Search results for: electronic medical records

Authors: Yannick Verbelen, Sam De Winne, Niek Blondeel, Ann Peeters, An Braeken, Abdellah Touhafi

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The growing popularity of solid state thermoelectric devices in cooling applications has sparked an increasing diversity of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) on the market, commonly known as “Peltier modules”. They can also be used as generators, converting a temperature difference into electric power, and opportunities are plentiful to make use of these devices as thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to supply energy to low power, autonomous embedded electronic applications. Their adoption as energy harvesters in this new domain of usage is obstructed by the complex thermoelectric models commonly associated with TEGs. Low cost TECs for the consumer market lack the required parameters to use the models because they are not intended for this mode of operation, thereby urging an alternative method to obtain electric power estimations in specific operating conditions. The design of the test setup implemented in this paper is specifically targeted at benchmarking commercial, off-the-shelf TECs for use as energy harvesters in domestic environments: applications with limited temperature differences and space available. The usefulness is demonstrated by testing and comparing single and multi stage TECs with different sizes. The effect of a boost converter stage on the thermoelectric end-to-end efficiency is also discussed.

Keywords: Thermoelectric cooler, TEC, complementary balanced energy harvesting, step-up converter, DC/DC converter, embedded systems, energy harvesting, thermal harvesting.

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Authors: Seyyed Yasser Hashemi, Khalil Monfaredi

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Automatic transformation of paper documents into electronic documents requires document segmentation at the first stage. However, some parameters restrictions such as variations in character font sizes, different text line spacing, and also not uniform document layout structures altogether have made it difficult to design a general-purpose document layout analysis algorithm for many years. Thus in most previously reported methods it is inevitable to include these parameters. This problem becomes excessively acute and severe, especially in Persian/Arabic documents. Since the Persian/Arabic scripts differ considerably from the English scripts, most of the proposed methods for the English scripts do not render good results for the Persian scripts. In this paper, we present a novel parameter-free method for segmenting the Persian/Arabic document images which also works well for English scripts. This method segments the document image into maximal homogeneous regions and identifies them as texts and non-texts based on a pyramidal image structure. In other words the proposed method is capable of document segmentation without considering the character font sizes, text line spacing, and document layout structures. This algorithm is examined for 150 Arabic/Persian and English documents and document segmentation process are done successfully for 96 percent of documents.

Keywords: Persian/Arabic document, document segmentation, Pyramidal Image Structure, skew detection and correction.

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Authors: S. Cobos-Guzman

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This paper presents the results of a mechatronic design based on a 4-wheel omnidirectional mobile robot that can be used in indoor logistic applications. The low-level control has been selected using two open-source hardware (Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and Arduino Mega 2560) that control four industrial motors, four ultrasound sensors, four optical encoders, a vision system of two cameras, and a Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 laser scanner. Moreover, the system is powered with a lithium battery that can supply 24 V DC and a maximum current-hour of 20Ah.The Robot Operating System (ROS) has been implemented in the Raspberry Pi and the performance is evaluated with the selection of the sensors and hardware selected. The mechatronic system is evaluated and proposed safe modes of power distribution for controlling all the electronic devices based on different tests. Therefore, based on different performance results, some recommendations are indicated for using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino in terms of power, communication, and distribution of control for different devices. According to these recommendations, the selection of sensors is distributed in both real-time controllers (Arduino and Raspberry Pi). On the other hand, the drivers of the cameras have been implemented in Linux and a python program has been implemented to access the cameras. These cameras will be used for implementing a deep learning algorithm to recognize people and objects. In this way, the level of intelligence can be increased in combination with the maps that can be obtained from the laser scanner.

Keywords: Autonomous, indoor robot, mechatronic, omnidirectional robot.

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Authors: R. M. Siddiqui, D. Z. Moghaddam, T. R. Turlapati, S. H. Khan, I. Ul Ahad

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Quality of 2D and 3D cross-sectional images produce by Computed Tomography primarily depend upon the degree of precision of primary and secondary X-Ray intensity detection. Traditional method of primary intensity detection is apt to errors. Recently the X-Ray intensity measurement system along with smart X-Ray sensors is developed by our group which is able to detect primary X-Ray intensity unerringly. In this study a new smart X-Ray sensor is developed using Light-to-Frequency converter TSL230 from Texas Instruments which has numerous advantages in terms of noiseless data acquisition and transmission. TSL230 construction is based on a silicon photodiode which converts incoming X-Ray radiation into the proportional current signal. A current to frequency converter is attached to this photodiode on a single monolithic CMOS integrated circuit which provides proportional frequency count to incoming current signal in the form of the pulse train. The frequency count is delivered to the center of PICDEM FS USB board with PIC18F4550 microcontroller mounted on it. With highly compact electronic hardware, this Demo Board efficiently read the smart sensor output data. The frequency output approaches overcome nonlinear behavior of sensors with analog output thus un-attenuated X-Ray intensities could be measured precisely and better normalization could be acquired in order to attain high resolution.

Keywords: Computed tomography, detector technology, X-Ray intensity measurement

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Authors: Jelena Slugan, Ivica Ružić

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We are witnessing the rapid development of technologies that change the world around us. However, curriculums and teaching processes are often slow to adapt to the change; it takes time, money and expertise to implement technology in the classroom. Therefore, the University of Split, Croatia, partnered with local school Marko Marulić High School and created the project "Modern competence in modern high schools" as part of which five different curriculums for STEM areas were developed. One of the curriculums involves combining information technology with physics. The main idea was to teach students how to use different circuits and microcomputers to explore nature and physical phenomena. As a result, using electrical circuits, students are able to recreate in the classroom the phenomena that they observe every day in their environment. So far, high school students had very little opportunity to perform experiments independently, and especially, those physics experiment did not involve ICT. Therefore, this project has a great importance, because the students will finally get a chance to develop themselves in accordance to modern technologies. This paper presents some new methods of teaching physics that will help students to develop experimental skills through the study of deterministic nature of physical laws. Students will learn how to formulate hypotheses, model physical problems using the electronic circuits and evaluate their results. While doing that, they will also acquire useful problem solving skills.

Keywords: ICT in physics, curriculum, laboratory activities, STEM.

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Authors: Mohammed Erritali

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The growth in the volume of text data such as books and articles in libraries for centuries has imposed to establish effective mechanisms to locate them. Early techniques such as abstraction, indexing and the use of classification categories have marked the birth of a new field of research called "Information Retrieval". Information Retrieval (IR) can be defined as the task of defining models and systems whose purpose is to facilitate access to a set of documents in electronic form (corpus) to allow a user to find the relevant ones for him, that is to say, the contents which matches with the information needs of the user. Most of the models of information retrieval use a specific data structure to index a corpus which is called "inverted file" or "reverse index". This inverted file collects information on all terms over the corpus documents specifying the identifiers of documents that contain the term in question, the frequency of each term in the documents of the corpus, the positions of the occurrences of the word... In this paper we use an oriented object database (db4o) instead of the inverted file, that is to say, instead to search a term in the inverted file, we will search it in the db4o database. The purpose of this work is to make a comparative study to see if the oriented object databases may be competing for the inverse index in terms of access speed and resource consumption using a large volume of data.

Keywords: Information Retrieval, indexation, oriented object database (db4o), inverted file.

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Authors: Lubis A., Setiawati L., Setyoningrum A. R., Suryawan A., Irwanto

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Asthma is a condition that causing chronic health problems in children. In addition to basic therapy against disease, we must try to reduce the impact of chronic health problems and also optimize their medical aspect of growth and development. A boy with mild asthma attack frequent episode did not showed any improvement with medical treatment and his asthma control test was 11. From radiologic examination he got hyperaerated lung and billateral sinusitis maxillaris; skin test results were house dust, food and pet allergy; an overweight body; bad school grades; psychological and environmental problem. We followed and evaluated this boy in 6 months, treated holistically. Even we could not do much on environmental but no more psychological and school problems, his on a good bodyweight and his asthma control test was 22. A case of a child with mild asthma attack frequent episode was reported. Asthma clinical course show no significant improvement when other predisposing factor is not well-controlled and a child’s growth and development may be affected. Improving condition of the patient can be created with the help of loving and caring way of nurturing from the parents and supportive peer group. Therefore, continuous and consistent monitoring is required because prognosis of asthma is generally good when regularly and properly controlled.

Keywords: Asthma, chronic health problems, growth and development.

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Authors: Yu-Wei Chang, Chiao-Hung Cheng, Wen-Fang Wu, Sih-Li Chen

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This article experimentally investigates the thermal performance of thermoelectric air-cooling module which comprises a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) and an air-cooling heat sink. The influences of input current and heat load are determined. And performances under each situation are quantified by thermal resistance analysis. Since TEC generates Joule heat, this nature makes construction of thermal resistance network difficult. To simplify the analysis, this article emphasizes on the resistance heat load might meet when passing through the device. Therefore, the thermal resistances in this paper are to divide temperature differences by heat load. According to the result, there exists an optimum input current under every heating power. In this case, the optimum input current is around 6A or 7A. The performance of the heat sink would be improved with TEC under certain heating power and input current, especially at a low heat load. According to the result, the device can even make the heat source cooler than the ambient. However, TEC is not always effective at every heat load and input current. In some situation, the device works worse than the heat sink without TEC. To determine the availability of TEC, this study figures out the effective operating region in which the TEC air-cooling module works better than the heat sink without TEC. The result shows that TEC is more effective at a lower heat load. If heat load is too high, heat sink with TEC will perform worse than without TEC. The limit of this device is 57W. Besides, TEC is not helpful if input current is too high or too low. There is an effective range of input current, and the range becomes narrower when the heat load grows.

Keywords: Thermoelectric cooler, TEC, electronic cooling, heat sink.

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Authors: André C. Silva, Débora N. Sousa, Elenice M. S. Silva, Thales P. Fontes, Raphael S. Tomaz

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Starches are widely used as depressant in froth flotation operations in Brazil due to their efficiency, increasing the selectivity in the inverse flotation of quartz depressing iron ore. Starches market have been growing and improving in recent years, leading to better products attending the requirements of the mineral industry. The major source of starch used for iron ore is corn starch, which needs to be gelatinized with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) prior to use. This stage has a direct impact on industrials costs, once the lowest consumption of NaOH in gelatinization provides better control of the pH in the froth flotation and reduces the amount of electrolytes present in the pulp. In order to evaluate the gelatinization degree of different starches and flour were subjected to the addiction of NaOH and temperature variation experiments. Samples of starch (corn, cassava, HIPIX 100, HIPIX 101 and HIPIX 102 commercialized by Ingredion) and flour (cassava and potato) were tested. The starch samples were characterized through Scanning Electronic Microscopy and the amylose content were determined through spectrometry, swelling and solubility tests. The gelatinization was carried out through titration with NaOH, keeping the solution temperature constant at 40 ^oC. At the end of the tests, the optimal amount of NaOH consumed to gelatinize the starch or flour from different botanical sources was established and a correlation between the content of amylopectin in the starch and the starch/NaOH ratio needed for its gelatinization.

Keywords: Froth flotation, gelatinization, sodium hydroxide, starches and flours.

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Authors: Temitope O. Tokosi

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Healthcare is a human right. The sensitivity of health issues has necessitated the introduction of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) at district hospitals in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The objective is understanding clinicians’ perception of ECM at their workplace. It is a descriptive case study design of constructivist paradigm. It employed a phenomenological data analysis method using a pattern matching deductive based analytical procedure. Purposive and s4nowball sampling techniques were applied in selecting participants. Clinicians expressed concerns and frustrations using ECM such as, non-integration with other hospital systems. Inadequate access points to ECM. Incorrect labelling of notes and bar-coding causes more time wasted in finding information. System features and/or functions (such as search and edit) are not possible. Hospital management and clinicians are not constantly interacting and discussing. Information turnaround time is unacceptably lengthy. Resolving these problems would involve a positive working relationship between hospital management and clinicians. In addition, prioritising the problems faced by clinicians in relation to relevance can ensure problem-solving in order to meet clinicians’ expectations and hospitals’ objective. Clinicians’ perception should invoke attention from hospital management with regards technology use. The study’s results can be generalised across clinician groupings exposed to ECM at various district hospitals because of professional and hospital homogeneity.

Keywords: Clinician, electronic content management, hospital, perception, technology.

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Authors: C. lo Storto

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This paper presents an approach based on the adoption of a distributed cognition framework and a non parametric multicriteria evaluation methodology (DEA) designed specifically to compare e-commerce websites from the consumer/user viewpoint. In particular, the framework considers a website relative efficiency as a measure of its quality and usability. A website is modelled as a black box capable to provide the consumer/user with a set of functionalities. When the consumer/user interacts with the website to perform a task, he/she is involved in a cognitive activity, sustaining a cognitive cost to search, interpret and process information, and experiencing a sense of satisfaction. The degree of ambiguity and uncertainty he/she perceives and the needed search time determine the effort size – and, henceforth, the cognitive cost amount – he/she has to sustain to perform his/her task. On the contrary, task performing and result achievement induce a sense of gratification, satisfaction and usefulness. In total, 9 variables are measured, classified in a set of 3 website macro-dimensions (user experience, site navigability and structure). The framework is implemented to compare 40 websites of businesses performing electronic commerce in the information technology market. A questionnaire to collect subjective judgements for the websites in the sample was purposely designed and administered to 85 university students enrolled in computer science and information systems engineering undergraduate courses.

Keywords: Website, e-commerce, DEA, distributed cognition, evaluation, comparison.

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Authors: Mehmet Balci, Sakir Tasdemir, Mustafa Altin, Ozlem Bozok

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Our globalizing world has become almost a small village and everyone can access any information at any time. Everyone lets each other know who does whatever in which place. We can learn which social events occur in which place in the world. From the perspective of education, the course notes that a lecturer use in lessons in a university in any state of America can be examined by a student studying in a city of Africa or the Far East. This dizzying communication we have mentioned happened thanks to fast developments in computer and internet technologies. While these developments occur in the world, Turkey that has a very large young population and whose electronic infrastructure rapidly improves has also been affected by these developments. Nowadays, mobile devices have become common and thus, it causes to increase data traffic in social networks. This study was carried out on students in the different age groups in Selcuk University Vocational School of Technical Sciences, the Department of Computer Technology. Students’ opinions about the use of internet and social media were obtained. The features such as using the Internet and social media skills, purposes, operating frequency, accessing facilities and tools, social life and effects on vocational education and so forth were explored. The positive effects and negative effects of both internet and social media use on the students in this department and findings are evaluated from different perspectives and results are obtained. In addition, relations and differences were found out statistically.

Keywords: Computer technologies, internet use, social network, higher vocational school.

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Authors: Faith-Michael E. Uzoka, Boluwaji A. Akinnuwesi, Taiwo Amoo, Flora Aladi, Stephen Fashoto, Moses Olaniyan, Joseph Osuji

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The overarching aim of this study is to develop a soft-computing system for the differential diagnosis of tropical diseases. These conditions are of concern to health bodies, physicians, and the community at large because of their mortality rates, and difficulties in early diagnosis due to the fact that they present with symptoms that overlap, and thus become ‘confusable’. We report on the first phase of our study, which focuses on the development of a fuzzy cognitive map model for early differential diagnosis of tropical diseases. We used malaria as a case disease to show the effectiveness of the FCM technology as an aid to the medical practitioner in the diagnosis of tropical diseases. Our model takes cognizance of manifested symptoms and other non-clinical factors that could contribute to symptoms manifestations. Our model showed 85% accuracy in diagnosis, as against the physicians’ initial hypothesis, which stood at 55% accuracy. It is expected that the next stage of our study will provide a multi-disease, multi-symptom model that also improves efficiency by utilizing a decision support filter that works on an algorithm, which mimics the physician’s diagnosis process.

Keywords: Medical diagnosis, tropical diseases, fuzzy cognitive map, decision support filters, malaria differential diagnosis.

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Authors: Jason Chien-Hsun Tseng, Nguyen Dong-Thai Dao, Chong-Ching Chang

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A novel PDE solver using the multidimensional wave digital filtering (MDWDF) technique to achieve the solution of a 2D seismic wave system is presented. In essence, the continuous physical system served by a linear Kirchhoff circuit is transformed to an equivalent discrete dynamic system implemented by a MD wave digital filtering (MDWDF) circuit. This amounts to numerically approximating the differential equations used to describe elements of a MD passive electronic circuit by a grid-based difference equations implemented by the so-called state quantities within the passive MDWDF circuit. So the digital model can track the wave field on a dense 3D grid of points. Details about how to transform the continuous system into a desired discrete passive system are addressed. In addition, initial and boundary conditions are properly embedded into the MDWDF circuit in terms of state quantities. Graphic results have clearly demonstrated some physical effects of seismic wave (P-wave and S–wave) propagation including radiation, reflection, and refraction from and across the hard boundaries. Comparison between the MDWDF technique and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) approach is also made in terms of the computational efficiency.

Keywords: Seismic Wave Propagation, Multi-dimension WaveDigital Filters, Partial Differential Equations.

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Authors: Kyung-Jung Lee, Young-Hun Ki, Hyun-Sik Ahn

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In this paper, we propose a hardware and software design method for automotive Electronic Control Units (ECU) considering the functional safety. The proposed ECU is considered for the application to Electro-Mechanical Actuator systems and the validity of the design method is shown by the application to the Electro-Mechanical Brake (EMB) control system which is used as a brake actuator in Brake-By-Wire (BBW) systems. The importance of a functional safety-based design approach to EMB ECU design has been emphasized because of its safety-critical functions, which are executed with the aid of many electric actuators, sensors, and application software. Based on hazard analysis and risk assessment according to ISO26262, the EMB system should be ASIL-D-compliant, the highest ASIL level. To this end, an external signature watchdog and an Infineon 32-bit microcontroller TriCore are used to reduce risks considering common-cause hardware failure. Moreover, a software design method is introduced for implementing functional safety-oriented monitoring functions based on an asymmetric dual core architecture considering redundancy and diversity. The validity of the proposed ECU design approach is verified by using the EMB Hardware-In-the-Loop (HILS) system, which consists of the EMB assembly, actuator ECU, a host PC, and a few debugging devices. Furthermore, it is shown that the existing sensor fault tolerant control system can be used more effectively for mitigating the effects of hardware and software faults by applying the proposed ECU design method.

Keywords: BBW (Brake-By-wire), EMB (Electro-Mechanical Brake), Functional Safety, ISO26262.

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Authors: Branislav Timotijevic, Yves Petremand, Markus Luetzelschwab, Dara Bayat, Laurent Aebi

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Optical miniaturized sensors with remote readout are required devices for the monitoring in harsh electromagnetic environments. As an example, in turbo and hydro generators, excessively high vibrations of the end-windings can lead to dramatic damages, imposing very high, additional service costs. A significant change of the generator temperature can also be an indicator of the system failure. Continuous monitoring of vibrations, temperature, humidity, and gases is therefore mandatory. The high electromagnetic fields in the generators impose the use of non-conductive devices in order to prevent electromagnetic interferences and to electrically isolate the sensing element to the electronic readout. Metal-free sensors are good candidates for such systems since they are immune to very strong electromagnetic fields and given the fact that they are non-conductive. We have realized miniature optical accelerometer and temperature sensors for a remote sensing of the harsh environments using the common, inexpensive silicon Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) platform. Both devices show highly linear response. The accelerometer has a deviation within 1% from the linear fit when tested in a range 0 – 40 g. The temperature sensor can provide the measurement accuracy better than 1 °C in a range 20 – 150 °C. The design of other type of sensors for the environments with high electromagnetic interferences has also been discussed.

Keywords: Accelerometer, harsh environment, optical MEMS, pressure sensor, remote sensing, temperature sensor.

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Authors: S. V. Ukwungwu, A. J. Abbas, G. G. Nasr

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The increasing high price of natural gas and oil with attendant increase in energy demand on world markets in recent years has stimulated interest in recovering residual oil saturation across the globe. In order to meet the energy security, efforts have been made in developing new technologies of enhancing the recovery of oil and gas, utilizing techniques like CO₂ flooding, water injection, hydraulic fracturing, surfactant flooding etc. Surfactant flooding however optimizes production but poses risk to the environment due to their toxic nature. Amongst proven records that have utilized other type of bacterial in producing biosurfactants for enhancing oil recovery, this research uses a technique to combine biosurfactants that will achieve a scale of EOR through lowering interfacial tension/contact angle. In this study, three biosurfactants were produced from three Bacillus species from freeze dried cultures using sucrose 3 % (w/v) as their carbon source. Two of these produced biosurfactants were screened with the TEMCO Pendant Drop Image Analysis for reduction in IFT and contact angle. Interfacial tension was greatly reduced from 56.95 mN.m^-1 to 1.41 mN.m^-1 when biosurfactants in cell-free culture (Bacillus licheniformis) were used compared to 4. 83mN.m^-1 cell-free culture of Bacillus subtilis. As a result, cell-free culture of (Bacillus licheniformis) changes the wettability of the biosurfactant treatment for contact angle measurement to more water-wet as the angle decreased from 130.75^o to 65.17^o. The influence of microbial treatment on crushed rock samples was also observed by qualitative wettability experiments. Treated samples with biosurfactants remained in the aqueous phase, indicating a water-wet system. These results could prove that biosurfactants can effectively change the chemistry of the wetting conditions against diverse surfaces, providing a desirable condition for efficient oil transport in this way serving as a mechanism for EOR. The environmental friendly effect of biosurfactants applications for industrial purposes play important advantages over chemically synthesized surfactants, with various possible structures, low toxicity, eco-friendly and biodegradability.

Keywords: Bacillus, biosurfactant, enhanced oil recovery, residual oil, wettability.

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Authors: Satish Kumar Peddapelli

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This paper presents advances in pulse width modulation techniques which refers to a method of carrying information on train of pulses and the information be encoded in the width of pulses. Pulse Width Modulation is used to control the inverter output voltage. This is done by exercising the control within the inverter itself by adjusting the ON and OFF periods of inverter. By fixing the DC input voltage we get AC output voltage. In variable speed AC motors the AC output voltage from a constant DC voltage is obtained by using inverter. Recent developments in power electronics and semiconductor technology have lead improvements in power electronic systems. Hence, different circuit configurations namely multilevel inverters have became popular and considerable interest by researcher are given on them. A fast space-vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) method for five-level inverter is also discussed. In this method, the space vector diagram of the five-level inverter is decomposed into six space vector diagrams of three-level inverters. In turn, each of these six space vector diagrams of three-level inverter is decomposed into six space vector diagrams of two-level inverters. After decomposition, all the remaining necessary procedures for the three-level SVPWM are done like conventional two-level inverter. The proposed method reduces the algorithm complexity and the execution time. It can be applied to the multilevel inverters above the five-level also. The experimental setup for three-level diode-clamped inverter is developed using TMS320LF2407 DSP controller and the experimental results are analyzed.

Keywords: Five-level inverter, Space vector pulse wide modulation, diode clamped inverter.

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Authors: Nicole M. Martino

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Reinforced concrete bridge deck condition assessments primarily use visual inspection methods, where an inspector looks for and records locations of cracks, potholes, efflorescence and other signs of probable deterioration. Sounding is another technique used to diagnose the condition of a bridge deck, however this method listens for damage within the subsurface as the surface is struck with a hammer or chain. Even though extensive procedures are in place for using these inspection techniques, neither one provides the inspector with a comprehensive understanding of the internal condition of a bridge deck – the location where damage originates from.  In order to make accurate estimates of repair locations and quantities, in addition to allocating the necessary funding, a total understanding of the deck’s deteriorated state is key. The research presented in this paper collected infrared thermography and ground penetrating radar data from reinforced concrete bridge decks without an asphalt overlay. These decks were of various ages and their condition varied from brand new, to in need of replacement. The goals of this work were to first verify that these nondestructive evaluation methods could identify similar areas of healthy and damaged concrete, and then to see if combining the results of both methods would provide a higher confidence than if the condition assessment was completed using only one method. The results from each method were presented as plan view color contour plots. The results from one of the decks assessed as a part of this research, including these plan view plots, are presented in this paper. Furthermore, in order to answer the interest of transportation agencies throughout the United States, this research developed a step-by-step guide which demonstrates how to collect and assess a bridge deck using these nondestructive evaluation methods. This guide addresses setup procedures on the deck during the day of data collection, system setups and settings for different bridge decks, data post-processing for each method, and data visualization and quantification.

Keywords: Bridge deck deterioration, ground penetrating radar, infrared thermography, NDT of bridge decks.

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Authors: Salama Meghriche, Amer Draa, Mohammed Boulemden

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Heart failure is the most common reason of death nowadays, but if the medical help is given directly, the patient-s life may be saved in many cases. Numerous heart diseases can be detected by means of analyzing electrocardiograms (ECG). Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are computer-based expert systems that have proved to be useful in pattern recognition tasks. ANN can be used in different phases of the decision-making process, from classification to diagnostic procedures. This work concentrates on a review followed by a novel method. The purpose of the review is to assess the evidence of healthcare benefits involving the application of artificial neural networks to the clinical functions of diagnosis, prognosis and survival analysis, in ECG signals. The developed method is based on a compound neural network (CNN), to classify ECGs as normal or carrying an AtrioVentricular heart Block (AVB). This method uses three different feed forward multilayer neural networks. A single output unit encodes the probability of AVB occurrences. A value between 0 and 0.1 is the desired output for a normal ECG; a value between 0.1 and 1 would infer an occurrence of an AVB. The results show that this compound network has a good performance in detecting AVBs, with a sensitivity of 90.7% and a specificity of 86.05%. The accuracy value is 87.9%.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Electrocardiogram(ECG), Feed forward multilayer neural network, Medical diagnosis, Pattern recognitionm, Signal processing.

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Authors: Christopher C. Anyadubalu

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Biological, psychological and social experiences and perceptions of healthcare services in patients medically diagnosed of coronary heart disease were investigated using a sample of 10 participants whose responses to the in-depth interview questions were analyzed based on inter-and-intra-case analyses. The results obtained revealed that advancing age, single status, divorce and/or death of spouse and the issue of single parenting negatively impacted patients- biopsychosocial experiences. The patients- experiences of physical signs and symptoms, anxiety and depression, past serious medical conditions, use of self-prescribed medications, family history of poor mental/medical or physical health, nutritional problems and insufficient physical activities heightened their risk of coronary attack. Collectivist culture served as a big source of relieve to the patients. Patients- temperament, experience of different chronic life stresses/challenges, mood alteration, regular drinking, smoking/gambling, and family/social impairments compounded their health situation. Patients were satisfied with the biomedical services rendered by the healthcare personnel, whereas their psychological and social needs were not attended to. Effective procedural treatment model, a holistic and multidimensional approach to the treatment of heart disease patients was proposed.

Keywords: Biopsychosocial, Coronary Heart Disease, Experience, Patients, Perception, Perspective.

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Authors: Hussein Alahmer, Amr Ahmed

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Liver cancer is one of the common diseases that cause the death. Early detection is important to diagnose and reduce the incidence of death. Improvements in medical imaging and image processing techniques have significantly enhanced interpretation of medical images. Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems based on these techniques play a vital role in the early detection of liver disease and hence reduce liver cancer death rate.  This paper presents an automated CAD system consists of three stages; firstly, automatic liver segmentation and lesion’s detection. Secondly, extracting features. Finally, classifying liver lesions into benign and malignant by using the novel contrasting feature-difference approach. Several types of intensity, texture features are extracted from both; the lesion area and its surrounding normal liver tissue. The difference between the features of both areas is then used as the new lesion descriptors. Machine learning classifiers are then trained on the new descriptors to automatically classify liver lesions into benign or malignant. The experimental results show promising improvements. Moreover, the proposed approach can overcome the problems of varying ranges of intensity and textures between patients, demographics, and imaging devices and settings.

Keywords: CAD system, difference of feature, Fuzzy c means, Liver segmentation.

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Authors: T. Malmir, U. Eicker

Abstract:

Landfilling of organic waste is still the predominant waste management method in the USA and Canada. Strategic plans for waste diversion from landfills are needed to increase material recovery and energy generation from waste. In this paper, we carried out a statistical survey on waste flow in the two cities New York and Montréal and estimated the energy recovery potential for each case. Data collection and analysis of the organic waste (food waste, yard waste, etc.), paper and cardboard, metal, glass, plastic, carton, textile, electronic products and other materials were done based on the reports published by the Department of Sanitation in New York and Service de l'Environnement in Montréal. In order to calculate the gas generation potential of organic waste, Buswell equation was used in which the molar mass of the elements was calculated based on their atomic weight and the amount of organic waste in New York and Montréal. Also, the higher and lower calorific value of the organic waste (solid base) and biogas (gas base) were calculated. According to the results, only 19% (598 kt) and 45% (415 kt) of New York and Montréal waste were diverted from landfills in 2017, respectively. The biogas generation potential of the generated food waste and yard waste amounted to 631 million m³ in New York and 173 million m³ in Montréal. The higher and lower calorific value of food waste were 3482 and 2792 GWh in New York and 441 and 354 GWh in Montréal, respectively. In case of yard waste, they were 816 and 681 GWh in New York and 636 and 531 GWh in Montréal, respectively. Considering the higher calorific value, this amount would mean a contribution of around 2.5% energy in these cities.

Keywords: Energy recovery, organic waste, urban energy modelling with INSEL, waste flow.

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Authors: A. Ukaew, C. Chauypen

Abstract:

Design concepts of real-time embedded system can be realized initially by introducing novel design approaches. In this literature, model based design approach and in-the-loop testing were employed early in the conceptual and preliminary phase to formulate design requirements and perform quick real-time verification. The design and analysis methodology includes simulation analysis, model based testing, and in-the-loop testing. The design of conceptual driveby- wire, or DBW, algorithm for electronic control unit, or ECU, was presented to demonstrate the conceptual design process, analysis, and functionality evaluation. The concepts of DBW ECU function can be implemented in the vehicle system to improve electric vehicle, or EV, conversion drivability. However, within a new development process, conceptual ECU functions and parameters are needed to be evaluated. As a result, the testing system was employed to support conceptual DBW ECU functions evaluation. For the current setup, the system components were consisted of actual DBW ECU hardware, electric vehicle models, and control area network or CAN protocol. The vehicle models and CAN bus interface were both implemented as real-time applications where ECU and CAN protocol functionality were verified according to the design requirements. The proposed system could potentially benefit in performing rapid real-time analysis of design parameters for conceptual system or software algorithm development.

Keywords: Drive-by-wire ECU, in-the-loop testing, modelbased design, real-time embedded system.

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Authors: A. R. Ommani, M. Chizari

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The purpose of the study reported here was designing Information Dissemination System (IDS) based E-learning in agricultural of Iran. A questionnaire was developed to designing Information Dissemination System. The questionnaire was distributed to 96 extension agents who work for Management of Extension and Farming System of Khuzestan province of Iran. Data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Appropriate statistical procedures for description (frequencies, percent, means, and standard deviations) were used. In this study there was a significant relationship between the age , IT skill and knowledge, years of extension work, the extend of information seeking motivation, level of job satisfaction and level of education with use of information technology by extension agent. According to extension agents five factors were ranked respectively as five top essential items to designing Information Dissemination System (IDS) based E-learning in agricultural of Iran. These factors include: 1) Establish communication between farmers, coordinators (extension agents), agricultural experts, research centers, and community by information technology. 2) The communication between all should be mutual. 3) The information must be based farmers need. 4) Internet used as a facility to transfer the advanced agricultural information to the farming community. 5) Farmers can be illiterate and speak a local and they are not expected to use the system directly. Knowledge produced by the agricultural scientist must be transformed in to computer understandable presentation. To designing Information Dissemination System, electronic communication, in the agricultural society and rural areas must be developed. This communication must be mutual between all factors.

Keywords: E-learning, information dissemination system, information technology.

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Authors: Ali Akbar Sadat Asl

Abstract:

Diagnosis and deciding about diseases in medical fields is facing innate uncertainty which can affect the whole process of treatment. This decision is made based on expert knowledge and the way in which an expert interprets the patient's condition, and the interpretation of the various experts from the patient's condition may be different. Fuzzy logic can provide mathematical modeling for many concepts, variables, and systems that are unclear and ambiguous and also it can provide a framework for reasoning, inference, control, and decision making in conditions of uncertainty. In systems with high uncertainty and high complexity, fuzzy logic is a suitable method for modeling. In this paper, we use type-2 fuzzy logic for uncertainty modeling that is in diagnosis of leukemia. The proposed system uses an indirect-direct approach and consists of two stages: In the first stage, the inference of blood test state is determined. In this step, we use an indirect approach where the rules are extracted automatically by implementing a clustering approach. In the second stage, signs of leukemia, duration of disease until its progress and the output of the first stage are combined and the final diagnosis of the system is obtained. In this stage, the system uses a direct approach and final diagnosis is determined by the expert. The obtained results show that the type-2 fuzzy expert system can diagnose leukemia with the average accuracy about 97%.

Keywords: Expert system, leukemia, medical diagnosis, type-2 fuzzy logic.

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Authors: N. L. S. Ahmad, Y. L. Thong, P. Nambiar

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An in vitro study was carried out to evaluate the feasibility of small field of view (FOV) cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) in determining endodontic working length. The objectives were to determine the accuracy of CBCT in measuring the estimated preoperative working lengths (EPWL), endodontic working lengths (EWL) and file lengths. Access cavities were prepared in 27 molars. For each root canal, the baseline electronic working length was determined using an EAL (Raypex 5). The teeth were then divided into overextended, non-modified and underextended groups and the lengths were adjusted accordingly. Imaging and measurements were made using the respective software of the RVG (Kodak RVG 6100) and CBCT units (Kodak 9000 3D). Root apices were then shaved and the apical constrictions viewed under magnification to measure the control working lengths. The paired t-test showed a statistically significant difference between CBCT EPWL and control length but the difference was too small to be clinically significant. From the Bland Altman analysis, the CBCT method had the widest range of 95% limits of agreement, reflecting its greater potential of error. In measuring file lengths, RVG had a bigger window of 95% limits of agreement compared to CBCT. Conclusions: (1) The clinically insignificant underestimation of the preoperative working length using small FOV CBCT showed that it is acceptable for use in the estimation of preoperative working length. (2) Small FOV CBCT may be used in working length determination but it is not as accurate as the currently practiced method of using the EAL. (3) It is also more accurate than RVG in measuring file lengths.

Keywords: Accuracy, CBCT, endodontic, measurement.

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Authors: Cristian Păuna

Abstract:

After the widespread release of electronic trading, automated trading systems have become a significant part of the business intelligence system of any modern financial investment company. An important part of the trades is made completely automatically today by computers using mathematical algorithms. The trading decisions are taken almost instantly by logical models and the orders are sent by low-latency automatic systems. This paper will present a real-time price prediction methodology designed especially for algorithmic trading. Based on the price cyclicality function, the methodology revealed will generate price cyclicality bands to predict the optimal levels for the entries and exits. In order to automate the trading decisions, the cyclicality bands will generate automated trading signals. We have found that the model can be used with good results to predict the changes in market behavior. Using these predictions, the model can automatically adapt the trading signals in real-time to maximize the trading results. The paper will reveal the methodology to optimize and implement this model in automated trading systems. After tests, it is proved that this methodology can be applied with good efficiency in different timeframes. Real trading results will be also displayed and analyzed in order to qualify the methodology and to compare it with other models. As a conclusion, it was found that the price prediction model using the price cyclicality function is a reliable trading methodology for algorithmic trading in the financial market.

Keywords: Algorithmic trading, automated trading systems, financial markets, high-frequency trading, price prediction.

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Authors: Ola A. Nassr, Ali M. Abd Alridha, Rua A. Naser, Rasha S. Abbas

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Background: Excessive and inappropriate use of antimicrobial agents among hospitalized patients remains an important patient safety and public health issue worldwide. Not only does this behavior incur unnecessary cost but it is also associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study is to obtain an insight into the prescribing patterns of antibiotics in surgical and medical wards, to help identify a scope for improvement in service delivery. Method: A simple point prevalence survey included a convenience sample of 200 patients admitted to medical and surgical wards in a government teaching hospital in Baghdad between October 2017 and April 2018. Data were collected by a trained pharmacy intern using a standardized form. Patient’s demographics and details of the prescribed antibiotics, including dose, frequency of dosing and route of administration, were reported. Patients were included if they had been admitted at least 24 hours before the survey. Patients under 18 years of age, having a diagnosis of cancer or shock, or being admitted to the intensive care unit, were excluded. Data were checked and entered by the authors into Excel and were subjected to frequency analysis, which was carried out on anonymized data to protect patient confidentiality. Results: Overall, 88.5% of patients (n=177) received 293 antibiotics during their hospital admission, with a small variation between wards (80%-97%). The average number of antibiotics prescribed per patient was 1.65, ranging from 1.3 for medical patients to 1.95 for surgical patients. Parenteral third-generation cephalosporins were the most commonly prescribed at a rate of 54.3% (n=159) followed by nitroimidazole 29.4% (n=86), quinolones 7.5% (n=22) and macrolides 4.4% (n=13), while carbapenems and aminoglycosides were the least prescribed together accounting for only 4.4% (n=13). The intravenous route was the most common route of administration, used for 96.6% of patients (n=171). Indications were reported in only 63.8% of cases. Culture to identify pathogenic organisms was employed in only 0.5% of cases. Conclusion: Broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed at an alarming rate. This practice may provoke antibiotic resistance and adversely affect the patient outcome. Implementation of an antibiotic stewardship program is warranted to enhance the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of antimicrobial agents.

Keywords: Acute care, antibiotic misuse, Iraq, prescribing.

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Authors: Ahmed. S. Alasmari, M. S. Soliman, Magdy M. El-Rayes

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This study focuses on the effect of the addition of magnesium (Mg) and silver (Ag) on the mechanical properties of aluminum based alloys. The alloying elements will be added at different levels using the factorial design of experiments of 2²; the two factors are Mg and Ag at two levels of concentration. The superior mechanical properties of the produced Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys after aging will be resulted from a unique type of precipitation named as Ω-phase. The formed precipitate enhanced the tensile strength and thermal stability. This paper further investigated the microstructure and mechanical properties of as cast Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloys after being complete homogenized treatment at 520 °C for 8 hours followed by isothermally age hardening process at 190 °C for different periods of time. The homogenization at 520 °C for 8 hours was selected based on homogenization study at various temperatures and times. The alloys’ microstructures were studied by using optical microscopy (OM). In addition to that, the fracture surface investigation was performed using a scanning electronic microscope (SEM). Studying the microstructure of aged Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys reveal that the grains are equiaxed with an average grain size of about 50 µm. A detailed fractography study for fractured surface of the aged alloys exhibited a mixed fracture whereby the random fracture suggested crack propagation along the grain boundaries while the dimples indicated that the fracture was ductile. The present result has shown that alloy 5 has the highest hardness values and the best mechanical behaviors.

Keywords: Precipitation hardening, aluminum alloys, aging, design of experiments, analysis of variance, heat treatments.

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