility, and carcass characteristics of Tigray highland sheep. A randomized complete block design was employed with 5 blocks based on initial body weight, and sheep were randomly assigned to five treatments. Treatments were: 100g concentrate mix + ad libtum natural pasture hay (T1), T1+ 100g ZSCLM (T2), T1 + 200g ZSCLM (T3), T1 + 300g ZSCLM (T4), and T1 + 400g ZSCLM (T5) on dry matter (DM) basis. Dry matter intake was greater (P<0.05) in sheep on T5 compared to T3 and T1, while the total DM intake among T2, T4, and T5 were similar. Crude protein and metabolizable energy intake differed (P<0.05) among treatments with highest and lowest values in T5 and T1, respectively. Average daily gain was higher (P<0.05) in sheep kept on T2, T3, and T4 diets than T1. Higher (P<0.05) DM digestibility was found in T4 and T5 than T1. The highest (P<0.05) OM and CP digestibility was observed in sheep fed T3, T4, and T5 diets. Rib eye muscle area was higher (P<0.05) for T4 than T1 and T2. Dressing percentage was similar (P>0.05) among treatments. The current study indicated that supplementation of Tigray highland sheep with 200g air-dried Ziziphus spina-christi leaf meal leaves with 100g of concentrate mixture in their diet significantly increased feed intake and apparent digestibility, body weight gain, hot carcass weight, and rib eye muscle area by improving feed conversion efficiency.

Keywords: body weight, carcass, digestibility, and ziziphus spina-christi leaf meal

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Authors: Marina Shargorodsky

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Aim: Gestational weight gain (GWG) has been related to altering future weight-gain curves and increased risks of obesity later in life. Obesity may contribute to vascular atherosclerotic changes as well as excess cardiovascular morbidity and mortality observed in these patients. Noninvasive arterial testing, such as ultrasonographic measurement of carotid IMT, is considered a surrogate for systemic atherosclerotic disease burden and is predictive of cardiovascular events in asymptomatic individuals as well as recurrent events in patients with known cardiovascular disease. Currently, there is no consistent evidence regarding the vascular impact of excessive GWG. The present study was designed to investigate the impact of GWG on early atherosclerotic changes during late pregnancy, using intima-media thickness, as well as placental vascular circulation and inflammatory lesions and pregnancy outcomes. Methods: The study group consisted of 59 pregnant women who gave birth and underwent a placental histopathological examination at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Edith Wolfson Medical Center, Israel, in 2019. According to the IOM guidelines the study group has been divided into two groups: Group 1 included 32 women with pregnancy weight gain within recommended range; Group 2 included 27 women with excessive weight gain during pregnancy. The IMT was measured from non-diseased intimal and medial wall layers of the carotid artery on both sides, visualized by high-resolution 7.5 MHz ultrasound (Apogee CX Color, ATL). Placental histology subdivided placental findings to lesions consistent with maternal vascular and fetal vascular malperfusion according to the criteria of the Society for Pediatric Pathology, subdividing placental findings to lesions consistent with maternal vascular and fetal vascular malperfusion, as well as the inflammatory response of maternal and fetal origin. Results: IMT levels differed between groups and were significantly higher in Group 1 compared to Group 2 (0.7+/-0.1 vs 0.6+/-0/1, p=0.028). Multiple linear regression analysis of IMT included variables based on their associations in univariate analyses with a backward approach. Included in the model were pre-gestational BMI, HDL cholesterol and fasting glucose. The model was significant (p=0.001) and correctly classified 64.7% of study patients. In this model, pre-pregnancy BMI remained a significant independent predictor of subclinical atherosclerosis assessed by IMT (OR 4.314, 95% CI 0.0599-0.674, p=0.044). Among placental lesions related to fetal vascular malperfusion, villous changes consistent with fetal thrombo-occlusive disease (FTOD) were significantly higher in Group 1 than in Group 2, p=0.034). In Conclusion, the present study demonstrated that excessive weight gain during pregnancy is associated with an adverse effect on early stages of subclinical atherosclerosis, placental vascular circulation and neonatal complications. The precise mechanism for these vascular changes, as well as the overall clinical impact of weight control during pregnancy on IMT, placental vascular circulation as well as pregnancy outcomes, deserves further investigation.

Keywords: obesity, pregnancy, complications, weight gain

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Authors: Muna K. Abbass, Laith A. Mohammed, Muntaha K. Abbas

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The oxidation of Al-Li base alloy containing small amounts of rare earth (RE) oxides such as 0.2 wt% Y2O3 and 0.2wt% Nd2O3 particles have been studied at temperatures: 400ºC, 500ºC and 550°C for 60hr in a dry air. Alloys used in this study were prepared by melting and casting in a permanent steel mould under controlled atmosphere. Identification of oxidation kinetics was carried out by using weight gain/surface area (∆W/A) measurements while scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray diffraction analysis were used for micro structural morphologies and phase identification of the oxide scales. It was observed that the oxidation kinetic for all studied alloys follows the parabolic law in most experimental tests under the different oxidation temperatures. It was also found that the alloy containing 0.2 wt %Y 2O3 particles possess the lowest oxidation rate and shows great improvements in oxidation resistance compared to the alloy containing 0.2 wt % Nd2O3 particles and Al-Li base alloy. In this work, Taguchi method is performed to estimate the optimum weight gain /area (∆W/A) parameter in oxidation process of Al-Li base alloys to obtain a minimum thickness of oxidation layer. Taguchi method is used to formulate the experimental layout, to analyses the effect of each parameter (time, temperature and alloy type) on the oxidation generation and to predict the optimal choice for each parameter and analyzed the effect of these parameters on the weight gain /area (∆W/A) parameter. The analysis shows that, the temperature significantly affects on the (∆W/A) parameter.

Keywords: Al-Li base alloy, oxidation, Taguchi method, temperature

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Authors: Seemab Zehra, A. H. W. Mohammed, E. Pantanella, J. L. Q. Laranja, P. H. De Mello, R. Saleh, A. A. Siddik, A. Al Shaikhi, A. M. Al-Suwailem

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Two separate feeding trials were conducted to determine the effects of using different commercial diets and water temperatures on the growth performance, feed intake, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and condition factor of sobaity seabream Sparidentex hasta. In experiment I, growth performance, feed intake, protein efficiency ratio (PER), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and survival (%) of sobaity seabream Sparidentex hasta (330.5±2.6 g; 26.9±1.0 cm) were evaluated by four different commercial diets (1, 2, 3 and 4) for 80 days. The daily weight gain was around 3.2 g day-1 with an SGR of 0.7% day-1. Both the FCR and PER in the fish were significantly better in diet 2 that contained 46.36% crude protein and 12.54% crude fat. In experiment II, (99±2.6 g; 17.1±1.0 cm). The fish were cultured in 1m3 tanks supplied with seawater from the Red Sea wherein three different rearing temperatures were set as treatments (24, 28 and 32°C). Fish were fed with a commercial diet based on the results of experiment I (46.4% protein; 20.1 MJ kg-1 energy) to satiation for 96 days. Total weight gain was significantly higher for the fish reared in the 32°C group (158.57 g) followed by the 28°C group (138.25 g), while the lowest weight gain was observed in the 24°C group (116.98 g). The FCR was significantly lower in the 32°C group (1.62) as compared to 28 (1.8) and 24°C (1.85) groups. Based on the results obtained from these preliminary studies (experiment I and II), sobaity seabream can attain better growth performance, FCR and PER at 32°C in the Red Sea by feeding commercial diet 2.

Keywords: Sparidentex hasta, nutrition, FCR, Red Sea, growth performance

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Authors: Selfa Johnson Zwalnan, Nanchen Nimyel Caleb, Gideon Duvuna Ayuba

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Air conditioning accounts for a significant share of the overall energy consumed in residential buildings. Solar thermal gains in buildings account for a significant component of the air conditioning load in buildings. This study compares the solar thermal gain and air conditioning load of a proposed building design with a typical conventional building in the climatic conditions of Jos, Nigeria, using a combined experimental and computational method using TRNSYS software. According to the findings of this study, the proposed design building's annual average solar thermal gains are lower compared to the reference building's average solar heat gains. The study case building's decreased solar heat gain is mostly attributable to the somewhat lower temperature of the building zones because of the greater building volume and lower fenestration ratio (ratio of external opening area to the area of the external walls). This result shows that the innovative building design adjusts to the local climate better than the standard conventional construction in Jos to maintain a suitable temperature within the building. This finding means that the air-conditioning electrical energy consumption per volume of the proposed building design will be lower than that of a conventional building design.

Keywords: building simulation, solar gain, comfort temperature, temperature, carbon foot print

Procedia PDF Downloads 59

Authors: Marilou Cadatal-Raduban, Minh Hong Pham, Duong Van Pham, Tu Nguyen Xuan, Mui Viet Luong, Kohei Yamanoi, Toshihiko Shimizu, Nobuhiko Sarukura, Hung Dai Nguyen

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There is a great deal of interest in developing all-solid-state tunable ultrashort pulsed lasers emitting in the ultraviolet (UV) region for applications such as micromachining, investigation of charge carrier relaxation in conductors, and probing of ultrafast chemical processes. However, direct short-pulse generation is not as straight forward in solid-state gain media as it is for near-IR tunable solid-state lasers such as Ti:sapphire due to the difficulty of obtaining continuous wave laser operation, which is required for Kerr lens mode-locking schemes utilizing spatial or temporal Kerr type nonlinearity. In this work, the transient cavity method, which was reported to generate ultrashort laser pulses in dye lasers, is extended to a solid-state gain medium. Ce:LiCAF was chosen among the rare-earth-doped fluoride laser crystals emitting in the UV region because of its broad tunability (from 280 to 325 nm) and enough bandwidth to generate 3-fs pulses, sufficiently large effective gain cross section (6.0 x10⁻¹⁸ cm²) favorable for oscillators, and a high saturation fluence (115 mJ/cm²). Numerical simulations are performed to investigate the spectro-temporal evolution of the broadband UV laser emission from Ce:LiCAF, represented as a system of two homogeneous broadened singlet states, by solving the rate equations extended to multiple wavelengths. The goal is to find the appropriate cavity length and Q-factor to achieve the optimal photon cavity decay time and pumping energy for resonator transients that will lead to ps UV laser emission from a Ce:LiCAF crystal pumped by the fourth harmonics (266nm) of a Nd:YAG laser. Results show that a single ps pulse can be generated from a 1-mm, 1 mol% Ce³⁺-doped LiCAF crystal using an output coupler with 10% reflectivity (low-Q) and an oscillator cavity that is 2-mm long (short cavity). This technique can be extended to other fluoride-based solid-state laser gain media.

Keywords: rare-earth-doped fluoride gain medium, transient cavity, ultrashort laser, ultraviolet laser

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Authors: Christine Y. Yeh, Brian D. Piening, Sarah M. Totten, Kimberly Kukurba, Wenyu Zhou, Kevin P. F. Contrepois, Gucci J. Gu, Sharon Pitteri, Michael Snyder

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Three million deaths worldwide are attributed to obesity. However, the biomolecular mechanisms that describe the link between adiposity and subsequent disease states are poorly understood. Insulin resistance characterizes approximately half of obese individuals and is a major cause of obesity-mediated diseases such as Type II diabetes, hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. This study makes use of longitudinal quantitative and high-throughput multi-omics (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, glycoproteomics etc.) methodologies on blood samples to develop multigenic and multi-analyte signatures associated with weight gain and insulin resistance. Participants of this study underwent a 30-day period of weight gain via excessive caloric intake followed by a 60-day period of restricted dieting and return to baseline weight. Blood samples were taken at three different time points per patient: baseline, peak-weight and post weight loss. Patients were characterized as either insulin resistant (IR) or insulin sensitive (IS) before having their samples processed via longitudinal multi-omic technologies. This comparative study revealed a wealth of biomolecular changes associated with weight gain after using methods in machine learning, clustering, network analysis etc. Pathways of interest included those involved in lipid remodeling, acute inflammatory response and glucose metabolism. Some of these biomolecules returned to baseline levels as the patient returned to normal weight whilst some remained elevated. IR patients exhibited key differences in inflammatory response regulation in comparison to IS patients at all time points. These signatures suggest differential metabolism and inflammatory pathways between IR and IS patients. Biomolecular differences associated with weight gain and insulin resistance were identified on various levels: in gene expression, epigenetic change, transcriptional regulation and glycosylation. This study was not only able to contribute to new biology that could be of use in preventing or predicting obesity-mediated diseases, but also matured novel biomedical informatics technologies to produce and process data on many comprehensive omics levels.

Keywords: insulin resistance, multi-omics, next generation sequencing, proteogenomics, type ii diabetes

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Authors: Mert Turanli, Hakan Temeltas

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In this paper, we present an adaptive controller for decentralized coordination problem of multiple non-holonomic agents. The performance of the presented Multi-Agent Bounded Gain Forgetting (BGF) Composite Adaptive controller is compared against the tracking error criterion with a Feedback Linearization controller. By using the method, the sensor nodes move and reconfigure themselves in a coordinated way in response to a sensed environment. The multi-agent coordination is achieved through Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations and Coverage Control. Also, a consensus protocol is used for synchronization of the parameter vectors. The two controllers are given with their Lyapunov stability analysis and their stability is verified with simulation results. The simulations are carried out in MATLAB and ROS environments. Better performance is obtained with BGF Adaptive Controller.

Keywords: adaptive control, centroidal voronoi tessellations, composite adaptation, coordination, multi robots

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Authors: Toru Shionoya, Yosuke Kurihara, Takashi Kaburagi, Kajiro Watanabe

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Mass-produced bidirectional microphones have attractive characteristics. They work as a microphone as well as a sensor with high gain over a wide frequency range; they are also highly reliable and economical. We present novel multiple functional uses of the microphones. A mathematical model for explaining the high-pass-filtering characteristics of bidirectional microphones was presented. Based on the model, the characteristics of the microphone were investigated, and a novel use for the microphone as a sensor with a wide frequency range was presented. In this study, applications for using the microphone as a security sensor and a human biosensor were introduced. The mathematical model was validated through experiments, and the feasibility of the abovementioned applications for security monitoring and the biosignal monitoring were examined through experiments.

Keywords: bidirectional microphone, low-frequency, mathematical model, frequency response

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Authors: Rafael A. B. De Medeiros, Zilmar M. P. Barros, Carlos B. O. De Carvalho, Eunice G. Fraga Neta, Maria I. S. Maciel, Patricia M. Azoubel

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The use of the sugar substitution technique (D3S) in mango was studied. It consisted of two stages and the use of ultrasound in one or both stages was evaluated in terms of water loss and solid gain. Higher water loss results were found subjecting the fruit samples to ultrasound in the first stage followed by immersion of the samples in Stevia-based solution with application of ultrasound in the second stage, while higher solids gain were obtained without application of ultrasound in second stage. Samples were evaluated in terms of total carotenoids content and total color difference. Samples submitted to ultrasound in both D3S stages presented higher carotenoid retention compared to samples sonicated only in the first stage. Color of man goes after the D3S process showed notable changes.

Keywords: Mangifera indica L., quality, Stevia rebaudiana, ultrasound

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Authors: A. K. Srivastva

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Body weight is considered as an important factor in health and fitness. It is an index of one's health. Considering significance of body weight and its wider application in various fields in general and sports in particular, it is made a point of enquiry in the present study. The purpose of the study to observe over all weight pattern of Indian youths in the age group of 15 through 20 years. Total 7500 samples pooled from ten Indian states ranging in their age 15 to 20 years were examined in six age categories. Conclusion: 1. The period between 15 to 20 year of age is a growing period and that body weight is gained during this period. 2. Statewise difference is observed in body-weight during the period, which is significant. 3. PRG indicated by higher rate of weight gain varies from state to state. 4. Sportsman possess comparatively higer level of body-weight than other student of same age group. 5. Tribal youths show comparatively better status in their weight gain than the untrained uraban dwellers.

Keywords: PRG (period of rapid growth), HG (heterogeneous group), WP (weight pattern), MBW (mean body weight)

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Authors: Mohamed Razi Nalim, Shahrzad Ghadiri

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With current concerns regarding global warming, demand for a society with greater environmental awareness significantly increases. With gradual development in hybrid and electric vehicles and the availability of renewable energy resources, increasing efficiency in fossil fuel and combustion engines seems a faster solution toward sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of recent progress in wave rotor combustor, one of the combustion concepts with considerable potential to improve power output and emission standards. A wave rotor is an oscillatory flow device that uses the unsteady gas dynamic concept to transfer energy by generating pressure waves. From a thermodynamic point of view, unlike conventional positive-displacement piston engines which follow the Brayton cycle, wave rotors offer higher cycle efficiency due to pressure gain during the combustion process based on the Humphrey cycle. First, the paper covers all recent and ongoing computational and experimental studies around the world with a quick look at the milestones in the history of wave rotor development. Second, the main similarity and differences in the ignition system of the wave rotor with piston engines are considered. Also, the comparison is made with another pressure gain device, rotating detonation engines. Next, the main challenges and research needs for wave rotor combustor commercialization are discussed.

Keywords: wave rotor combustor, unsteady gas dynamic, pre-chamber jet ignition, pressure gain combustion, constant-volume combustion

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Authors: Qiong He, S. Thomas Ng

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Upgrading the thermal performance of building envelope of existing residential buildings is an effective way to reduce heat gain or heat loss. Overhang device is a common solution for building envelope improvement as it can cut down solar heat gain and thereby can reduce the energy used for space cooling in summer time. Despite that, overhang can increase the demand for indoor heating in winter due to its function of lowering the solar heat gain. Obviously, overhang has different impacts on energy use in different climatic zones which have different energy demand. To evaluate the impact of overhang device on building energy performance under different climates of China, an energy analysis model is built up in a computer-based simulation program known as DesignBuilder based on the data of a typical high-rise residential building. The energy simulation results show that single overhang is able to cut down around 5% of the energy consumption of the case building in the stand-alone situation or about 2% when the building is surrounded by other buildings in regions which predominantly rely on space cooling though it has no contribution to energy reduction in cold region. In regions with cold summer and cold winter, adding overhang over windows can cut down around 4% and 1.8% energy use with and without adjoining buildings, respectively. The results indicate that overhang might not an effective shading device to reduce the energy consumption in the mixed climate or cold regions.

Keywords: overhang, energy analysis, computer-based simulation, design builder, high-rise residential building, climate, BIM model

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Authors: Maryam Nazari, Majid Karandish, Alihossein Saberi

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Obesity as a global health challenge motivates pharmaceutical industries to produce anti-obesity drugs. However, effectiveness of these agents is remained unclear. Because of popularity of dietary supplements, the aim of this study was tp investigate the effects of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and L-carnitine (LC) on serum glucose, triglyceride, cholesterol and weight changes in diet induced obese rats. 48 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into two groups: Normal fat diet (n=8), and High fat diet (HFD) (n=32). After eight weeks, the second group which was maintained on HFD until the end of study, was subdivided into four categories: a) 500 mg Corn Oil (as control group), b) 500 mg CLA, c) 200 mg LC, d) 500 mg CLA+ 200 mg LC.All doses are planned per kg body weights, which were administered by oral gavage for four weeks. Body weights were measured and recorded weekly by means of a digital scale. At the end of the study, blood samples were collected for biochemical markers measurement. SPSS Version 16 was used for statistical analysis. At the end of 8^th week, a significant difference in weight was observed between HFD and NFD group. After 12 weeks, LC significantly reduced weight gain by 4.2%. Trend of weight gain in CLA and CLA+LC groups was insignificantly decelerated. CLA+LC reduced triglyceride level significantly, but just CLA had significant influence on total cholesterol and insignificant decreasing effect on FBS. Our results showed that an obesogenic diet in a relative short time led to obesity and dyslipidemia which can be modified by LC and CLA to some extent.

Keywords: conjugated linoleic acid, high fat diet, L-Carnitine, obesity

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Authors: O. A. Anjola, M. A. Adejobi, A. Ogunbameru, F. P. Agbaye, R. O. Odunukan

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This experiment was conducted for 8 weeks to evaluate the growth performance and economics of pullets fed on different dietary energy sources. A total of 300 Harco black was used for this experiment. The birds were completely randomized and divided into four diet treatment groups. Each treatment group had three replicates of twenty-five birds per replicate. Four diets containing maize, spaghetti, noodles, and biscuit was formulated to represent diet 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Diet 1 containing maize is the control, while diet 2, 3, and 4 contains spaghetti, noodles, and biscuit waste meal at 100% replacement for maize on weight for weight basis. Performance indices on Feed intake, body weight, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and economy of production were measured. Blood samples were also collected for heamatology and serum biochemistry assessment. The result of the experiment indicated that different dietary energy source fed to birds significantly (P < 0.05) affect feed intake, body weight, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio (FCR). The best cost of feed per kilogram of body weight gain was obtained in Spaghetti based diet (₦559.30). However, the best performance were obtained from diet 1(maize), it can be concluded that spaghetti as a replacement for maize in diet of pullet is most economical and profitable for production without any deleterious effects attached. Blood parameters of birds were not significantly (p > 0.05) influenced by the use of the dietary energy sources used in this experiment.

Keywords: growth performance, spaghetti, noodles, biscuit, profit, hematology, serum biochemistry

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Authors: Umesh Kumar, Arun Kumar Shukla, B. V. V. Ravindra Babu

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The paper presents a compact tri band Curved U-Slot patch antenna with improved bandwidth and isolation characteristics. The proposed antenna excited by coaxial feed resonates at tri band of 2.8 GHz, 4.1 GHz and 5.7 GHz for VSWR ≤ 1.5 with an improved bandwidth of 99.7% and also for getting high gain antenna of 11.31 dB. A 2×2 MIMO is developed using the proposed antenna giving an excellent isolation of 28 dB between the two antennas. The simulation results of return loss, Mutual Coupling, Gain, VSWR, Surface Current Distribution and Electrical Distribution are presented. By keeping the substrate thickness constant over various dielectric constants, simulations were carried out using MATLAB® and HFSS (High Frequency Structure Simulator) software.

Keywords: performance analysis, curved U-slot patch, antenna with enhanced bandwidth, isolation for mimo systems

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Authors: Adedoyin Akintunde Adedayo, Onilude Abiodun Anthony

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The continuous usage of synthetic antibiotics in livestock production has led to the resistance of microbial pathogens. This has prompted research to find alternative sources. This study aims to compare the growth and intestinal health of broilers fed scent leaf meal (SLM) as an alternative to synthetic antibiotics. The study used a completely randomized design (CRD) with 300 one-week-old Arbor Acres broiler chicks. The chicks were divided into six treatments with five replicates of ten birds each. The feeding trial lasted 49 days, including a one-week acclimatization period. Commercial broiler diets were used. The diets included a negative control (no leaf meal or antibiotics), a positive control (0.10% oxy-tetracycline), and four diets with different levels of SLM (0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%). The supplementation of both oxy-tetracycline and SLM improved feed intake during the finisher phase. Birds fed SLM at a 1% inclusion level showed significantly (P<0.05) improved average body weight gain (ABWG), lowered feed-to-gain ratio, and cost per kilogram of weight gain compared to other diets. The mortality (2.0%) rate was significantly higher in the negative control group. White blood cell levels varied significantly (P<0.05) in birds fed SLM-supplemented diets, and the use of 2% SLM led to an increase in liver weight. However, welfare indices were not compromised.

Keywords: Arbor Acres, phyto-biotic, synthetic antibiotic, white blood cell, liver weight

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Authors: Carole A. South-Winter

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Research-based learning gives students the opportunity to experience problems that require critical thinking and idea development. The skills they gain in working through these problems 'hands-on,' develop into attributes that benefit their careers in the professional field. The partnerships developed between students and industries give advantages to both sides. The students gain knowledge and skills that will increase their likelihood of success in the future and the industries are given research on new advancements that will give them a competitive advantage in their given field of work. The future of these partnerships is dependent on the success of current programs, enabling the enhancement and improvement of the research efforts. Once more students can complete research, there will be an increase in reliability of the results for each industry. The overall goal is to continue the support for research-based learning and the partnerships formed between students and industries.

Keywords: global healthcare, industry partnerships, research-driven decisions, short-term study abroad

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Authors: H. Mekki, A. Djerioui, S. Zeghlache, L. Chrifi-Alaoui

Abstract:

Induction motor (IM)Induction motor (IM) are nowadays widely used in industrial applications specially in electric vehicles (EVs) and traction locomotives, due to their high efficiency high speed and lifetime. However, since EV motors are easily influenced by un-certainties parameter variations and external load disturbance, both robust control techniques have received considerable attention during the past few decades. This paper present a robust controller design based sliding mode control (SMC) and high gain flux observer (HGO) for induction motor (IM) based Electric Vehicles (EV) drives. This control technique is obtained by the combination between the field oriented and the sliding mode control strategy and present remarkable dynamic performances just as a good robustness with respect to EV drives load torque. A high gain flux observer is also presented and associated in order to design sensorless control by estimating the rotor flux only using measurements of the stator voltages and currents. Simulations results are provided to evaluate the consistency and to show the effectiveness of the proposed SMC strategy also the performance of the HGO for Electric Vehicles system are nowadays widely used in industrial applications specially in electric vehicles (EVs) and traction locomotives, due to their high efficiency high speed and lifetime. However, since EV motors are easily influenced by un-certainties parameter variations and external load disturbance, both robust control techniques have received considerable attention during the past few decades. This paper present a robust controller design based sliding mode control (SMC) and high gain flux observer (HGO) for induction motor (IM) based Electric Vehicles (EV) drives. This control technique is obtained by the combination between the field oriented and the sliding mode control strategy and present remarkable dynamic performances just as a good robustness with respect to EV drives load torque. A high gain flux observer is also presented and associated in order to design sensorless control by estimating the rotor flux only using measurements of the stator voltages and currents. Simulations results are provided to evaluate the consistency and to show the effectiveness of the proposed SMC strategy also the performance of the HGO for Electric Vehicles system.

Keywords: electric vehicles, sliding mode control, induction motor drive, high gain observer

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Authors: Hasanah Md. Amin

Abstract:

The existence of cyberspace and its growing contents is real and overwhelming. Visual as one of the properties of cyber contents is increasingly becoming more significant and popular among creator and user. The visual and aesthetic of the content is consistent with many similarities. Aesthetic, although universal, has slight differences across the world. Aesthetic power could impress, influence, and cause bias among the users. The content creator who knows how to manipulate this visuals and aesthetic expression can dominate the scenario and the user who is ‘expressive literate’ will gain much from the scenes. User who understands aesthetic will be rewarded with competence, confidence, and certainly, a personality enhanced experience in carrying out a task when participating in this chaotic but promising cyberworld. The aim of this article is to gain knowledge from related literature and research regarding User-Generated Content (UGC), which focuses on aesthetic expression by the Net generation. The objective of this preliminary study is to analyze the aesthetic expression linked to visual from the participatory cultural viewpoint looking for meaning, value, patterns, and characteristics.

Keywords: visual overloaded, user-generated content, net generation, visual arts

Procedia PDF Downloads 408

Authors: Atabak Rashidian

Abstract:

In duplex backhaul wireless communication systems, two separate transmit and receive high-gain antennas are required if an antenna switch is not implemented. Although the switch loss, which is considerable and in the order of 1.5 dB at 60 GHz, is avoided, the large separate antenna systems make the design bulky and not cost-effective. To avoid two large reflectors for such a system, transmit and receive antenna feeds with a common phase center are required. The phase center should coincide with the focal point of the reflector to maximize the efficiency and gain. In this work, we present an ultra-compact design in which stacked patch antennas are used as the feeds for a 12-inch reflector. The transmit antenna is a 1 × 2 array and the receive antenna is a single element located in the middle of the transmit antenna elements. Antenna elements are designed as stacked patches to provide the required impedance bandwidth for four standard channels of WiGigTM applications. The design includes three metallic layers and three dielectric layers, in which the top dielectric layer is a 100 µm-thick protective layer. The top two metallic layers are specified to the main and parasitic patches. The bottom layer is basically ground plane with two circular openings (0.7 mm in diameter) having a center through via which connects the antennas to a single input/output Si-Ge Bi-CMOS transceiver chip. The reflection coefficient of the stacked patch antenna is fully investigated. The -10 dB impedance bandwidth is about 11%. Although the gap between transmit and receive antenna is very small (g = 0.525 mm), the mutual coupling is less than -12 dB over the desired frequency band. The three dimensional radiation patterns of the transmit and receive reflector antennas at 60 GHz is investigated over the impedance bandwidth. About 39 dBi realized gain is achieved. Considering over 15 dBm of output power of the silicon chip in the transmit side, the EIRP should be over 54 dBm, which is good enough for over one kilometer multi Gbps data communications. The performance of the reflector antenna over the bandwidth shows the peak gain is 39 dBi and 40 dBi for the reflector antenna with 2-element and single element feed, respectively. This type of the system design is cost-effective and efficient.

Keywords: Antenna, integrated circuit, millimeter-wave, phase center

Procedia PDF Downloads 97

Authors: M. Rizwan, S. Ahmad, U. Farooq, U. Mahmood, S. U. Rehman, P. Akhtar

Abstract:

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of supplementation of herbal and mineral mixture on growth performance of boilers. One hundred and eighty birds were randomly distributed into 6 experimental units of 3 replicates (10 birds/replicate) as: negative control (basal diet), positive control (Lincomycin at the rate of 5g/bag), commercially available herbal-mineral product FitFat™ at the rate of 150g/bag and 200g/bag, and herbal-mineral mixture at the rate of 150g/bag and herbal-mineral mixture at the rate of 300g/bag. The data regarding weekly feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio were recorded, and fecal samples were collected at the end of starter and finisher phase for nutrient digestibility trial. The results of body weight gain showed significant (P < 0.05) differences in 3rd week of age (506.90g), also, feed intake showed significant (P < 0.05) results in 1st (297.22g), 3rd (936.7g) and 4th (967.8g) week and feed conversion ratio indicated significant (P < 0.05) variations in 1st (1.14) and 3rd (1.74) week of age. The starter phase indicated significant (P < 0.05) differences among all treatments groups in body weight gain (902.2g), feed intake (1843.9g) and feed conversion ratio (1.78). In case of nutrient digestibility trial, results showed significant (P < 0.05) values of dry matter, crude protein, and crude fat in starter phase as 77.74%, 69.37%, and 61.18% respectively and 77.65%, 68.79% and 61.03% respectively, in finisher phase. Based on overall results, it was concluded that the dietary inclusion of combination of herbs and mineral can increase the production performance of broilers.

Keywords: herbal blend, minerals, crop filling, nutrient digestibility, broiler

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: M. Paraipan, V. M. Javadova, S. I. Tyutyunnikov

Abstract:

The concept of energy amplifier or accelerator driven system (ADS) involves the use of a particle accelerator coupled with a nuclear reactor. The accelerated particle beam generates a supplementary source of neutrons, which allows the subcritical functioning of the reactor, and consequently a safe exploitation. The harder neutron spectrum realized ensures a better incineration of the actinides. The almost generalized opinion is that the optimal beam for ADS is represented by protons with energy around 1 GeV (gigaelectronvolt). In the present work, a systematic analysis of the energy gain for proton beams with energy from 0.5 to 3 GeV and ion beams from deuteron to neon with energies between 0.25 and 2 AGeV is performed. The target is an assembly of metallic U-Pu-Zr fuel rods in a bath of lead-bismuth eutectic coolant. The rods length is 150 cm. A beryllium converter with length 110 cm is used in order to maximize the energy released in the target. The case of a linear accelerator is considered, with a beam intensity of 1.25‧10¹⁶ p/s, and a total accelerator efficiency of 0.18 for proton beam. These values are planned to be achieved in the European Spallation Source project. The energy gain G is calculated as the ratio between the energy released in the target to the energy spent to accelerate the beam. The energy released is obtained through simulation with the code Geant4. The energy spent is calculating by scaling from the data about the accelerator efficiency for the reference particle (proton). The analysis concerns the G values, the net power produce, the accelerator length, and the period between refueling. The optimal energy for proton is 1.5 GeV. At this energy, G reaches a plateau around a value of 8 and a net power production of 120 MW (megawatt). Starting with alpha, ion beams have a higher G than 1.5 GeV protons. A beam of 0.25 AGeV(gigaelectronvolt per nucleon) ⁷Li realizes the same net power production as 1.5 GeV protons, has a G of 15, and needs an accelerator length 2.6 times lower than for protons, representing the best solution for ADS. Beams of ¹⁶O or ²⁰Ne with energy 0.75 AGeV, accelerated in an accelerator with the same length as 1.5 GeV protons produce approximately 900 MW net power, with a gain of 23-25. The study of the evolution of the isotopes composition during irradiation shows that the increase in power production diminishes the period between refueling. For a net power produced of 120 MW, the target can be irradiated approximately 5000 days without refueling, but only 600 days when the net power reaches 1 GW (gigawatt).

Keywords: accelerator driven system, ion beam, electrical power, energy gain

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: Hassan Jassim Motlak

Abstract:

A novel design technique employing CMOS Current Feedback Operational Amplifier (CFOA) is presented. The feature of consumption whivh has a very low power in designing pseudo-OTA is used to decreasing the total power consumption of the proposed CFOA. This design approach applies pseudo-OTA as input stage cascaded with buffer stage. Moreover, the DC input offset voltage and harmonic distortion (HD) of the proposed CFOA are very low values compared with the conventional CMOS CFOA due to symmetrical input stage. P-Spice simulation results using 0.18µm MIETEC CMOS process parameters using supply voltage of ±1.2V and 50μA biasing current. The P-Spice simulation shows excellent improvement of the proposed CFOA over existing CMOS CFOA. Some of these performance parameters, for example, are DC gain of 62. dB, open-loop gain-bandwidth product of 108 MHz, slew rate (SR+) of +71.2V/µS, THD of -63dB and DC consumption power (PC) of 2mW.

Keywords: pseudo-OTA used CMOS CFOA, low power CFOA, high-performance CFOA, novel CFOA

Procedia PDF Downloads 288

Authors: Faten Adel Ismael Chaqmaqchee

Abstract:

Optical, electrical and optical-electrical characterisations of surface light emitting VCSOAs devices are reported. The hot electron light emitting and lasing in semiconductor hetero-structure vertical cavity semiconductor optical amplifier (HELLISH VCSOA) device is a surface emitter based on longitudinal injection of electron and hole pairs in their respective channels. Ga0.35In0.65N0.02As0.08/GaAs was used as an active material for operation in the 1.3 μm window of the optical communications. The device has undoped Distributed Bragg Reflectors (DBRs) and the current is injected longitudinally, directly into the active layers and does not involve DBRs. Therefore, problems associated with refractive index contrast and current injection through the DBR layers, which are common with the doped DBRs in conventional VCSOAs, are avoided. The highest gain of around 4 dB is obtained for the 1300 nm wavelength operation.

Keywords: HELLISH, VCSOA, GaInNAs, luminescence, gain

Procedia PDF Downloads 334