Search results for: free cell bacteria

Authors: M. Marjaneh, M. Y. Narazah, H. Shahrul

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Array-based gene expression analysis is a powerful tool to profile expression of genes and to generate information on therapeutic effects of new anti-cancer compounds. Anti-apoptotic effect of thymoquinone was studied in MCF7 breast cancer cell line using gene expression profiling with cDNA microarray. The purity and yield of RNA samples were determined using RNeasyPlus Mini kit. The Agilent RNA 6000 NanoLabChip kit evaluated the quantity of the RNA samples. AffinityScript RT oligo-dT promoter primer was used to generate cDNA strands. T7 RNA polymerase was used to convert cDNA to cRNA. The cRNA samples and human universal reference RNA were labelled with Cy-3-CTP and Cy-5-CTP, respectively. Feature Extraction and GeneSpring softwares analysed the data. The single experiment analysis revealed involvement of 64 pathways with up-regulated genes and 78 pathways with downregulated genes. The MAPK and p38-MAPK pathways were inhibited due to the up-regulation of PTPRR gene. The inhibition of p38-MAPK suggested up-regulation of TGF-ß pathway. Inhibition of p38-MAPK caused up-regulation of TP53 and down-regulation of Bcl2 genes indicating involvement of intrinsic apoptotic pathway. Down-regulation of CARD16 gene as an adaptor molecule regulated CASP1 and suggested necrosis-like programmed cell death and involvement of caspase in apoptosis. Furthermore, down-regulation of GPCR, EGF-EGFR signalling pathways suggested reduction of ER. Involvement of AhR pathway which control cytochrome P450 and glucuronidation pathways showed metabolism of Thymoquinone. The findings showed differential expression of several genes in apoptosis pathways with thymoquinone treatment in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells.

Keywords: CARD16, CASP10, cDNA microarray, PTPRR, Thymoquinone.

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Authors: Roman Major, Klaudia Trembecka-Wojciga, Juergen Markus Lackner, Boguslaw Major

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The future and the development of science is therefore seen in interdisciplinary areas such as biomedical engineering. Selfassembled structures, similar to stem cell niches would inhibit fast division process and subsequently capture the stem cells from the blood flow. By means of surface topography and the stiffness as well as microstructure progenitor cells should be differentiated towards the formation of endothelial cells monolayer which effectively will inhibit activation of the coagulation cascade. The idea of the material surface development met the interest of the clinical institutions, which support the development of science in this area and are waiting for scientific solutions that could contribute to the development of heart assist systems. This would improve the efficiency of the treatment of patients with myocardial failure, supported with artificial heart assist systems. Innovative materials would enable the redesign, in the post project activity, construction of ventricular heart assist.

Keywords: Bio-inspired materials, electron microscopy, haemocompatibility, niche-like structures, thin coatings.

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Authors: Montri Maleewong, Sirod Sirisup

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The POD-assisted projective integration method based on the equation-free framework is presented in this paper. The method is essentially based on the slow manifold governing of given system. We have applied two variants which are the “on-line" and “off-line" methods for solving the one-dimensional viscous Bergers- equation. For the on-line method, we have computed the slow manifold by extracting the POD modes and used them on-the-fly along the projective integration process without assuming knowledge of the underlying slow manifold. In contrast, the underlying slow manifold must be computed prior to the projective integration process for the off-line method. The projective step is performed by the forward Euler method. Numerical experiments show that for the case of nonperiodic system, the on-line method is more efficient than the off-line method. Besides, the online approach is more realistic when apply the POD-assisted projective integration method to solve any systems. The critical value of the projective time step which directly limits the efficiency of both methods is also shown.

Keywords: Projective integration, POD method, equation-free.

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Authors: Emanuele Stomeo, Tatiana Kalganova, Cyrille Lambert

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Evolvable hardware (EHW) refers to a selfreconfiguration hardware design, where the configuration is under the control of an evolutionary algorithm (EA). A lot of research has been done in this area several different EA have been introduced. Every time a specific EA is chosen for solving a particular problem, all its components, such as population size, initialization, selection mechanism, mutation rate, and genetic operators, should be selected in order to achieve the best results. In the last three decade a lot of research has been carried out in order to identify the best parameters for the EA-s components for different “test-problems". However different researchers propose different solutions. In this paper the behaviour of mutation rate on (1+λ) evolution strategy (ES) for designing logic circuits, which has not been done before, has been deeply analyzed. The mutation rate for an EHW system modifies values of the logic cell inputs, the cell type (for example from AND to NOR) and the circuit output. The behaviour of the mutation has been analyzed based on the number of generations, genotype redundancy and number of logic gates used for the evolved circuits. The experimental results found provide the behaviour of the mutation rate to be used during evolution for the design and optimization of logic circuits. The researches on the best mutation rate during the last 40 years are also summarized.

Keywords: Evolvable hardware, mutation rate, evolutionarycomputation, design of logic circuit.

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Authors: K. Nikovics, D. Riccobono, M. Oger, H. Morin, L. Barbier, T. Poyot, X. Holy, A. Bendahmane, M. Drouet, A. L. Favier

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Muscle regeneration after injury (as irradiation) is of great importance. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms are still unclear. Cytokines are believed to play fundamental role in the different stages of muscle regeneration. They are secreted by many cell populations, but the predominant producers are macrophages and helper T cells. On the other hand, it has been shown that adipose tissue derived stromal/stem cell (ASC) injection could improve muscle regeneration. Stem cells probably induce the coordinated modulations of gene expression in different macrophage cells. Therefore, we investigated the patterns and timing of changes in gene expression of different cytokines occurring upon stem cells loading. Muscle regeneration was studied in an irradiated muscle of minipig animal model in presence or absence of ASC treatment (irradiated and treated with ASCs, IRR+ASC; irradiated not-treated with ASCs, IRR; and non-irradiated no-IRR). We characterized macrophage populations by immunolabeling in the different conditions. In our study, we found mostly M2 and a few M1 macrophages in the IRR+ASC samples. However, only few M2b macrophages were noticed in the IRR muscles. In addition, we found intensive fibrosis in the IRR samples. With in situ hybridization and immunolabeling, we analyzed the cytokine expression of the different macrophages and we showed that M2d macrophage are the most abundant in the IRR+ASC samples. By in situ hybridization, strong expression of the transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) was observed in the IRR+ASC but very week in the IRR samples. But when we analyzed TGF-β level with immunolabeling the expression was very different: many M2 macrophages showed week expression in IRR+ASC and few cells expressing stronger level in IRR muscles. Therefore, we investigated the MMP expressions in the different muscles. Our data showed that the M2 macrophages of the IRR+ASC muscle expressed MMP2 proteins. Our working hypothesis is that MMP2 expression of the M2 macrophages can decrease fibrosis in the IRR+ASC muscle by capturing TGF-β.

Keywords: Adipose tissue derived stromal/stem cell, cytokine, macrophage, muscle regeneration.

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Authors: Faheem Ahmed, Piers Campbell, Ahmad Jaffar, Luiz Capretz

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Free and open source software is gaining popularity at an unprecedented rate of growth. Organizations despite some concerns about the quality have been using them for various purposes. One of the biggest concerns about free and open source software is post release software defects and their fixing. Many believe that there is no appropriate support available to fix the bugs. On the contrary some believe that due to the active involvement of internet user in online forums, they become a major source of communicating the identification and fixing of defects in open source software. The research model of this empirical investigation establishes and studies the relationship between open source software defects and online public forums. The results of this empirical study provide evidence about the realities of software defects myths of open source software. We used a dataset consist of 616 open source software projects covering a broad range of categories to study the research model of this investigation. The results of this investigation show that online forums play a significant role identifying and fixing the defects in open source software.

Keywords: About Open source software, software engineering, software defect management, empirical software engineering.

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Authors: F. Lops, G. Disciglio, A. Carlucci, G. Gatta, L. Frabboni, A. Tarantino, E. Tarantino

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Phelipanche ramosa L. Pomel is a root holoparasitic weed plant of many cultivations, particularly of tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum L.) crop. In Italy, Phelipanche problem is increasing, both in density and in acreage. The biological control of this parasitic weed involves the use of living organisms as numerous fungi and bacteria that can infect the parasitic weed, while it may improve the crop growth. This paper deals with the biocontrol with microorganism, including Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and fungal pathogens as Fusarium oxisporum spp. Colonization of crop roots by AM fungi can provide protection of crops against parasitic weeds because of a reduction in their seed germination and attachment, while F. oxisporum, isolated from diseased broomrape tubercles, proved to be highly virulent on P. ramosa. The experimental trial was carried out in open field at Foggia province (Apulia Region, Southern Italy), during the spring-summer season 2016, in order to evaluate the effect of four biological treatments: AM fungi and Fusarium oxisporum applied in the soil alone or combined together, and Rizosum Max^® product, compared with the untreated control, to reduce the P. ramosa infestation in processing tomato crop. The principal results to be drawn from this study under field condition, in contrast of those reported previously under laboratory and greenhouse conditions, show that both AM fungi and F. oxisporum do not provide the reduction of the number of emerged shoots of P. ramosa. This can arise probably from the low efficacy seedling of the agent pathogens for the control of this parasite in the field. On the contrary, the Rizosum Max^® product, containing AM fungi and some rizophere bacteria combined with several minerals and organic substances, appears to be most effective for the reduction of P. ramosa infestation.

Keywords: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, biocontrol methods, Phelipanche ramosa, F. oxisporum spp.

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Authors: Alina Anton, Gheorghe Solcan, Carmen Solcan

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The influence of copper and zinc supplements on milk production performances and health indicators was tested in a 20- week feeding trial, with 40 Holstein-Friesian lactating cows, devided in four groups (copper, zinc, copper-zinc and control). Correlations of the Cu and Zn plasma values with some animal performance criteria of health (body condition score and somatic cell counts) and production (milk yield, peak milk yield, fat and crude protein content) were done. During the 140 days of the experiment, the two added minerals caused a statistically significant increase (p < 0.05) of their plasma values after the peak of the cows’ lactations. It was also observed that subjects that have received copper and zinc supplements had the lowest number of somatic cell counts in milk. The Pearson correlation test showed a positive corellation (p = 0.007, r = + 0.851) between the plasma Zn and the milk production. The improvement of the nutritional status improved the milk production performances of the cows as well as their health performances.

Keywords: Copper, dairy cows, health, milk production, zinc

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Authors: Sushil Kumar Saraswat, K. K. Pant

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Co metal supported on SiO2 and Al2O3 catalysts with a metal loading varied from 30 of 70 wt.% were evaluated for decomposition of methane to COx free hydrogen and carbon nanomaterials. The catalytic runs were carried out from 550-800oC under atmospheric pressure using fixed bed vertical flow reactor. The fresh and spent catalysts were characterized by BET surface area analyzer, XRD, SEM, TEM and TG analysis. The data showed that 50% Co/Al2O3 catalyst exhibited remarkable higher activity at 800oC with respect to H2 production compared to rest of the catalysts. However, the catalytic activity and durability was greatly declined at higher temperature. The main reason for the catalytic inhibition of Co containing SiO2 catalysts is the higher reduction temperature of Co2SiO4. TEM images illustrate that the carbon materials with various morphologies, carbon nanofibers (CNFs), helical-shaped CNFs and branched CNFs depending on the catalyst composition and reaction temperature were obtained.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes, Cobalt, Hydrogen Production, Methane decomposition.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

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Obesity in children particularly draws attention, because it may threaten the individual’s future life due to many chronic diseases it may lead to. Most of these diseases including obesity itself altogether are related to inflammation. For this reason, inflammation-related parameters gain importance. Within this context, complete blood cell counts, ratios or indices derived from these counts have recently found some platform to be used as inflammatory markers. So far, mostly adipokines were investigated within the field of obesity. Metabolic inflammation is closely associated with cellular dysfunction. In this study, hematologic inflammatory markers and cytokines produced predominantly by the liver (fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF-21) and fetuin A) were investigated in pediatric obesity. Two groups were constituted from 76 obese children based on World Health Organization criteria. Group 1 was composed of children, whose age- and sex-adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles were between 95 and 99. Group 2 consists of children, who are above 99th percentile. The first and the latter groups were defined as obese (OB) and morbid obese (MO). Anthropometric measurements of the children were performed. Informed consent forms and the approval of the institutional ethics committee were obtained. Blood cell counts and ratios were determined by automated hematology analyzer. The related ratios and indexes were calculated. Statistical evaluation of the data was performed by SPSS program. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of neutrophil-to lymphocyte ratio, monocyte-to-high density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio between the groups. Mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width values were decreased (p < 0.05), total platelet count, red cell distribution width (RDW) and systemic immune inflammation index values were increased (p < 0.01) in MO group. Both hepatokines were increased in the same group, however increases were not statistically significant. In this group, also a strong correlation was calculated between FGF-21 and RDW when controlled by age, hematocrit, iron and ferritin (r = 0.425; p < 0.01). In conclusion, the association between RDW, a hematologic inflammatory marker, and FGF-21, an inflammation-related hepatokine, found in MO group is an important finding discriminating between OB and MO children. This association is even more powerful when controlled by age and iron-related parameters.

Keywords: Childhood obesity, fetuin A, fibroblast growth factor-21, hematologic markers, red cell distribution width.

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Authors: Magdi M. E. Zumrawi, Khalid A. Eltayeb

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Chemical stabilization is a technique commonly used to improve the expansive soil properties. In this regard, an attempt has been made to evaluate the influence of Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) stabilizer on the engineering properties of expansive soil. A series of laboratory experiments including consistency limits, free swell, compaction, and shear strength tests were performed to investigate the effect of CaCl2 additive with various percentages 0%, 2%, 5%, 10% and 15% for improving expansive soil. The results obtained shows that the increase in the percentage of CaCl2decreased the liquid limit and plasticity index leading to significant reduction in the free swell index. This, in turn, increased the maximum dry density and decreased the optimum moisture content which results in greater strength. The unconfined compressive strength of soil stabilized with 5% CaCl2 increased approximately by 50% as compared to virgin soil. It can be concluded that CaCl2 had shown promising influence on the strength and swelling properties of expansive soil, thereby giving an advantage in improving problematic expansive soil.

Keywords: Calcium chloride, chemical stabilization, expansive soil, improving.

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Authors: Min Kyung An

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In this paper, we study the data collection problem in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) adopting the two interference models: The graph model and the more realistic physical interference model known as Signal-to-Interference-Noise-Ratio (SINR). The main issue of the problem is to compute schedules with the minimum number of timeslots, that is, to compute the minimum latency schedules, such that data from every node can be collected without any collision or interference to a sink node. While existing works studied the problem with unit-sized and unbounded-sized message models, we investigate the problem with the bounded-sized message model, and introduce a constant factor approximation algorithm. To the best known of our knowledge, our result is the first result of the data collection problem with bounded-sized model in both interference models.

Keywords: Data collection, collision-free, interference-free, physical interference model, SINR, approximation, bounded-sized message model, wireless sensor networks, WSN.

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Authors: Pei-Lin Yueh, Bor-Yann Chen, Chuan-Chung Hsueh

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This first-attempt study revealed that decolorized intermediates of azo dyes could act as redox mediators to assist wastewater (WW) decolorization due to enhancement of electron-transport phenomena. Electrochemical impedance spectra indicated that hydroxyl and amino-substituent(s) were functional group(s) as redox-mediator(s). As azo dyes are usually multiple benzene-rings structured, their derived decolorized intermediates are likely to play roles of electron shuttles due to lower barrier of energy gap for electron shuttling. According to cyclic voltammetric profiles, redox mediating characteristics of decolorized intermediates of azo dyes (e.g., RBu171, RR198, RR141, RBk5) were clearly disclosed. With supplementation of biodecolorized metabolites of RR141 and 198, decolorization performance of could be evidently augmented. This study also suggested the optimal modes of microbial fuel cell (MFC)-assisted WW decolorization would be plug-flow or batch mode of operation with no mix. Single chamber-MFCs would be more favourable than double chamber MFCs due to non-mixing contacting reactor scheme for operation.

Keywords: Redox mediators, dye decolorization, bioelectricity generation, microbial fuel cells.

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Authors: Nouri Sabrina, Benzeghiba Mohamed, Ghezal Abderrahmane

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Numerical parametric study is conducted to study the effects of ampoule rotation on the flows and the dopant segregation in vertical bridgman (vb) crystal growth. Calculations were performed in unsteady state. The extended darcy model, which includes the time derivative and coriolis terms, has been employed in the momentum equation. It’s found that the convection, and dopant segregation can be affected significantly by ampoule rotation, and the effect is similar to that by an axial magnetic field. Ampoule rotation decreases the intensity of convection and stretches the flow cell axially. When the convection is weak, the flow can be suppressed almost completely by moderate ampoule rotation and the dopant segregation becomes diffusion-controlled. For stronger convection, the elongated flow cell by ampoule rotation may bring dopant mixing into the bulk melt reducing axial segregation at the early stage of the growth. However, if the cellular flow cannot be suppressed completely, ampoule rotation may induce larger radial segregation due to poor mixing.

Keywords: Numerical Simulation, Heat and mass transfer, vertical solidification, chemical segregation.

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Authors: Siti Nor Hafizah binti Mohd Zaid, Mohamed Abdel-Maguid, Abdel-Hamid Soliman

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Because road traffic accidents are a major source of death worldwide, attempts have been made to create Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) able to detect vehicle, driver and environmental conditions that are cues for possible potential accidents. This paper presents continued work on a novel Nonintrusive Intelligent Driver Assistance and Safety System (Ni-DASS) for assessing driver attention and hazard awareness. It uses two onboard CCD cameras – one observing the road and the other observing the driver-s face. The windscreen is divided into cells and analysis of the driver-s eye-gaze patterns allows Ni-DASS to determine the windscreen cell the driver is focusing on using eye-gesture templates. Intersecting the driver-s field of view through the observed windscreen cell with subsections of the camera-s field of view containing a potential hazard allows Ni-DASS to estimate the probability that the driver has actually observed the hazard. Results have shown that the proposed technique is an accurate enough measure of driver observation to be useful in ADAS systems.

Keywords: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Driver Hazard Awareness, Driver Vigilance, Eye Tracking

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Authors: J. Zamastil, V. Patkos

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Recent progress in calculation of the one-loop selfenergy of the electron bound in the Coulomb field is summarized. The relativistic multipole expansion is introduced. This expansion is based on a single assumption: except for the part of the time component of the electron four-momentum corresponding to the electron rest mass, the exchange of four-momentum between the virtual electron and photon can be treated perturbatively. For non Sstates and normalized difference n3
En −
E1 of the S-states this itself yields very accurate results after taking the method to the third order. For the ground state the perturbation treatment of the electron virtual states with very high three-momentum is to be avoided. For these states one can always rearrange the pertinent expression in such a way that free-particle approximation is allowed. Combination of the relativistic multipole expansion and free-particle approximation yields very accurate result after taking the method to the ninth order. These results are in very good agreement with the previous results obtained by the partial wave expansion and definitely exclude the possibility that the uncertainity in determination of the proton radius comes from the uncertainity in the calculation of the one-loop selfenergy.

Keywords: Hydrogen-like atoms, self-energy.

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Authors: Fred Lacy

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Electrical resistivity is a fundamental parameter of metals or electrical conductors. Since resistivity is a function of temperature, in order to completely understand the behavior of metals, a temperature dependent theoretical model is needed. A model based on physics principles has recently been developed to obtain an equation that relates electrical resistivity to temperature. This equation is dependent upon a parameter associated with the electron travel time before being scattered, and a parameter that relates the energy of the atoms and their separation distance. Analysis of the energy parameter reveals that the equation is optimized if the proportionality term in the equation is not constant but varies over the temperature range. Additional analysis reveals that the theoretical equation can be used to determine the mean free path of conduction electrons, the number of defects in the atomic lattice, and the ‘equivalent’ charge associated with the metallic bonding of the atoms. All of this analysis provides validation for the theoretical model and provides insight into the behavior of metals where performance is affected by temperatures (e.g., integrated circuits and temperature sensors).

Keywords: Callendar–van Dusen, conductivity, mean free path, resistance temperature detector, temperature sensor.

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Authors: M.R. Isvandzibaei, M.R. Alinaghizadeh, A.H. Zaman

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In the present work, study of the vibration of thin cylindrical shells made of a functionally gradient material (FGM) composed of stainless steel and nickel is presented. Material properties are graded in the thickness direction of the shell according to volume fraction power law distribution. The objective is to study the natural frequencies, the influence of constituent volume fractions and the effects of boundary conditions on the natural frequencies of the FG cylindrical shell. The study is carried out using third order shear deformation shell theory. The analysis is carried out using Hamilton's principle. The governing equations of motion of FG cylindrical shells are derived based on shear deformation theory. Results are presented on the frequency characteristics, influence of constituent volume fractions and the effects of clamped-free boundary conditions

Keywords: Vibration, FGM, cylindrical shell, Hamilton's principle, clamped supported.

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Authors: Hemani Kaushal, V.K.Jain, Subrat Kar

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The performance of ground to deep space optical communication systems is degraded by distortion of the beam as it propagates through the turbulent atmosphere. Turbulence causes fluctuations in the intensity of the received signal which ultimately affects the acquisition time required to acquire and locate the spaceborne target using narrow laser beam. In this paper, performance of free-space optical (FSO) communication system in atmospheric turbulence has been analyzed in terms of acquisition time for coherent and non-coherent modulation schemes. Numerical results presented in graphical and tabular forms show that the acquisition time increases with the increase in turbulence level. This is true for both schemes. The BPSK has lowest acquisition time among all schemes. In non-coherent schemes, M-PPM performs better than the other schemes. With the increase in M, acquisition time becomes lower, but at the cost of increase in system complexity.

Keywords: Atmospheric Turbulence, Acquisition Time, BinaryPhase Shift Keying (BPSK), Free-Space Optical (FSO)Communication System, M-ary Pulse Position Modulation (M-PPM), Coherent/Non-coherent Modulation Schemes.

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Authors: Andreia Guimarães Farnese, Mateus Fernandes Réu Urban, Leandro Procópio, Renato Zângaro, Regiane Albertini

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Senescence changes include postural balance, inferring the risk of falls, and can lead to fractures, bedridden, and the risk of death. Physical activity, e.g., cardiovascular exercises, is notable for improving balance due to brain cell stimulations, but fine coordination exercises also elevate cell brain metabolism. This study aimed to verify whether the elderly person who performs fine motor activity has a balance similar to that of those who practice physical activity. The subjects were divided into three groups according to the activity practice: control group (CG) with seven participants for the sedentary individuals, motor coordination group (MCG) with six participants, and physical activity group (PAG) with eight participants. Data comparisons were from the Berg balance scale, Time up and Go test, and stabilometric analysis. Descriptive statistical and ANOVA analyses were performed for data analysis. The results reveal that including fine motor activities can improve the balance of the elderly and indirectly decrease the risk of falls.

Keywords: Balance, barapodometer, coordination, elderly.

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Authors: Hyun June Kim, Tailong Shi, Seden Akdagli, Sam Most, Yuling Yan

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Quantitative analyses of whisker movements provide a means to study functional recovery and regeneration of mouse facial nerve after an injury. However, accurate tracking of the mouse whisker movement is challenging. Most methods for whisker tracking require manual intervention, e.g. fixing the head of the mouse during a study. Here we describe a semi-automated image processing method, which is applied to high-speed video recordings of free-moving mice to track the whisker movements. We first track the head movement of a mouse by delineating the lower head contour frame-by-frame that allows for detection of the location and orientation of the head. Then, a region of interest is identified for each frame; the subsequent application of a mask and the Hough transform detects the selected whiskers on each side of the head. Our approach is used to examine the functional recovery of damaged facial nerves in mice over a course of 21 days.

Keywords: Mystacial macrovibrissae, whisker tracking, head tracking, facial nerve recovery.

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Authors: Prabh Preet Singh, Harpreet Kaur

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This paper presents a method for single image dehazing based on dark channel prior (DCP). The property that the intensity of the dark channel gives an approximate thickness of the haze is used to estimate the transmission and atmospheric light. Instead of constant atmospheric light, the proposed method employs scene depth to estimate spatially varying atmospheric light as it truly occurs in nature. Haze imaging model together with the soft matting method has been used in this work to produce high quality haze free image. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach produces better results than the classic DCP approach as color fidelity and contrast of haze free image are improved and no over-saturation in the sky region is observed. Further, lifting Haar wavelet transform is employed to reduce overall execution time by a factor of two to three as compared to the conventional approach.

Keywords: Depth based atmospheric light, dark channel prior, lifting wavelet.

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Authors: Indunil Jayatilake, Warna Karunasena, Weena Lokuge

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An Australian manufacturer has fabricated an innovative GFRP sandwich panel made from E-glass fiber skin and a modified phenolic core for structural applications. Debonding, which refers to separation of skin from the core material in composite sandwiches, is one of the most common types of damage in composites. The presence of debonding is of great concern because it not only severely affects the stiffness but also modifies the dynamic behaviour of the structure. Generally it is seen that the majority of research carried out has been concerned about the delamination of laminated structures whereas skin-core debonding has received relatively minor attention. Furthermore it is observed that research done on composite slabs having multiple skin-core debonding is very limited. To address this gap, a comprehensive research investigating dynamic behaviour of composite panels with single and multiple debonding is presented. The study uses finite-element modelling and analyses for investigating the influence of debonding on free vibration behaviour of single and multilayer composite sandwich panels. A broad parametric investigation has been carried out by varying debonding locations, debonding sizes and support conditions of the panels in view of both single and multiple debonding. Numerical models were developed with Strand7 finite element package by innovatively selecting the suitable elements to diligently represent their actual behavior. Three-dimensional finite element models were employed to simulate the physically real situation as close as possible, with the use of an experimentally and numerically validated finite element model. Comparative results and conclusions based on the analyses are presented. For similar extents and locations of debonding, the effect of debonding on natural frequencies appears greatly dependent on the end conditions of the panel, giving greater decrease in natural frequency when the panels are more restrained. Some modes are more sensitive to debonding and this sensitivity seems to be related to their vibration mode shapes. The fundamental mode seems generally the least sensitive mode to debonding with respect to the variation in free vibration characteristics. The results indicate the effectiveness of the developed three dimensional finite element models in assessing debonding damage in composite sandwich panels.

Keywords: Debonding, free vibration behaviour, GFRP sandwich panels, three dimensional finite element modelling.

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Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh

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Movable power sources of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) are the important research done in the current fuel cells (FC) field. The PEMFC system control influences the cell performance greatly and it is a control system for industrial complex problems, due to the imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth and intrinsic nonlinear characteristics of PEMFCs. In this paper an adaptive PI control strategy using neural network adaptive Morlet wavelet for control is proposed. It is based on a single layer feed forward neural networks with hidden nodes of adaptive morlet wavelet functions controller and an infinite impulse response (IIR) recurrent structure. The IIR is combined by cascading to the network to provide double local structure resulting in improving speed of learning. The proposed method is applied to a typical 1 KW PEMFC system and the results show the proposed method has more accuracy against to MLP (Multi Layer Perceptron) method.

Keywords: Adaptive Control, Morlet Wavelets, PEMFC.

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Authors: Laith Jaafer Habeeb

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The present work is concerned with the free convective two dimensional flow and heat transfer, in isotropic fluid filled porous rectangular enclosure with differentially heated walls for steady state incompressible flow have been investigated for non- Darcy flow model. Effects of Darcy number (0.0001 £Da£ 10), Rayleigh number (10 £Ra£ 5000), and aspect ratio (0.25 £AR£ 4), for a range of porosity (0.4 £e£ 0.9) with and without moving lower wall have been studied. The cavity was insulated at the lower and upper surfaces. The right and left heated surfaces allows convective transport through the porous medium, generating a thermal stratification and flow circulations. It was found that the Darcy number, Rayleigh number, aspect ratio, and porosity considerably influenced characteristics of flow and heat transfer mechanisms. The results obtained are discussed in terms of the Nusselt number, vectors, contours, and isotherms.

Keywords: Numerical study, moving-wall cavity flow, saturated porous medium, different Darcy and Rayleigh numbers.

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Authors: Brian M. Mehling, Louis Quartararo, Marine Manvelyan, Paul Wang, Dong-Cheng Wu

Abstract:

Numerous investigations suggest that Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) in general represent a valuable tool for therapy of symptoms related to chronic inflammatory diseases. Blue Horizon Stem Cell Therapy Program is a leading provider of adult and children’s stem cell therapies. Uniquely we have safely and efficiently treated more than 600 patients with documenting each procedure. The purpose of our study is primarily to monitor the immune response in order to validate the safety of intravenous infusion of human umbilical cord blood derived MSCs (UC-MSCs), and secondly, to evaluate effects on biomarkers associated with chronic inflammation. Nine patients were treated for conditions associated with chronic inflammation and for the purpose of antiaging. They have been given one intravenous infusion of UCMSCs. Our study of blood test markers of 9 patients with chronic inflammation before and within three months after MSCs treatment demonstrates that there is no significant changes and MSCs treatment was safe for the patients. Analysis of different indicators of chronic inflammation and aging included in initial, 24-hours, two weeks and three months protocols showed that stem cell treatment was safe for the patients; there were no adverse reactions. Moreover data from follow up protocols demonstrates significant improvement in energy level, hair, nails growth and skin conditions. Intravenously administered UC-MSCs were safe and effective in the improvement of symptoms related to chronic inflammation. Further close monitoring and inclusion of more patients are necessary to fully characterize the advantages of UC-MSCs application in treatment of symptoms related to chronic inflammation.

Keywords: Chronic inflammatory diseases, intravenous infusion, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), umbilical cord blood.

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Authors: A. Taoufyq, B. Bakiz, A. Benlhachemi, L. Patout, D. V. Chokouadeua, F. Guinneton, G. Nolibe, A. Lyoussi, J-R. Gavarri

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate the photocatalytic activity of polycrystalline phases of bismuth tungstate of formula Bi2WO6. Polycrystalline samples were elaborated using a coprecipitation technique followed by a calcination process at different temperatures (300, 400, 600 and 900°C). The obtained polycrystalline phases have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Crystal cell parameters and cell volume depend on elaboration temperature. High-resolution electron microscopy images and image simulations, associated with X-ray diffraction data, allowed confirming the lattices and space groups Pca21. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared samples was studied by irradiating aqueous solutions of Rhodamine B, associated with Bi2WO6 additives having variable crystallite sizes. The photocatalytic activity of such bismuth tungstates increased as the crystallite sizes decreased. The high specific area of the photocatalytic particles obtained at 300°C seems to condition the degradation kinetics of RhB.

Keywords: Bismuth tungstate, crystallite sizes, electron microscopy, photocatalytic activity, X-ray diffraction.

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Authors: Lertchai Ratana-Arporn, Aphisith Angkhanit

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to develop safety practices which is suitable for Thai industrial operators from Incident and Injury Free, IIF to create safety behavior and reduce the un-safe records in the petroleum industry. A number of 310 technicians i.e., 295 males and 15 females, in service maintenance section participated in this program. The safety attitude level and safety behavior level for pre-attended and post-attended the developed safety practices of the technicians were evaluated using questionnaire procedure and on-site observation. After applied the developed practice program, both of the safety attitudes and safety behavior were increased to be at very good level and good level, respectively. Evaluating the follow-up unsafe records, it was found that the injury was reduced from 0.11 to 0 case/month, the medical treatment case was reduced from 0.22 to 0 case/month and the first aid case was reduced from 1 to 0.33 case/month. The developed safety working practice was successfully implemented to Thai industrial operators.

Keywords: Incident and Injury Free, safety practices, Thai industrial operators, "WeCare".

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Authors: P. Paengkoum, A. Lukkananukool, S. Bureenok, Y. Kawamoto, Y. Imura, J. Mitchaothai, S. Paengkoum, S. Traiyakun

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of tropical forage source and feeding system on fatty acid composition and antioxidant activity in meat goats. Twenty male crossbred goats (Boer x Saanen), were included in the current study and the study design was assigned to be a 2 x 3 factorial in completely randomized design. All goats were slaughtered after 120 days of experimental period. Dietary tropical roughage sources were grass (Mulata II) and legume (Verano stylo). Both types of roughage were offered to the experimental meat goat as 3 feeding regimes; cut-and-carry, silage and grazing. All goats were fed basal concentrate diet at 1.5% of body weight, and they were fed ad libitum the roughages.Chemical composition, fatty acid profile and antioxidation activity of dietary treatments in all feeding system and longissimus dorsi (LD) muscles in all groups were quantified. The results have shown that the fat content in both types of studied roughage sources ranged from about 2.0% to 4.0% of DM and the fatty acid composition of those was mainly C16:0, C18:2n6 and C18:3n3, with less proportion for C18:1n9. The free-radical scavenging activity of the Mulato II was lower than that of the Verano stylo. The free-radical scavenging activity of the Mulato II was lower than that of the Verano stylo. For LD muscle, the fatty acid composition was mainly C16:0, C18:0 and C18:1n9, with less proportion for C18:2n6. The LD muscle of the goats fed with Mulato II and the Verano stylo by grazing had highest free-radical scavenging activity, compared to those fed with cut-and-carry and silage regime, although there were rather high unsaturated fatty acids in LD muscle. Thus, feeding the meat goats with the Mulato II and Verano stylo by grazing would be beneficial effect for consumers to intake high unsaturated fatty acids and lower risk for oxidation from goat meat.

Keywords: Feeding system, goat, CLA, meat.

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Authors: Le Xuan Cau

Abstract:

Flash flood is occurred in short time rainfall interval: from 1 hour to 12 hours in small and medium basins. Flash floods typically have two characteristics: large water flow and big flow velocity. Flash flood is occurred at hill valley site (strip of lowland of terrain) in a catchment with large enough distribution area, steep basin slope, and heavy rainfall. The risk of flash floods is determined through Gridded Basin Flash Flood Potential Index (GBFFPI). Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI) is determined through terrain slope flash flood index, soil erosion flash flood index, land cover flash floods index, land use flash flood index, rainfall flash flood index. Determining GBFFPI, each cell in a map can be considered as outlet of a water accumulation basin. GBFFPI of the cell is determined as basin average value of FFPI of the corresponding water accumulation basin. Based on GIS, a tool is developed to compute GBFFPI using ArcObjects SDK for .NET. The maps of GBFFPI are built in two types: GBFFPI including rainfall flash flood index (real time flash flood warning) or GBFFPI excluding rainfall flash flood index. GBFFPI Tool can be used to determine a high flash flood potential site in a large region as quick as possible. The GBFFPI is improved from conventional FFPI. The advantage of GBFFPI is that GBFFPI is taking into account the basin response (interaction of cells) and determines more true flash flood site (strip of lowland of terrain) while conventional FFPI is taking into account single cell and does not consider the interaction between cells. The GBFFPI Map of QuangNam, QuangNgai, DaNang, Hue is built and exported to Google Earth. The obtained map proves scientific basis of GBFFPI.

Keywords: ArcObjects SDK for .NET, Basin average value of FFPI, Gridded basin flash flood potential index, GBFFPI map.

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