Search results for: Electronic Health Record Implementation

Authors: Y. Alqaheem, A. Alomair, F. Altarkait, F. Alswaileh, Nusrat Tanoli

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Helium market is continuously growing due to its essential uses in the electronic and healthcare sectors. Currently, helium is produced by cryogenic distillation but the process is uneconomical especially for low production volumes. On the other hand, polymeric membranes can provide a cost-effective solution for helium purification due to their low operating energy. However, the preparation of membranes involves the use of very toxic solvents such as chloroform. In this work, polyetherimide membranes were prepared using a less toxic solvent, n-methylpyrrolidone with a polymer-to-solvent ratio of 27 wt%. The developed membrane showed a superior helium permeability of 15.9 Barrer that surpassed the permeability of membranes made by chloroform.

Keywords: Helium separation, polyetherimide, dense membrane, gas permeability, solvent.

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Authors: Ritwik Dutta, Marilyn Wolf

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This paper describes the tradeoffs and the design from scratch of a self-contained, easy-to-use health dashboard software system that provides customizable data tracking for patients in smart homes. The system is made up of different software modules and comprises a front-end and a back-end component. Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the front-end allows adding users, logging into the system, selecting metrics, and specifying health goals. The backend consists of a NoSQL Mongo database, a Python script, and a SimpleHTTPServer written in Python. The database stores user profiles and health data in JSON format. The Python script makes use of the PyMongo driver library to query the database and displays formatted data as a daily snapshot of user health metrics against target goals. Any number of standard and custom metrics can be added to the system, and corresponding health data can be fed automatically, via sensor APIs or manually, as text or picture data files. A real-time METAR request API permits correlating weather data with patient health, and an advanced query system is implemented to allow trend analysis of selected health metrics over custom time intervals. Available on the GitHub repository system, the project is free to use for academic purposes of learning and experimenting, or practical purposes by building on it.

Keywords: Flask, Java, JavaScript, health monitoring, long term care, Mongo, Python, smart home, software engineering, webserver.

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Authors: V. Emery David Jr., J. Wenchao, D. Mmereki, Y. John, F. Heriniaina

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Healthcare waste management continues to present an array of challenges for developing countries, and Liberia is of no exception. There is insufficient information available regarding the generation, handling, and disposal of health care waste. This face serves as an impediment to healthcare management schemes. The specific objective of this study is to present an evaluation of the current health care management practices in Liberia. It also presented procedures, techniques used, methods of handling, transportation, and disposal methods of wastes as well as the quantity and composition of health care waste. This study was conducted as an investigative case study, covering three different health care facilities; a hospital, a health center, and a clinic in Monrovia, Montserrado County. The average waste generation was found to be 0-7kg per day at the clinic and health center and 8-15kg per/day at the hospital. The composition of the waste includes hazardous and non-hazardous waste i.e. plastic, papers, sharps, and pathological elements etc. Nevertheless, the investigation showed that the healthcare waste generated by the surveyed healthcare facilities were not properly handled because of insufficient guidelines for separate collection, and classification, and adequate methods for storage and proper disposal of generated wastes. This therefore indicates that there is a need for improvement within the healthcare waste management system to improve the existing situation.

Keywords: Disposal, Healthcare waste, management, Montserrado County, Monrovia.

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Authors: A. R. Bagirzade, A. Sh. Najafova, S. M. Yessirkepova, E. S. Albert

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This article describes a text recognition method based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The features of the OCR method were examined using the ABBYY FineReader program. It describes automatic text recognition in images. OCR is necessary because optical input devices can only transmit raster graphics as a result. Text recognition describes the task of recognizing letters shown as such, to identify and assign them an assigned numerical value in accordance with the usual text encoding (ASCII, Unicode). The peculiarity of this study conducted by the authors using the example of the ABBYY FineReader, was confirmed and shown in practice, the improvement of digital text recognition platforms developed by Electronic Publication.

Keywords: ABBYY FineReader system, algorithm symbol recognition, OCR/ICR techniques, recognition technologies.

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Authors: Bin Su

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According to the Auckland climate, building passive design more focus on improving winter indoor thermal and health conditions. Based on field study data of indoor air temperature and relative humidity close to ceiling and floor of an insulated Auckland townhouse with and without a whole home mechanical ventilation system, this study is to analysis variation of indoor microclimate data of an Auckland townhouse using or not using the mechanical ventilation system to evaluate winter indoor thermal and health conditions for the future house design with a mechanical ventilation system.

Keywords: House ventilation, indoor thermal condition, indoor health condition, passive design.

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Authors: U. K. Hulihalli, Shantveerayya

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Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) is an annual crop belongs to family Poligonaceae. The cultivated buckwheat species are notable for their exceptional nutritive values. It is an important source of carbohydrates, fibre, macro, and microelements such as K, Ca, Mg, Na and Mn, Zn, Se, and Cu. It also contains rutin, flavonoids, riboflavin, pyridoxine and many amino acids which have beneficial effects on human health, including lowering both blood lipid and sugar levels. Rutin, quercetin and some other polyphenols are potent carcinogens against colon and other cancers. Buckwheat has significant nutritive value and plenty of uses. Cultivation of buckwheat in Sothern part of India is very meager. Hence, a study was planned with an objective to know the performance of buckwheat genotypes to different planting geometries and fertility levels. The field experiment was conducted at Main Agriculture Research Station, University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, India, during 2017 Kharif. The experiment was laid-out in split-plot design with three replications having three planting geometries as main plots, two genotypes as sub plots and three fertility levels as sub-sub plot treatments. The soil of the experimental site was vertisol. The standard procedures are followed to record the observations. The planting geometry of 30*10 cm was recorded significantly higher seed yield (893 kg/ha⁻¹), stover yield (1507 kg ha⁻¹), clusters plant⁻¹ (7.4), seeds clusters⁻¹ (7.9) and 1000 seed weight (26.1 g) as compared to 40*10 cm and 20*10 cm planting geometries. Between the genotypes, significantly higher seed yield (943 kg ha⁻¹) and harvest index (45.1) was observed with genotype IC-79147 as compared to PRB-1 genotype (687 kg ha⁻¹ and 34.2, respectively). However, the genotype PRB-1 recorded significantly higher stover yield (1344 kg ha⁻¹) as compared to genotype IC-79147 (1173 kg ha⁻¹). The genotype IC-79147 was recorded significantly higher clusters plant⁻¹ (7.1), seeds clusters⁻¹ (7.9) and 1000 seed weight (24.5 g) as compared PRB-1 (5.4, 5.8 and 22.3 g, respectively). Among the fertility levels tried, the fertility level of 60:30 NP kg ha⁻¹ recorded significantly higher seed yield (845 kg ha^-1) and stover yield (1359 kg ha⁻¹) as compared to 40:20 NP kg ha^-1 (808 and 1259 kg ha⁻¹ respectively) and 20:10 NP kg ha^-1 (793 and 1144 kg ha⁻¹ respectively). Within the treatment combinations, IC 79147 genotype having 30*10 cm planting geometry with 60:30 NP kg ha⁻¹ recorded significantly higher seed yield (1070 kg ha⁻¹), clusters plant⁻¹ (10.3), seeds clusters⁻¹ (9.9) and 1000 seed weight (27.3 g) compared to other treatment combinations.

Keywords: Buckwheat, fertility levels, genotypes, geometry, polyphenols, rutin.

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Authors: Michael Ajide Oyinloye

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Generally the natural environment is made up of air, water and soil. The release of emission of industrial waste into anyone of the components of the environment causes pollution. Industrial pollution significantly threatens the inherent right of people, to the enjoyment of a safe and secure environment. The aim of this paper is to assess the effect of environmental pollution and health risks of residents living near Ewekoro cement factory. The research made use of IKONOS imagery for Geographical Information System (GIS) to buffer and extract buildings that are less than 1km to the factory, within 1km to 5km and above 5km to the factory. Also questionnaire was used to elicit information on the socio-economic factors, effect of environmental pollution on residents and measures adopted to control industrial pollution on the residents. Findings show that most buildings that fall between less than 1km and 1km to 5km to the factory have high health risk in the study area. The study recommended total relocation for the residents of the study area to reduce health risk problems.

Keywords: Environmental pollution, Ewekoro, GIS, Health risk, Satellite imagery.

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Authors: Kang Huang, Wanting Zhou, Shiwei Yuan, Lei Li

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Since information technology develops rapidly, the security issue has become an increasingly critical for computer system. In particular, as cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to gain widespread adoption, computer systems need to new security threats and attacks. The Root of Trust (RoT) is the foundation for providing basic trusted computing, which is used to verify the security and trustworthiness of other components. Designing a reliable RoT and guaranteeing its own security are essential for improving the overall security and credibility of computer systems. In this paper, we discuss the implementation of self-security technology based on the RISC-V RoT at the hardware level. To effectively safeguard the security of the RoT, researches on security safeguard technology on the RoT have been studied. At first, a lightweight and secure boot framework is proposed as a secure mechanism. Secondly, two kinds of memory protection mechanism are built to against memory attacks. Moreover, hardware implementation of proposed method has been also investigated. A series of experiments and tests have been carried on to verify to effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed approach is effective in verifying the integrity of the RoT’s own boot rom, user instructions, and data, ensuring authenticity and enabling the secure boot of the RoT’s own system. Additionally, our approach provides memory protection against certain types of memory attacks, such as cache leaks and tampering, and ensures the security of root-of-trust sensitive information, including keys.

Keywords: Root of Trust, secure boot, memory protection, hardware security.

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Authors: Diako Azizi, Hosein Heydari, Ahmad Gholami

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Today with the rapid growth of telecommunications equipment, electronic and developing more and more networks of power, influence of electromagnetic waves on one another has become hot topic discussions. So in this article, this issue and appropriate mechanisms for EMC operations have been presented. First, a source of alternating current (50 Hz) and a clear victim in a certain distance from the source is placed. With this simple model, the effects of electromagnetic radiation from the source to the victim will be investigated and several methods to reduce these effects have been presented. Therefore passive and active shields have been used. In some steps, shielding effectiveness of proposed shields will be compared. . It should be noted that simulations have been done by the finite element method (FEM).

Keywords: Electrical field, field distribution, finite element method, shielding effectiveness

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Authors: Kapil Dev Sharma, Kirat Pal, Costas Psychalinos

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A new first order all-pass filter topology realized using current controlled current conveyors (CCCIIs) is introduced in this paper. Offered benefits are the high-impedance of the input node, the absence of external resistors because of the usage of CCCIIs with positive and negative intrinsic resistances, the presence of only grounded capacitors, and the capability of electronic adjustment of the phase shift through a single bias current. The correct operation of the introduced topology is conformed through simulation results, while its behavior is evaluated through comparison results.

Keywords: Active filters, All-pass filters, Analog signal processing, Current conveyors.

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Authors: D. Garg, S. Luthra, A. Haleem

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Due to growing concern about environmental and social consequences throughout the world, a need has been felt to incorporate sustainability concepts in conventional manufacturing. This paper is an attempt to identify and evaluate drivers in implementing sustainable manufacturing in Indian context. Nine possible drivers for successful implementation of sustainable manufacturing have been identified from extensive review. Further, Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach has been utilized to evaluate and categorize these identified drivers for implementing sustainable manufacturing in to the cause and effect groups. Five drivers (Societal Pressure and Public Concerns; Regulations and Government Policies; Top Management Involvement, Commitment and Support; Effective Strategies and Activities towards Socially Responsible Manufacturing and Market Trends) have been categorized into the cause group and four drivers (Holistic View in Manufacturing Systems; Supplier Participation; Building Sustainable culture in Organization; and Corporate Image and Benefits) have been categorized into the effect group. “Societal Pressure and Public Concerns” has been found the most critical driver and “Corporate Image and Benefits” as least critical or the most easily influenced driver to implementing sustainable manufacturing in Indian context. This paper may surely help practitioners in better understanding of these drivers and their priorities towards effective implementation of sustainable manufacturing.

Keywords: Drivers, Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), India, Sustainable Manufacturing (SM).

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Authors: Min Min Swe Zin

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This paper introduces the foundations of Bayesian probability theory and Bayesian decision method. The main goal of Bayesian decision theory is to minimize the expected loss of a decision or minimize the expected risk. The purposes of this study are to review the decision process on the issue of flood occurrences and to suggest possible process for decision improvement. This study examines the problem structure of flood occurrences and theoretically explicates the decision-analytic approach based on Bayesian decision theory and application to flood occurrences in Environmental Engineering. In this study, we will discuss about the flood occurrences upon an annual maximum water level in cm, 43-year record available from 1965 to 2007 at the gauging station of Sagaing on the Ayeyarwady River with the drainage area - 120193 sq km by using Bayesian decision method. As a result, we will discuss the loss and risk of vast areas of agricultural land whether which will be inundated or not in the coming year based on the two standard maximum water levels during 43 years. And also we forecast about that lands will be safe from flood water during the next 10 years.

Keywords: Bayesian decision method, conditional binomial distribution, minimax rules, prior beta distribution.

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Authors: Rehab Abdullah Shendi

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The use of customised soft-core processors in which instructions can be integrated into a system in application hardware is increasing in the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) field. Specifically, the partial run-time reconfiguration of FPGAs in specialised processors for a particular domain can be very beneficial. In this report, the design and implementation for the customisation of a soft-core MIPS processor using an FPGA and partial reconfiguration (PR) of FPGA technology will be addressed to achieve efficient resource use. This can be achieved using a PR design flow that helps the design fit into a smaller device. Moreover, the impact of static power consumption could be reduced due to runtime reconfiguration. This will be done by configurable custom instructions implemented in the hardware as an extension on the MIPS CPU. The aim of this project is to investigate the PR of FPGAs for run-time adaptations of the instruction set of a soft-core CPU, including the integration of custom instructions and the exploration of the potential to use the MultiBoot feature available in Xilinx FPGAs to carry out the PR process. The system will be evaluated and tested on a Nexus 3 development board featuring a Xilinx Spartran-6 FPGA. The system will be able to load reconfigurable custom instructions dynamically into user programs with the help of the trap handler when the custom instruction is called by the MIPS CPU. The results of this experiment demonstrate that custom instructions in hardware can speed up a certain function and many instructions can be saved when compared to a software implementation of the same function. Implementing custom instructions in hardware is perfectly possible and worth exploring.

Keywords: Customisation, FPGA, MIPS, partial reconfiguration.

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Authors: K. Pongiannan

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Advertising is one of the important marketing strategies and the choice of media is an important aspect of effectiveness of advertising media. The two most popular advertising media, TV and web media are highly effective in creating successful advertisements as they influence the purchase decision of the viewers. Although TV and web are electronic media, they are unique in their features and traits of advertising. Hence, the present study attempts to analyze the influence of these two media towards buying behavior of the viewers. The two media are analyzed separately to determine its level of influence towards buying behavior and finally a comparative analysis of these media is attempted to find the difference in their level of influence.

Keywords: Buying Behavior, TV, web, media for advertisements.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Lenka Jesonkova, Jiri Dvorak, Milos Bozek, Eduard Bakos

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The contents of nitrates and nitrites were monitored in 15 ground water resources of a selected region earmarked for the emergency supply of population. The resources have been selected on the basis of previous assessment of natural conditions and the exploitation of territory in the infiltration area as well as the surroundings of water resources. The health risk analysis carried out in relation to nitrates and nitrites, which were found to be the most serious water contaminants, proved, that 14 resources met the health standards in relation to the assessed criterion and could be included in crisis plans. Water quality of ground resources may be assessed in the same way with regard to other contaminants.

Keywords: Drinking water, health risks, methemoglobinemia, nitrates, nitrites, water pollution.

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Authors: Werner Sandmann, Verena Wolf

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Stochastic models of biological networks are well established in systems biology, where the computational treatment of such models is often focused on the solution of the so-called chemical master equation via stochastic simulation algorithms. In contrast to this, the development of storage-efficient model representations that are directly suitable for computer implementation has received significantly less attention. Instead, a model is usually described in terms of a stochastic process or a "higher-level paradigm" with graphical representation such as e.g. a stochastic Petri net. A serious problem then arises due to the exponential growth of the model-s state space which is in fact a main reason for the popularity of stochastic simulation since simulation suffers less from the state space explosion than non-simulative numerical solution techniques. In this paper we present transition class models for the representation of biological network models, a compact mathematical formalism that circumvents state space explosion. Transition class models can also serve as an interface between different higher level modeling paradigms, stochastic processes and the implementation coded in a programming language. Besides, the compact model representation provides the opportunity to apply non-simulative solution techniques thereby preserving the possible use of stochastic simulation. Illustrative examples of transition class representations are given for an enzyme-catalyzed substrate conversion and a part of the bacteriophage λ lysis/lysogeny pathway.

Keywords: Computational Modeling, Biological Networks, Stochastic Models, Markov Chains, Transition Class Models.

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Authors: Sara Bragança, Eric Costa

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The work presented in this paper was performed for a workstation of an assembly section in a company that manufactures radio modules and air conditioning for cars. After performing a workstation analysis and a questionnaire to the operators it was possible to understand the need to investigate the risk of musculoskeletal disorders originated from both the handling of loads as the incorrect dimensioning of the workstation. Regarding the handling of loads the NIOSH Equation was used and it was verified that there was no risk of musculoskeletal disorders. As the operators expressed their lack of satisfaction regarding back pains due to posture adopted they were established the appropriate dimensions (to satisfy 97.5% of the population and using the table of anthropometric data of the Portuguese population) for the workstation and it was proposed the availability of a chair for the workers.

Keywords: Anthropometry, Musculoskeletal disorders, NIOSH Equation.

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa, Abigail Melad Essien

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This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, a teacher college, where student teachers are instructed to perform teaching roles mainly in basic education level. Its aim is to link theory to practice, and to help language teachers maximize the full potential of project work for genuine communication and give real meaning to writing activity. Two research questions are formulated to guide this study: a) What is the academic achievement of the students- writing skill against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? and b) To what degree is the development of the students- writing skills during the course of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of achievement test, student writing works, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students- record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students- ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.

Keywords: EFL classroom, Project-Based Learning, project work, writing skill.

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Authors: N. Manoj

Abstract:

The aeroelastic behavior of engine nacelle strake when subjected to unsteady aerodynamic flows is investigated in this paper. Geometric nonlinear characteristics and modal parameters of nacelle strake are studied when it is under dynamic loading condition. Here, an N-S based Finite Volume solver is coupled with Finite Element (FE) based nonlinear structural solver to investigate the nonlinear characteristics of nacelle strake over a range of dynamic pressures at various phases of flight like takeoff, climb, and cruise conditions. The combination of high fidelity models for both aerodynamics and structural dynamics is used to predict the nonlinearities of strake (chine). The methodology adopted for present aeroelastic analysis is partitioned-based time domain coupled CFD and CSD solvers and it is validated by the consideration of experimental and numerical comparison of aeroelastic data for a cropped delta wing model which has a proven record. The present strake geometry is derived from theoretical formulation. The amplitude and frequency obtained from the coupled solver at various dynamic pressures is discussed, which gives a better understanding of its impact on aerodynamic design-sizing of strake.

Keywords: Aeroelasticity, finite volume, geometric nonlinearity, limit cycle oscillations, strake.

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Authors: Khalid M. Albarkoly, Kenneth S. Park

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The substantial development of the construction industry has forced the cement industry, its major support, to focus on achieving maximum productivity to meet the growing demand for this material. This means that the reliability of a cement production system needs to be at the highest level that can be achieved by good maintenance. This paper studies the extent to which the implementation of RCM is needed as a strategy for increasing the reliability of the production systems component can be increased, thus ensuring continuous productivity. In a case study of four Libyan cement factories, 80 employees were surveyed and 12 top and middle managers interviewed. It is evident that these factories usually breakdown more often than once per month which has led to a decline in productivity. In many times they cannot achieve the minimum level of production amount. This has resulted from the poor reliability of their production systems as a result of poor or insufficient maintenance. It has been found that most of the factories’ employees misunderstand maintenance and its importance. The main cause of this problem is the lack of qualified and trained staff, but in addition it has been found that most employees are not found to be motivated as a result of a lack of management support and interest. In response to these findings, it has been suggested that the RCM strategy should be implemented in the four factories. The results show the importance of the development of maintenance strategies through the implementation of RCM in these factories. The purpose of it would be to overcome the problems that could secure the reliability of the production systems. This study could be a useful source of information for academic researchers and the industrial organizations which are still experiencing problems in maintenance practices.

Keywords: Libyan cement industry, maintenance, production, reliability centered maintenance, reliability.

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Authors: Armin Samarghandi, Amirreza Jafari, Mohamad Ghiasi

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Since individuals spend the majority of their time indoors, this immediately affects their productivity and health. An essential factor in occupational health and public health is the influence of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in buildings on occupant welfare and productivity. Since then, empirical data have been equivocal, indicating either that the studies are inaccurate or that the research has just scratched the surface of green buildings in offices, accommodation, and hospital settings and not taken the aforementioned holistically. This study compared three green-certified buildings — a residential green building, a green hospital, and a green school — with conventional structures in Tehran, Iran by means of a questionnaire spread among those utilizing these buildings, and assessing their productivity and health rate as opposed to the time they resided, worked in conventional buildings. The results demonstrated higher scores pertaining to productivity, physical and mental wellness as a consequence of better indoor environmental quality (IEQ), natural lighting, design, and sustainability of these building against non-green buildings. In addition, ancillary matters — environmental, financial, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual dimensions of participants — were indirectly evaluated, and the same results are produced.

Keywords: Green building, Iran, productivity, physical and mental health, Tehran.

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Authors: Frank C. Pan, Chih-Hao Chen

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to discuss the effect of the intervention of exercise behavior change plan for high school students on study subjects- social and psychological factors and exercise stages. This research uses the transtheoretical model as the research framework. One experiment group and one control group were used in a quasi-experimental design research. The experimental group accepted health-related physical fitness course and the traditional course; the control group accepted traditional physical education course. There is a significant difference before and after the intervention in the experimental group. Karl-s test shows the experimental group gained a better improvement than that in the control group. The Analysis of Covariance had shown the exercise stages (F=7.62, p<0.05), and the perceived exercise benefit (F=16.91, p<0.05) of the experimental group were obviously larger than those of the control group. There was no major effect on the perceived exercise barrier (F=0.61, p>0.05) after the intervention of exercise behavior change plan. However, the rate of high school students the practical implementation of the exercise is not high, obviously influenced by the exercise barrier. The academic and examination pressure may be the major causes of the exercise barrier in the high school.

Keywords: Transtheoretical model (TTM), High school students, exercise behavior

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Authors: Intan Maisarah Abd Rahim, Herlina Abdul Rahim, Rashidah Ghazali

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Diabetes is a medical condition that can lead to various diseases such as stroke, heart disease, blindness and obesity. In clinical practice, the concern of the diabetic patients towards the blood glucose examination is rather alarming as some of the individual describing it as something painful with pinprick and pinch. As for some patient with high level of glucose level, pricking the fingers multiple times a day with the conventional glucose meter for close monitoring can be tiresome, time consuming and painful. With these concerns, several non-invasive techniques were used by researchers in measuring the glucose level in blood, including ultrasonic sensor implementation, multisensory systems, absorbance of transmittance, bio-impedance, voltage intensity, and thermography. This paper is discussing the application of the near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a non-invasive method in measuring the glucose level and the implementation of the linear system identification model in predicting the output data for the NIR measurement. In this study, the wavelengths considered are at the 1450 nm and 1950 nm. Both of these wavelengths showed the most reliable information on the glucose presence in blood. Then, the linear Autoregressive Moving Average Exogenous model (ARMAX) model with both un-regularized and regularized methods was implemented in predicting the output result for the NIR measurement in order to investigate the practicality of the linear system in this study. However, the result showed only 50.11% accuracy obtained from the system which is far from the satisfying results that should be obtained.

Keywords: Diabetes, glucose level, linear, near-infrared (NIR), non-invasive, prediction system.

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Authors: B. I. Lee, S. I. Kim, D. H. Suh, J. I. Kim, Y. K. Lim

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A total of 33,680 nuclear power plants (NPPs) workers were monitored and recorded from 1990 to 2007. According to the record, the average individual radiation dose has been decreasing continually from it 3.20 mSv/man in 1990 to 1.12 mSv/man at the end of 2007. After the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 60 recommendation was generalized in South Korea, no nuclear power plant workers received above 20 mSv radiation, and the numbers of relatively highly exposed workers have been decreasing continuously. The age distribution of radiation workers in nuclear power plants was composed of mainly 20-30- year-olds (83%) for 1990 ~ 1994 and 30-40-year-olds (75%) for 2003 ~ 2007. The difference in individual average dose by age was not significant. Most (77%) of NPP radiation exposures from 1990 to 2007 occurred mostly during the refueling period. With regard to exposure type, the majority of exposures were external exposures, representing 95% of the total exposures, while internal exposures represented only 5%. External effective dose was affected mainly by gamma radiation exposure, with an insignificant amount of neutron exposure. As for internal effective dose, tritium (3H) in the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) was the biggest cause of exposure.

Keywords: Dose distribution, External exposure, Nuclear powerplant, Occupational radiation dose

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Authors: Oscar Fernandez-Flores, Tony Speer, Rodney Day

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This paper identifies five key design characteristics of production scheduling software systems in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing. The authors consider that, in addition to an effective scheduling engine, a scheduling system should be able to process a preventative maintenance calendar, to give the user the flexibility to handle data using a variety of electronic sources, to run simulations to support decision-making, and to have simple and customisable graphical user interfaces. These design considerations were the result of a review of academic literature, the evaluation of commercial applications and a compilation of requirements of a PCB manufacturer. It was found that, from those systems that were evaluated, those that effectively addressed all five characteristics outlined in this paper were the most robust of all and could be used in PCB manufacturing.

Keywords: Decision-making, ERP, PCB, scheduling.

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Authors: Leila Maleki, Ahmad Esmali Kooraneh, Hossein Taghi Derakhshi

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Neural activity in the human brain starts from the early stages of prenatal development. This activity or signals generated by the brain are electrical in nature and represent not only the brain function but also the status of the whole body. At the present moment, three methods can record functional and physiological changes within the brain with high temporal resolution of neuronal interactions at the network level: the electroencephalogram (EEG), the magnet oencephalogram (MEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); each of these has advantages and shortcomings. EEG recording with a large number of electrodes is now feasible in clinical practice. Multichannel EEG recorded from the scalp surface provides very valuable but indirect information about the source distribution. However, deep electrode measurements yield more reliable information about the source locations intracranial recordings and scalp EEG are used with the source imaging techniques to determine the locations and strengths of the epileptic activity. As a source localization method, Low Resolution Electro-Magnetic Tomography (LORETA) is solved for the realistic geometry based on both forward methods, the Boundary Element Method (BEM) and the Finite Difference Method (FDM). In this paper, we review the findings EEG- LORETA about epilepsy.

Keywords: Epilepsy, EEG, EEG- Loreta, loreta analysis.

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Authors: Oluchukwu P. Obioma, Amarachi R. Dike

Abstract:

Competition law promotes market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by undertakings. There is a need for a third party to regulate the market for efficiency and supervision, since, if the market is left unchecked, it may be skewed against the consumers and the economy. Competition law is geared towards the protection of consumers from economic exploitation. It is the duty of every rational government to optimally manage its economic system by employing the best regulatory practices over the market to ensure it functions effectively and efficiently. The Nigerian government has done this by enacting the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018 (FCCPA). This is a comprehensive legal framework with the objective of governing competition issues in Nigeria. Prior to its enactment, the competition law regime in Nigeria was grossly inadequate despite Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa. This latest legislation has become a bold step in the right direction. This study will use the doctrinal methodology in analyzing the FCCPA, 2018 in order to discover the extent to which the Act will guard against anti-competitive practices and promote competitive markets for the benefit of the Nigerian economy and consumers. The study finds that although the FCCPA, 2018 provides for the regulation of competition in Nigeria, there is a need to effectively tackle the challenges to the implementation of the Act and the development of anti-trust jurisprudence in Nigeria. This study concludes that incisive implementation of competition law in Nigeria will help protect consumers and create a conducive environment for economic growth, development, and protection of consumers from obnoxious competition practices.

Keywords: Anti-competitive practices, competition law, competition regulation, consumer protection.

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Authors: G.T. Cirella, L. Tao

Abstract:

The index of sustainable functionality (ISF) is an adaptive, multi-criteria technique that is used to measure sustainability; it is a concept that can be transposed to many regions throughout the world. An ISF application of the Southern Regional Organisation of Councils (SouthROC) in South East Queensland (SEQ) – the fastest growing region in Australia – indicated over a 25 year period an increase of over 10% level of functionality from 58.0% to 68.3%. The ISF of SouthROC utilised methodologies that derived from an expert panel based approach. The overall results attained an intermediate level of functionality which amounted to related concerns of economic progress and lack of social awareness. Within the region, a solid basis for future testing by way of measured changes and developed trends can be established. In this regard as management tool, the ISF record offers support for regional sustainability practice and decision making alike. This research adaptively analyses sustainability – a concept that is lacking throughout much of the academic literature and any reciprocal experimentation. This lack of knowledge base has been the emphasis of where future sustainability research can grow from and prove useful in rapidly growing regions. It is the intentions of this research to help further develop the notions of index-based quantitative sustainability.

Keywords: Environmental engineering, index of sustainable functionality, sustainability indicators, sustainable development.

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Authors: Lorho Mary Maheo, Arundhati Maibam Devi

Abstract:

Background: Maternal and child health (MCH) cares are the health services provided to mothers and children. It includes the health promotion, preventive, curative and rehabilitation health care for mothers and children. Materials and method: The present study sample comprises of 208 women within the age range 15-69 years from two remote villages of Tamenglong District in Manipur. They were randomly chosen for assessing their health as well as the child’s health adopting an interview schedule method. Results: The findings of the study revealed that majority (80%) of the women have their first conception in their first year of married life. A decadal change has been observed with regard to the last pregnancy i.e., antenatal check-up, place of delivery as well as the service provider. However, irrespective of age of the women, home delivery is still preferred though very few are locally trained. Pre- and post-delivery resting period vary depending on the busy schedule of the agricultural works as the population under study is basically agriculturist. Postnatal care remains to be traditional as they are strongly associated with cultural beliefs and practices that continue to prevail in the studied community. Breast feeding practices such as colostrums given, initiation of breastfeeding, weaning was all taken into account.  Immunization of children has not reached the expected target owing to a variety of reasons. Maternal health care also includes use of birth control measures. The health status of women would invariably improve if family planning is meaningfully adopted. Only 10.1% of the women adopted the modern birth control implying its deep-rooted value attached to the children. Based on the self-assessment report on their health treatment a good number of the respondents resorted to self-medication even to the extent of buying allopathic medicine without a doctor’s prescription. One important finding from the study is the importance attributed to the traditional health care system which is easily affordable and accessible to the villagers. Conclusion: The overall condition of maternal and child care is way behind till now as no adequate/proper health services are available.

Keywords: Antenatal, breastfeeding, child health, maternal, Tamenglong District.

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Authors: Y. Lu, X. S. Qin

Abstract:

Extensive rainfall disaggregation approaches have been developed and applied in climate change impact studies such as flood risk assessment and urban storm water management.In this study, five rainfall models that were capable ofdisaggregating daily rainfall data into hourly one were investigated for the rainfall record in theChangi Airport, Singapore. The objectives of this study were (i) to study the temporal characteristics of hourly rainfall in Singapore, and (ii) to evaluate the performance of variousdisaggregation models. The used models included: (i) Rectangular pulse Poisson model (RPPM), (ii) Bartlett-Lewis Rectangular pulse model (BLRPM), (iii) Bartlett-Lewis model with 2 cell types (BL2C), (iv) Bartlett-Lewis Rectangular with cell depth distribution dependent on duration (BLRD), and (v) Neyman-Scott Rectangular pulse model (NSRPM). All of these models werefitted using hourly rainfall data ranging from 1980 to 2005 (which was obtained from Changimeteorological station).The study results indicated that the weight scheme of inversely proportional variance could deliver more accurateoutputs for fitting rainfall patterns in tropical areas, and BLRPM performedrelatively better than other disaggregation models.

Keywords: Rainfall disaggregation, statistical properties, poisson processed, Bartlett-Lewis model, Neyman-Scott model.

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