Search results for: health information exchanges

Authors: Chih-I. Tsai, Yu-Chien. Lin

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Through experiences of clinical practices, it is discovered that locations on the body at a level of four fingerbreadth above and below the joints are the points at which muscles connect to tendons, and since the muscles and tendons possess opposite characteristics, muscles are full of blood but lack qi, while tendons are full of qi but lack blood, these points on our body become easily blocked. It is proposed that through doing acupuncture or creating localized pressure to the areas four fingerbreadths above and below our joints, with an elastic bandage, we could help the energy, also known as qi, to flow smoothly in our body and further improve our health. Based on the Four Fingers Theory, we understand that human height is 22 four fingerbreadths. In addition, qi and blood travel through 24 meridians, 50 times each day, and they flow through 6 cun with every human breath. We can also understand the average number of human heartbeats is 75 times per minute. And the function of qi-blood circulation system in Traditional Chinese Medicine is the same as the blood circulation in Western Medical Science. Informed by Four Fingers Theory, this study further examined its applications in acupuncture practices. The research question is how Four Fingers Theory proves what has been mentioned in Nei Jing that there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. In responding to the research question, there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. Four Fingers Theory facilitated the creation of the acupuncture naming and teaching system. It is expected to serve as an approachable and effective way to deliver knowledge of acupuncture to the public worldwide.

Keywords: Four Fingers theory, Meridians circulation, 66 Acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee, acupuncture.

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Authors: Cleto J. Sauer Jr

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Introduction: Brazil’s new national curriculum guidelines (NCG) for medical education were published in 2014, presenting active learning methodologies as a cornerstone. Simulation was initially applied for aviation pilots’ training and is currently applied in health sciences. The high-fidelity simulator replicates human body anatomy in detail, also reproducing physiological functions and its use is increasing in medical schools. Realistic Simulation (RS) has pedagogical aspects that are aligned with Brazil’s NCG teaching concepts. The main objective of this study is to carry on a narrative review on RS’s aspects that are aligned with Brazil’s new NCG teaching concepts. Methodology: A narrative review was conducted, with search in three databases (PubMed, Embase and BVS) of studies published between 2010 and 2020. Results: After systematized search, 49 studies were selected and divided into four thematic groups. RS is aligned with new Brazilian medical curriculum as it is an active learning methodology, providing greater patient safety, uniform teaching, and student's emotional skills enhancement. RS is based on reflective learning, a teaching concept developed for adult’s education. Conclusion: RS is a methodology aligned with NCG teaching concepts and has potential to assist in the implementation of new Brazilian medical school’s curriculum. It is an immersive and interactive methodology, which provides reflective learning in a safe environment for students and patients.

Keywords: Curriculum, high-fidelity simulator, medical education, realistic simulation.

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Authors: Lixin Tian, Wei Xue

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Many jobs in society go underground, such as mine mining, tunnel construction and subways, which are vital to the development of society. Once accidents occur in these places, the interruption of traditional wired communication is not conducive to the development of rescue work. In order to realize the positioning, early warning and command functions of underground personnel and improve rescue efficiency, it is necessary to develop and design an emergency ground communication system. It is easy to be subjected to narrowband interference when performing conventional underground communication. Spreading communication can be used for this problem. However, general spread spectrum methods such as direct spread communication are inefficient, so it is proposed to use parallel combined spread spectrum (PCSS) communication to improve efficiency. The PCSS communication not only has the anti-interference ability and the good concealment of the traditional spread spectrum system, but also has a relatively high frequency band utilization rate and a strong information transmission capability. So, this technology has been widely used in practice. This paper presents a PCSS communication model-multiple detection parallel combined spread spectrum (MDPCSS) communication system. In this paper, the principle of MDPCSS communication system is described, that is, the sequence at the transmitting end is processed in blocks and cyclically shifted to facilitate multiple detection at the receiving end. The block diagrams of the transmitter and receiver of the MDPCSS communication system are introduced. At the same time, the calculation formula of the system bit error rate (BER) is introduced, and the simulation and analysis of the BER of the system are completed. By comparing with the common parallel PCSS communication, we can draw a conclusion that it is indeed possible to reduce the BER and improve the system performance. Furthermore, the influence of different pseudo-code lengths selected on the system BER is simulated and analyzed, and the conclusion is that the larger the pseudo-code length is, the smaller the system error rate is.

Keywords: Cyclic shift, multiple detection, parallel combined spread spectrum, PN code.

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Authors: Byung – wan Jo, Jung – hoon Park, Jang - wook Kim

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Recently, as information industry and mobile communication technology are developing, this study is conducted on the new concept of intelligent structures and maintenance techniques that applied wireless sensor network, USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network), to social infrastructures such as civil and architectural structures on the basis of the concept of Ubiquitous Computing that invisibly provides human life with computing, along with mutually cooperating, compromising and connecting networks each other by having computers within all objects around us. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the capability of wireless communication of sensor node embedded in reinforced concrete structure with a basic experiment on an electric wave permeability of sensor node by fabricating molding with variables of concrete thickness and steel bars that are mostly used in constructing structures to determine the feasibility of application to constructing structures with USN. At this time, with putting the pitches of steel bars, the thickness of concrete placed, and the intensity of RF signal of a transmitter-receiver as variables and when wireless communication module was installed inside, the possible communication distance of plain concrete and the possible communication distance by the pitches of steel bars was measured in the horizontal and vertical direction respectively. Besides, for the precise measurement of diminution of an electric wave, the magnitude of an electric wave in the range of used frequencies was measured by using Spectrum Analyzer. The phenomenon of diminution of an electric wave was numerically analyzed and the effect of the length of wavelength of frequencies was analyzed by the properties of a frequency band area. As a result of studying the feasibility of an application to constructing structures with wireless sensor, in case of plain concrete, it shows 45cm for the depth of permeability and in case of reinforced concrete with the pitches of 5cm, it shows 37cm and 45cm for the pitches of 15cm.

Keywords: Ubiquitous, Concrete, Permeability, Wireless, Sensor

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Authors: Salwa Hagag Abdelaziz, Naglaa Fathy Youssef, Nadia Abdel Latif Hassan, Rasha Wesam Abdel Rahman

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Breast cancer is considered as a substantial health concern and practicing mammography screening [MS] is important in minimizing its related morbidity. So it is essential to have a better understanding of breast cancer screening behaviors of women and factors that influence utilization of them. The aim of this study is to identify the factors that are linked to MS behaviors among the Egyptian women. A cross-sectional descriptive design was carried out to provide a snapshot of the factors that are linked to MS behaviors. A convenience sample of 311 women was utilized and all eligible participants admitted to the Women Imaging Unit who are 40 years of age or above, coming for mammography assessment, not pregnant or breast feeding and who accepted to participate in the study were included. A structured questionnaire was developed by the researchers and contains three parts; Socio-demographic data; Motivating factors associated with MS; and association between MS and model of behavior change. The analyzed data indicated that most of the participated women (66.6%) belonged to the age group of 40- 49.A high proportion of participants (58.1%) of group having previous MS influenced by their neighbors to practice MS, whereas 32.7 % in group not having previous MS were influenced by family members which indicated significant differences (P <0.05). Doctors and media shown to be the least influence of others to practice MS. Women with intention to have a future mammogram had higher OR (1.404) for practicing MS compared with women with no intention. Further studies are needed to examine the relation between Transtheoretical Model [TTM] and practicing MS.

Keywords: Breast cancer, mammography, screening behaviors.

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Authors: Mahbobeh Hajirostamloo

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Ligula intestinalis is a three-host life-cycle Pseudophyllidean Cestode which in its plerocercoid stage infests a range of fresh water species. The objective of the present study was the worm occurrence within planctonic copepods, fishes and piscivorous birds and examine of parasite-hosts samples in the Lake of Sattarkhan Dam (near the city of Ahar, East Azerbaijan, Iran). Fish sample were collected with fyke and gill nets and the abdominal cavity was examined for the presence of ligula. Zooplanktons were captured using a planktonic net and occurrence of parasitic larval form in the body cavity was determined. Piscivorous birds were selected by telescope, they hunted and dissected for presence of parasite eggs in their gut. Results indicated that prevalence of infection was 16% for cyclopid copepoda and majority of infected cyclopid were female Cyclops. Investigation of 310 fishes specimens were indicated to infection of five species of cyprinid fishes. In addition, results indicated to manipulation of six species of migratory aquatic and semi aquatic birds by ligula. Obtained results are in agreement by previous studies. Its definite in this study that all of fishes in Sattarkhan Lake capable to infection, its important for health because they capture by native people and it is documented that ligula can be introduce as a zoonose. It's seemed that to prevent from disperses of parasite and restricted of infection, biological elimination can be effective and it's necessary to inform native people about sanitation.

Keywords: Ligula intestinalis, parasite-host, Sattarkhan Lake, Iran.

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Authors: R. Pournaghi

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Taking into account the significance of measuring the daily use of the study space in the libraries in order to develop and reorganize the space for enhancing the efficiency of the study space, the current study aimed to apply GIS in analyzing the study halls of the Central Library and Document Center of Tehran University in order to determine how study desks and chairs were used by the students. The study used a combination of survey-descriptive and system design method. In order to gather the required data, surveydescriptive method was used. For implementing and entering data into ArcGIS and analyzing the data and displaying the results on the maps of the study halls of the library, system design method was utilized. The design of the spatial database of the use of the study halls was measured through the extent of occupancy of the space by the library users and the maps of the study halls of the central library of Tehran University as the case study. The results showed that Abooreyhan hall had the highest rate of occupancy of the desks and chairs compared to the other halls. The Hall of Science and Technology, with an average occupancy rate of 0.39 for the tables represented the lowest number of users and Rashid al-Dins hall, and Science and Technology hall with an average occupancy rate (0.40) had the lowest number of users for seats. In this study, the comparison of the space occupied at different periods in the morning, evenings, afternoons, and several months was performed through GIS. This system analyzed the space relationships effectively and efficiently. The output of this study would be used by administrators and librarians to determine the exact extent of use of the equipment of the study halls and librarians can use the output map to design the space more efficiently at the library.

Keywords: Geospatial Information System, Spatial analysis, Reading Room, Academic libraries, Library’s User, Central Library of Tehran University.

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Authors: Ammal M. Metwally, Dalia M. Elmosalami, Walaa A. Fouad, Abla G. Khalifa, Lobna A. El Etreby, Mohamed AbdelRahman

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People with hepatitis C are likely to experience psychological distress related to adjustment issues following diagnosis. Objective: The study was conducted to determine the psycho-social stressors accompanying Hepatitis C virus (HCV) chronic infection. The study focused on immediate and later on reactions to being diagnosed as infected HCV patients. Effect of HCV on disruption of patients’ relationships in term of family relationship and friendship, employment and financial status was assessed. The magnitude and causes of the social stigma and its relation to awareness about illness, level of education were also assessed. Methods: During this study the subjective experiences of people having HCV was explored through a designed questionnaire targeted 540 cases; 359 males and 181 females from ten out of 21 National Treatment Reference Centers of National Hepatology and Tropical Medicine Research Institutes of Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals. The study was conducted along a period of six months from September 2011 to March 2012. Results: The study revealed that the financial problems are the commonest problems faced by 75.5% of the cases. More than 70% of the cases suffered from immediate sadness versus 67.4% suffered from worry. Social stigma was reported by 13 % of HCV +patients, the majority of which were females. Conclusions: Exploring the psychosocial consequences of HCV infection can act as pressing motivators for behavior change needed for limiting HCV endemicity in Egypt.

Keywords: Egypt, HCV infection, psychosocial adjustment, stigma.

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Authors: Paiboon Jeamponk, Tasanee Ponglaa, Patchapon Srisanguan

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The aim of this research paper was based on an examination of sources of water supply and water quality for local consumption, conducted at eco- tourism villages of Suan Luang Sub- District Municipality of Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province. The study incorporated both questionnaire and field work of water testing as the research tool and method. The sample size of 288 households was based on the population of the district, whereas the selected sample water sources were from 60 households: 30 samples were ground water and another 30 were surface water. Degree of heavy metal contamination in the water including copper, iron, manganese, zinc, cadmium and lead was investigated utilizing the Atomic Absorption- Direct Aspiration method. The findings unveiled that 96.0 percent of household water consumption was based on water supply, while the rest on canal, river and rain water. The household behavior of consumption revealed that 47.2 percent of people routinely consumed water without boiling or filtering prior to consumption. The investigation of water supply quality found that the degree of heavy metal contamination including metal, lead, iron, copper, manganese and cadmium met the standards of the Department of Health.

Keywords: Sources of water supply, water quality, water supply.

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Authors: Jacquelyn Nyenhuis, Jaroslaw W. Drelich

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Diets high in processed foods have been found to lack essential micro-nutrients for optimum human development and overall health. Some micro-nutrients such as copper (Cu) have been found to enhance the inflammatory response through its oxidative functions, thereby having a role in cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and related complications. This research study was designed to determine if food crops could be bio-fortified with micro-nutrients by growing sprouts on mineral fortified fiber mats. In the feasibility study described in this contribution, recycled cellulose fibers and clay, saturated with either micro-nutrient copper ions or copper nanoparticles, were converted to a novel mineral-cellulose fiber carrier of essential micro-nutrient and of antimicrobial properties. Seeds of Medicago sativa (alfalfa), purchased from a commercial, organic supplier were germinated on engineered cellulose fiber mats. After the appearance of the first leaves, the sprouts were dehydrated and analyzed for Cu content. Nutrient analysis showed ~2 increase in Cu of the sprouts grown on the fiber mats with copper particles, and ~4 increase on mats with ionic copper as compared to the control samples. This study illustrates the potential for the use of engineered mats as a viable way to increase the micro-nutrient composition of locally-grown food crops and the need for additional research to determine the uptake, nutritional implications and risks of micro-nutrient bio-fortification.

Keywords: Bio-fortification, copper nutrient uptake, sprout, mineral-fortified mat, micro-nutrient uptake.

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Authors: E. Thipe, T. Workneh, A. Odindo, M. Laing

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The postharvest quality management of tomatoes is important to limit the amount of losses that occur due to deterioration between harvest and consumption. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of pre- and postharvest integrated agrotechnologies, involving greenhouse microclimate and postharvest storage conditions, on the postharvest quality attributes of four tomato cultivars. Tomato fruit firmness, colour (hue angle (h°) and L* value), pH and total soluble solids for the cultivars Bona, Star 9037, Star 9009 and Zeal, grown in a fan-pad evaporativelycooled and an open-ended naturally-ventilated tunnel, were harvested at the mature-green stage. The tomatoes were stored for 28 days under cold storage conditions, with a temperature of 13°C and RH of 85%, and under ambient air conditions, with a temperature of 23± 2°C and RH of 52± 4%. This study has provided information on the effect of integrated pre-harvest and postharvest agro-technologies, involving greenhouse microclimate and postharvest storage environment on the postharvest quality attributes of four of the tomato cultivars in South Africa. NVT-grown tomatoes retained better textural qualities, but ripened faster by changing from green to red faster, although these were reduced under cold storage conditions. FPVT-grown tomatoes had lower firmness, but ripened slowly with higher colour attributes. With cold storage conditions, the firmness of FPVT-grown tomatoes was maintained. Cultivar Bona firmness and colour qualities depreciated the fastest, but it had higher TSS content and lower pH values. Star 9009 and Star 9037 presented better quality, by retaining higher firmness and ripening slowly, but they had the lowest TSS contents and high pH values, especially Star 9037. Cold storage improved the firmness of tomato cultivars with poor textural quality and faster colour changes.

Keywords: Greenhouse, micro-climate, tomato, postharvest quality, storage.

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Authors: David L. Olson, Stephen B. H. Bruder, Adam S. Watkins, Cleon E. Davis

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In global navigation satellite system (GNSS) denied settings, such as indoor environments, autonomous mobile robots are often limited to dead-reckoning navigation techniques to determine their position, velocity, and attitude (PVA). Localization is typically accomplished by employing an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which, while precise in nature, accumulates errors rapidly and severely degrades the localization solution. Standard sensor fusion methods, such as Kalman filtering, aim to fuse precise IMU measurements with accurate aiding sensors to establish a precise and accurate solution. In indoor environments, where GNSS and no other a priori information is known about the environment, effective sensor fusion is difficult to achieve, as accurate aiding sensor choices are sparse. However, an opportunity arises by employing a depth camera in the indoor environment. A depth camera can capture point clouds of the surrounding floors and walls. Extracting attitude from these surfaces can serve as an accurate aiding source, which directly combats errors that arise due to gyroscope imperfections. This configuration for sensor fusion leads to a dramatic reduction of PVA error compared to traditional aiding sensor configurations. This paper provides the theoretical basis for the depth camera aiding sensor method, initial expectations of performance benefit via simulation, and hardware implementation thus verifying its veracity. Hardware implementation is performed on the Quanser Qbot 2™ mobile robot, with a Vector-Nav VN-200™ IMU and Kinect™ camera from Microsoft.

Keywords: Autonomous mobile robotics, dead reckoning, depth camera, inertial navigation, Kalman filtering, localization, sensor fusion.

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Authors: Sangita Pokhrel, Nalinda Somasiri, Rebecca Jeyavadhanam, Swathi Ganesan

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Tourism is a booming industry with huge future potential for global wealth and employment. There are countless data generated over social media sites every day, creating numerous opportunities to bring more insights to decision-makers. The integration of big data technology into the tourism industry will allow companies to conclude where their customers have been and what they like. This information can then be used by businesses, such as those in charge of managing visitor centres or hotels, etc., and the tourist can get a clear idea of places before visiting. The technical perspective of natural language is processed by analysing the sentiment features of online reviews from tourists, and we then supply an enhanced long short-term memory (LSTM) framework for sentiment feature extraction of travel reviews. We have constructed a web review database using a crawler and web scraping technique for experimental validation to evaluate the effectiveness of our methodology. The text form of sentences was first classified through VADER and RoBERTa model to get the polarity of the reviews. In this paper, we have conducted study methods for feature extraction, such as Count Vectorization and Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency (TFIDF) Vectorization and implemented Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) classifier algorithm for the sentiment analysis to decide if the tourist’s attitude towards the destinations is positive, negative, or simply neutral based on the review text that they posted online. The results demonstrated that from the CNN algorithm, after pre-processing and cleaning the dataset, we received an accuracy of 96.12% for the positive and negative sentiment analysis.

Keywords: Counter vectorization, Convolutional Neural Network, Crawler, data technology, Long Short-Term Memory, LSTM, Web Scraping, sentiment analysis.

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Authors: A. Pensiri, K. Nantaporn, P. Parichut

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Tourism is very important to the economy of many countries due to the large contribution in the areas of employment and income generation. However, the rapid growth of tourism can also be considered as one of the major uses of water user, and therefore also have a significant and detrimental impact on the environment. Guest behavior in water usage can be used to manage water in hotels for sustainable water resources management. This research presents a study of hotel guest water usage behavior at two hotels, namely Hotel A (located in Kathu district) and Hotel B (located in Muang district) in Phuket Province, Thailand, as case studies. Primary and secondary data were collected from the hotel manager through interview and questionnaires. The water flow rate was measured in-situ from each water supply device in the standard room type at each hotel, including hand washing faucets, bathroom faucets, shower and toilet flush. For the interview, the majority of respondents (n = 204 for Hotel A and n = 244 for Hotel B) were aged between 21 years and 30 years (53% for Hotel A and 65% for Hotel B) and the majority were foreign (78% in Hotel A, and 92% in Hotel B) from American, France and Austria for purposes of tourism (63% in Hotel A, and 55% in Hotel B). The data showed that water consumption ranged from 188 litres to 507 liters, and 383 litres to 415 litres per overnight guest in Hotel A and Hotel B (n = 244), respectively. These figures exceed the water efficiency benchmark set for Tropical regions by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP). It is recommended that guest water saving initiatives should be implemented at hotels. Moreover, the results showed that guests have high satisfaction for the hotels, the front office service reveal the top rates of average score of 4.35 in Hotel A and 4.20 in Hotel B, respectively, while the luxury decoration and room cleanliness exhibited the second satisfaction scored by the guests in Hotel A and B, respectively. On the basis of this information, the findings can be very useful to improve customer service satisfaction and pay attention to this particular aspect for better hotel management.

Keywords: Hotel, tourism, Phuket, water usage.

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Authors: Ahmed Noor Al-Qayyim, Barlas Ozden Caglayan

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Structural failure is caused mainly by damage that often occurs on structures. Many researchers focus on to obtain very efficient tools to detect the damage in structures in the early state. In the past decades, a subject that has received considerable attention in literature is the damage detection as determined by variations in the dynamic characteristics or response of structures. The study presents a new damage identification technique. The technique detects the damage location for the incomplete structure system using output data only. The method indicates the damage based on the free vibration test data by using ‘Two Points Condensation (TPC) technique’. This method creates a set of matrices by reducing the structural system to two degrees of freedom systems. The current stiffness matrices obtain from optimization the equation of motion using the measured test data. The current stiffness matrices compare with original (undamaged) stiffness matrices. The large percentage changes in matrices’ coefficients lead to the location of the damage. TPC technique is applied to the experimental data of a simply supported steel beam model structure after inducing thickness change in one element, where two cases consider. The method detects the damage and determines its location accurately in both cases. In addition, the results illustrate these changes in stiffness matrix can be a useful tool for continuous monitoring of structural safety using ambient vibration data. Furthermore, its efficiency proves that this technique can be used also for big structures.

Keywords: Damage detection, two points–condensation, structural health monitoring, signals processing, optimization.

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Authors: Ya Lv, Benjamin Ong Wei Lin, Wanli Niu, Benjamin Seah Chin Tat

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This article presents a methodology that improves reliability and cyclability of 2nd-life Li-ion battery system repurposed as energy storage system (ESS). Most of the 2nd-life retired battery systems in market have module/pack-level state of health (SOH) indicator, which is utilized for guiding appropriate depth of discharge (DOD) in the application of ESS. Due to the lack of cell-level SOH indication, the different degrading behaviors among various cells cannot be identified upon reaching retired status; in the end, considering end of life (EOL) loss and pack-level DOD, the repurposed ESS has to be oversized by > 1.5 times to complement the application requirement of reliability and cyclability. This proposed battery grading algorithm, using non-invasive methodology, is able to detect outlier cells based on historical voltage data and calculate cell-level historical maximum temperature data using semi-analytic methodology. In this way, the individual battery cell in the 2nd-life battery system can be graded in terms of SOH on basis of the historical voltage fluctuation and estimated historical maximum temperature variation. These grades will have corresponding DOD grades in the application of the repurposed ESS to enhance the system reliability and cyclability. In all, this introduced battery grading algorithm is non-invasive, compatible with all kinds of retired Li-ion battery systems which lack of cell-level SOH indication, as well as potentially being embedded into battery management software for preventive maintenance and real-time cyclability optimization.

Keywords: Battery grading algorithm, 2nd-life repurposing battery system, semi-analytic methodology, reliability and cyclability.

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Authors: David E. Culler, Noah D. Anderson

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Integrated systems for product design, manufacturing, and lifecycle management are difficult to implement and customize. Commercial software vendors, including CAD/CAM and third party PDM/PLM developers, create user interfaces and functionality that allow their products to be applied across many industries. The result is that systems become overloaded with functionality, difficult to navigate, and use terminology that is unfamiliar to engineers and production personnel. For example, manufacturers of automotive, aeronautical, electronics, and household products use similar but distinct methods and processes. Furthermore, each company tends to have their own preferred tools and programs for controlling work and information flow and that connect design, planning, and manufacturing processes to business applications. This paper presents a methodology and a case study that addresses these issues and suggests that in the future more companies will develop personalized applications that fit to the natural way that their business operates. A functioning system has been implemented at a highly competitive U.S. aerospace tooling and component supplier that works with many prominent airline manufacturers around the world including The Boeing Company, Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier Aerospace. During the last three years, the program has produced significant benefits such as the automatic creation and management of component and assembly designs (parametric models and drawings), the extensive use of lightweight 3D data, and changes to the way projects are executed from beginning to end. CATIA (CAD/CAE/CAM) and a variety of programs developed in C#, VB.Net, HTML, and SQL make up the current system. The web-based platform is facilitating collaborative work across multiple sites around the world and improving communications with customers and suppliers. This work demonstrates that the creative use of Application Programming Interface (API) utilities, libraries, and methods is a key to automating many time-consuming tasks and linking applications together.

Keywords: CAD/CAM, CAPP, PDM, PLM, Scalable Systems.

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Authors: Victor Abioye Akinbinu

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This work is intended to study the post-failure characteristic behaviour of rocks and the techniques of controlling the post-failure regime based on the mechanism of rocks deformation process. It is impossible to determine the post-failure regime of rocks using conventional laboratory testing equipment. This is because most testing machines are soft and therefore no information can be obtained after the peak load. Stress-strain deformation tests were conducted using both conventional and unconventional method (i.e. the closed loop servo-controlled testing machine) in accordance to ISRM standard. Normalised pre-failure curves were constructed to show the stages in the deformation process. The first type contains the Class I and progress to Class II with low strength soft brittle rocks. The second type shows entirely Class II characteristic behaviour. The third type is extremely brittle under axial loading, resulted in explosive failure, so its class could not be determined. The difficulty in obtaining the post-failure curves increases as the total volumetric strain approaches a positive value. The author’s use of normalised pre-failure curves enables identification of additional type of deformation process with very brittle response under axial loading. Testing the third type without confinement could cause equipment damage. Identification of the deformation process with the rock classes using conventional test could guide the personnel conducting tests using closed-loop servo-controlled system, to avoid equipment damage when testing rocks with third type deformation process so that testing is performed safely. It has also improved our understanding on total specimen failure and brittleness of rocks (e.g. brittle for Class II and less brittle or ductile for Class I).

Keywords: Closed-loop servo-controlled system, conventional testing equipment, deformation process, post-failure, pre-failure normalised curves, rock classes.

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Authors: Erica Lima

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The objective of this paper is to discuss relevant points about teaching translation in Brazilian universities and the possible impacts of blogs and social networks to translator education today. It is intended to analyze the curricula of Brazilian translation courses, contrasting them to information obtained from two social networking groups of great visibility in the area concerning essential characteristics to become a successful profession. Therefore, research has, as its main corpus, a few undergraduate translation programs’ syllabuses, as well as a few postings on social networks groups that specifically share professional opinions regarding the necessity for a translator to obtain a degree in translation to practice the profession. To a certain extent, such comments and their corresponding responses lead to the propagation of discourses which influence the ideas that aspiring translators and recent graduates end up having towards themselves and their undergraduate courses. The postings also show that many professionals do not have a clear position regarding the translator education; while refuting it, they also encourage “free” courses. It is thus observed that cyberspace constitutes, on the one hand, a place of mobilization of people in defense of similar ideas. However, on the other hand, it embodies a place of tension and conflict, in view of the fact that there are many participants and, as in any other situation of interlocution, disagreements may arise. From the postings, aspects related to professionalism were analyzed (including discussions about regulation), as well as questions about the classic dichotomies: theory/practice; art/technique; self-education/academic training. As partial result, the common interest regarding the valorization of the profession could be mentioned, although there is no consensus on the essential characteristics to be a good translator. It was also possible to observe that the set of socially constructed representations in the group reflects characteristics of the world situation of the translation courses (especially in some European countries and in the United States), which, in the first instance, does not accurately reflect the Brazilian idiosyncrasies of the area.

Keywords: Cyberspace, teaching translation, translator education, university.

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Authors: Debasis Sarkar, Jatan Talati

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This paper is an attempt to develop an Integrated Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) for a smart city project in Western India. Integrated transportation is one of the enablers of smart transportation for providing a seamless intercity as well as regional level transportation experience. The success of a smart city project at the city level for transportation is providing proper integration to different mass rapid transit modes by way of integrating information, physical, network of routes fares, etc. The methodology adopted for this study was primary data research through questionnaire survey. The respondents of the questionnaire survey have responded on the issues about their perceptions on the ways and means to improve public transport services in urban cities. The respondents were also required to identify the factors and attributes which might motivate more people to shift towards the public mode. Also, the respondents were questioned about the factors which they feel might restrain the integration of various modes of MRTS. Furthermore, this study also focuses on developing a utility equation for respondents with the help of multiple linear regression analysis and its probability to shift to public transport for certain factors listed in the questionnaire. It has been observed that for shifting to public transport, the most important factors that need to be considered were travel time saving and comfort rating. Also, an Integrated MRTS can be obtained by combining metro rail with BRTS, metro rail with monorail, monorail with BRTS and metro rail with Indian railways. Providing a common smart card to transport users for accessing all the different available modes would be a pragmatic solution towards integration of the available modes of MRTS.

Keywords: Mass rapid transit systems, smart city, metro rail, bus rapid transit system, multiple linear regression, smart card, automated fare collection system.

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Authors: Kay-Anne Haykal, Issack Biyong

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The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rises from exposure to a traumatic event and appears by a persistent experience of this event. Several psychiatric co-morbidities are associated with PTSD and include mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. The main objective was to compare the criteria for PTSD according to the literature to those used to diagnose a patient in a francophone hospital and to check the correspondence of these two criteria. 700 medical charts of admitted patients on the medicine or psychiatric unit at the Montfort Hospital were identified with the following diagnoses: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, substance abuse, and PTSD for the period of time between April 2005 and March 2006. Multiple demographic criteria were assembled. Also, for every chart analyzed, the PTSD criteria, according to the Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV were found, identified, and grouped according to pre-established codes. An analysis using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method was elaborated for the study of data. A sample of 57 women and 50 men was studied. Age was varying between 18 and 88 years with a median age of 48. According to the PTSD criteria in the DSM IV, 12 patients should have the diagnosis of PTSD in opposition to only two identified in the medical charts. The ROC method establishes that with the combination of data from PTSD and depression, the sensitivity varies between 0,127 and 0,282, and the specificity varies between 0,889 and 0,917. Otherwise, if we examine the PTSD data alone, the sensibility jumps to 0.50, and the specificity varies between 0,781 and 0,895. This study confirms the presence of an underdiagnosed and treated PTSD that causes severe perturbations for the affected individual.

Keywords: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, diagnosis, co-morbidities, mental health disorders.

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Authors: Victor Emery David Jr, Jiang Wenchao, Yasinta John, Md. Sahadat Hossain

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Sludge originates from the process of treatment of wastewater. It is the byproduct of wastewater treatment containing concentrated heavy metals and poorly biodegradable trace organic compounds, as well as potentially pathogenic organisms (viruses, bacteria, etc.) which are usually difficult to treat or dispose of. China, like other countries, is no stranger to the challenges posed by increase of wastewater. Treatment and disposal of sludge has been a problem for most cities in China. However, this problem has been exacerbated by other issues such as lack of technology, funding, and other factors. Suitable methods for such climatic conditions are still unavailable for modern cities in China. Against this background, this paper seeks to describe the methods used for treatment and disposal of sludge from industries and suggest a suitable method for treatment and disposal in Chongqing/China. From the research conducted, it was discovered that the highest treatment rate of sludge in Chongqing was 10.08%. The industrial waste piping system is not separated from the domestic system. Considering the proliferation of industry and urbanization, there is a likelihood that the production of sludge in Chongqing will increase. If the sludge produced is not properly managed, this may lead to adverse health and environmental effects. Disposal costs and methods for Chongqing were also included in this paper’s analysis. Research showed that incineration is the most expensive method of sludge disposal in China/Chongqing. Subsequent research therefore considered optional alternatives such as composting. Composting represents a relatively cheap waste disposal method considering the vast population, current technology and economic conditions of Chongqing, as well as China at large.

Keywords: Sludge, disposal of sludge, treatment, industrial sludge, Chongqing, wastewater.

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Authors: Duane Barker, John Holliday

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In a 10-week (May – August, 2008) Phase I trial, 840, 1+ rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, received a commercial oral immunomodulator, Fin Immune™, at four different dosages (0, 10, 20 and 30 mg g-1) to evaluate immune response and growth. The overall objective of was to determine an optimal dosage of this product for rainbow trout that provides enhanced immunity with maximal growth and health. Biweekly blood samples were taken from 10 randomly selected fish in each tank (30 samples per treatment) to evaluate the duration of enhanced immunity conferred by Fin-Immune™. The immunological assessment included serum white blood cell (lymphocyte, neutrophil) densities and blood hematocrit (packed cell volume %). Of these three variables, only lymphocyte density increased significantly among trout fed Fin- Immune™ at 20 and 30 mg g-1 which peaked at week 6. At week 7, all trout were switched to regular feed (lacking Fin-Immune™) and by week 10, lymphocyte levels decreased among all levels but were still greater than at week 0. There was growth impairment at the highest dose of Fin-Immune™ tested (30 mg g-1) which can be associated with a physiological compensatory mechanism due to a dose-specific threshold level. Thus, our main objective of this Phase I study was achieved, the 20 mg g-1 dose of Fin-Immune™ should be the most efficacious (of those we tested) to use for a Phase II disease challenge trial.

Keywords: Blood Lymphocyte, Neutrophil Response of Cultured Rainbow Trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, Oral Immunomodulator – 'Fin-ImmuneTM'.

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Authors: Murad Al-Rajab, Sherin Hazboun, Azhar Al-Hamamreh, Nirmeen Odeh, Siham Halaseh

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Tourism is considered an important sector for most countries, while maintaining good tourism attractions can promote national economic development. The State of Palestine is historically considered a wealthy country full of many archaeological places. In the city of Bethlehem, for example, the Church of the Nativity is the most important touristic site, but it does not have enough technology development to attract tourists. In this paper, we propose a smart mobile application named “Pal-STAR” (Palestine Smart Tourist Augmented Reality) as an innovative solution which targets tourists and assists them to make a visit inside the Church of the Nativity. The application will use augmented reality and feature a virtual tourist guide showing views of the church while providing historical information in a smart, easy, effective and user-friendly way. The proposed application is compatible with multiple mobile platforms and is considered user friendly. The findings show that this application will improve the practice of the tourism sector in the Holy Land, it will also increase the number of tourists visiting the Church of the Nativity and it will facilitate access to historical data that have been difficult to obtain using traditional tourism guidance. The value that tourism adds to a country cannot be denied, and the more technological advances are incorporated in this sector, the better the country’s tourism sector can be served. Palestine’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism in many of its main cities, despite several limitations, and technological development is needed to enable this sector to flourish. The proposed mobile application would definitely have a good impact on the development of the tourism sector by creating an Augmented Reality environment for tourists inside the church, helping them to navigate and learn about holy places in a non-traditional way, using a virtual tourist guide.

Keywords: Smartphones, tourism, tourists guide, augmented reality, Palestine.

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Authors: Yasir M. Alyazichi, Brian G. Jones, Errol McLean, Hamd N. Altalyan, Ali K. M. Al-Nasrawi

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The main purpose of this study is to assess the sediment quality and potential ecological risk in marine sediments in Gymea Bay located in south Sydney, Australia. A total of 32 surface sediment samples were collected from the bay. Current track trajectories and velocities have also been measured in the bay. The resultant trace elements were compared with the adverse biological effect values Effect Range Low (ERL) and Effect Range Median (ERM) classifications. The results indicate that the average values of chromium, arsenic, copper, zinc, and lead in surface sediments all reveal low pollution levels and are below ERL and ERM values. The highest concentrations of trace elements were found close to discharge points and in the inner bay, and were linked with high percentages of clay minerals, pyrite and organic matter, which can play a significant role in trapping and accumulating these elements. The lowest concentrations of trace elements were found to be on the shoreline of the bay, which contained high percentages of sand fractions. It is postulated that the fine particles and trace elements are disturbed by currents and tides, then transported and deposited in deeper areas. The current track velocities recorded in Gymea Bay had the capability to transport fine particles and trace element pollution within the bay. As a result, hydrodynamic measurements were able to provide useful information and to help explain the distribution of sedimentary particles and geochemical properties. This may lead to knowledge transfer to other bay systems, including those in remote areas. These activities can be conducted at a low cost, and are therefore also transferrable to developing countries. The advent of portable instruments to measure trace elements in the field has also contributed to the development of these lower cost and easily applied methodologies available for use in remote locations and low-cost economies.

Keywords: Current track velocities, Gymea Bay, surface sediments, trace elements.

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Authors: Fatima U. Maigari, Musa Halilu, M. Maryam Umar, Rabiu Zainab

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Plants as therapeutic agents are used as drug in many parts of the world. Medicinal plants are mostly used in developing countries due to culture acceptability, belief or due to lack of easy access to primary health care services. Jatropha curcas is a plant from the Euphorbiaceae family which is widely used in Northern Nigeria as an anti-diarrheal agent. This study was conducted to determine the anti-diarrheal effect of the leaf extract on castor oil induced diarrhea in albino rats. The leaves of J. curcas were collected from Balanga Local government in Gombe State, north-eastern Nigeria; due to its bioavailability. The leaves were air-dried at room temperature and ground to powder. Phytochemical screening was done and different concentrations of the extract was prepared and administered to the different categories of experimental animals. From the results, aqueous leaf extract of Jatropha curcas at doses of 200mg/Kg and 400mg/Kg was found to reduce the mean stool score as compared to control rats, however, maximum reduction was achieved with the standard drug of Loperamide (5mg/Kg). Treatment of diarrhea with 200mg/Kg of the extract did not produce any significant decrease in stool fluid content but was found to be significant in those rats that were treated with 400mg/Kg of the extract at 2hours (0.05±0.02) and 4hours (0.01±0.01). A significant reduction of diarrhea in the experimental animals signifies it to possess some anti-diarrheal activity.

Keywords: Anti-diarrhea, Diarrhea, Jatropha curcas, Loperamide.

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Authors: H. Apaza, L. Chévez, H. Loro

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Plastic and microplastic pollution in human food chain is a big problem for human health that requires more elaborated techniques that can identify their presences in different kinds of food. Hyperspectral imaging technique is an optical technique than can detect the presence of different elements in an image and can be used to detect plastics and microplastics in a scene. To do this statistical techniques are required that need to be evaluated and compared in order to find the more efficient ones. In this work, two problems related to the presence of plastics are addressed, the first is to detect and identify pieces of plastic immersed in almond seeds, and the second problem is to detect and quantify microplastic in almond flour. To do this we make use of the analysis hyperspectral images taken in the range of 900 to 1700 nm using 4 unmixing techniques of hyperspectral imaging which are: least squares unmixing (LSU), non-negatively constrained least squares unmixing (NCLSU), fully constrained least squares unmixing (FCLSU), and scaled constrained least squares unmixing (SCLSU). NCLSU, FCLSU, SCLSU techniques manage to find the region where the plastic is found and also manage to quantify the amount of microplastic contained in the almond flour. The SCLSU technique estimated a 13.03% abundance of microplastics and 86.97% of almond flour compared to 16.66% of microplastics and 83.33% abundance of almond flour prepared for the experiment. Results show the feasibility of applying near-infrared hyperspectral image analysis for the detection of plastic contaminants in food.

Keywords: Food, plastic, microplastic, NIR hyperspectral imaging, unmixing.

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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: Cristina M. R. Caridade, Ana Rita F. Morais

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The use of computational tools has become essential in the context of interactive learning, especially in engineering education. In the medical industry, teaching medical image processing techniques is a crucial part of training biomedical engineers, as it has integrated applications with health care facilities and hospitals. The aim of this article is to present a teaching-learning simulation tool, developed in MATLAB using Graphical User Interface, for medical image fusion that explores different image fusion methodologies and processes in combination with image pre-processing techniques. The application uses different algorithms and medical fusion techniques in real time, allowing to view original images and fusion images, compare processed and original images, adjust parameters and save images. The tool proposed in an innovative teaching and learning environment, consists of a dynamic and motivating teaching simulation for biomedical engineering students to acquire knowledge about medical image fusion techniques, necessary skills for the training of biomedical engineers. In conclusion, the developed simulation tool provides a real-time visualization of the original and fusion images and the possibility to test, evaluate and progress the student’s knowledge about the fusion of medical images. It also facilitates the exploration of medical imaging applications, specifically image fusion, which is critical in the medical industry. Teachers and students can make adjustments and/or create new functions, making the simulation environment adaptable to new techniques and methodologies.

Keywords: Image fusion, image processing, teaching-learning simulation tool, biomedical engineering education.

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Authors: N. Ikasari, T. Sumransat, U. Eko, R. Kusumastuti

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are regarded as the engine for economic development, notwithstanding their continuous financing conundrum. In the case of developing countries, access to finance is a reflection of the effectiveness of government policy. The widely accepted perspective to assess small businesses’ access to finance is that of economic view. The existing body of literature presents access to finance in three dimensions; they are accessibility, eligibility and affordability. Within this perspective, the role of socio-cultural has not explored. This study is aimed at investigating the existence of any socio-cultural factors within access to finance issue in Asian countries where governance is enriched by countries’ values and beliefs. The significance of this study is the instigation of supplementary dimension to assess access to finance that eventually contributes to the development of micro-finance policy. Indonesia and Thailand are selected as cases in point, where distinction is drawn on the level of cultural diversity and micro-finance policy in respective country. A questionnaire is used to collect information related to the three dimensions of access to finance as well as to explore alternative financing reasoning to elaborate the issue from the demand side. Questionnaires are distributed to 60 small business owners operating in Indonesia and the same number in Thailand. In order to present a complete understanding on the matter at hand, interviews with banks are conducted to capture the perspective as presented by the supply side. Research findings show that small business owners and banks in Indonesia and Thailand are in agreement that access to finance is not deemed as an issue. However, trust issue that exists mutually between financing users and providers leads small business owners in Indonesia to look for alternative financing other than banks. The findings contribute to the refinement of micro-financing policy in Indonesia and Thailand.

Keywords: Access to finance, Indonesia, small and medium enterprises, Thailand.

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