Search results for: heart rate variability.

Authors: S. Youthao, M. Jaroensutasinee, K. Jaroensutasinee

Abstract:

This study investigated climatic factors associated with influenza cases in Southern Thailand. The main aim for use regression analysis to investigate possible causual relationship of climatic factors and variability between the border of the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Southern Thailand had the highest Influenza incidences among four regions (i.e. north, northeast, central and southern Thailand). In this study, there were 14 climatic factors: mean relative humidity, maximum relative humidity, minimum relative humidity, rainfall, rainy days, daily maximum rainfall, pressure, maximum wind speed, mean wind speed, sunshine duration, mean temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and temperature difference (i.e. maximum – minimum temperature). Multiple stepwise regression technique was used to fit the statistical model. The results indicated that the mean wind speed and the minimum relative humidity were positively associated with the number of influenza cases on the Andaman Sea side. The maximum wind speed was positively associated with the number of influenza cases on the Gulf of Thailand side.

Keywords: Influenza, Climatic Factor, Relative Humidity, Rainfall, Pressure, Wind Speed, sunshine duration, Temperature, Andaman Sea, Gulf of Thailand, Southern Thailand.

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Authors: M. Irannezhad, E. H. N. Gashti, S. Mohammadighavam, M. Zarrini, B. Kløve

Abstract:

Climate warming would increase rainfall by shifting precipitation falling form from snow to rain, and would accelerate snow cover disappearing by increasing snowpack. Using temperature and precipitation data in the temperature-index snowmelt model, we evaluated variability of snowfall and continuous snow cover duration (CSCD) during 1944-2010 over Pelso, central Finland. Mann- Kendall non-parametric test determined that annual precipitation increased by 2.69 (mm/year, p<0.05) during the study period, but no clear trend in annual temperature. Both annual rainfall and snowfall increased by 1.67 and 0.78 (mm/year, p<0.05), respectively. CSCD was generally about 205 days from 14 October to 6 May. No clear trend was found in CSCD over Pelso. Spearman’s rank correlation showed most significant relationships of annual snowfall with the East Atlantic (EA) pattern, and CSCD with the East Atlantic/West Russia (EA/WR) pattern. Increased precipitation with no warming temperature caused the rainfall and snowfall to increase, while no effects on CSCD.

Keywords: Variations, snowfall, snow cover duration, temperature-index snowmelt model, teleconnection patterns.

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Authors: N. Tsvetkova, R. Harizanov A. Ivanova, I. Rainova, N. Yancheva-Petrova, D. Strashimirov, R. Enikova, M. Videnova, E. Kaneva, I. Kaftandjiev, V. Levterova, I. Simeonovski, N. Yanev, G. Hinkov

Abstract:

The Pneumocystis jirovecii (P. jirovecii) and protozoan of the genera Acanthamoeba, Cryptosporidium, and Toxoplasma gondii are opportunistic pathogens that can cause life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients. Aim of the study was to evaluate the coinfection rate with opportunistic protozoal agents among Bulgarian patients diagnosed with P. jirovecii pneumonia. 38 pulmonary samples were collected from 38 patients (28 HIV-infected) with P. jirovecii infection. P. jirovecii DNA was detected by real-time PCR targeting the large mitochondrial subunit ribosomal RNA gene. Acanthamoeba was determined by genus-specific conventional PCR assay. Real-time PCR for the detection of a Toxoplasma gondii and Cryptosporidium DNA fragment was used. Pneumocystis DNA was detected in all 38 specimens; 28 (73.7%) were from HIV-infected patients. Three (10,7%) of them were coinfected with T. gondii and 1 (3.6%) with Cryptosporidium. In the group of non-HIV-infected (n = 10), Cryptosporidium DNA was detected in an infant (10%). Acanthamoeba DNA was not found in the tested samples. The current study showed a relatively low rate of coinfections of Cryptosporidium spp./T. gondii and P. jirovecii in the Bulgarian patients studied.

Keywords: Coinfection, opportunistic protozoal agents, Pneumocystis jirovecii, pulmonary infections.

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Authors: D. SuganyaDevi, G. Padmavathi

Abstract:

Reliable secure multicast communication in mobile adhoc networks is challenging due to its inherent characteristics of infrastructure-less architecture with lack of central authority, high packet loss rates and limited resources such as bandwidth, time and power. Many emerging commercial and military applications require secure multicast communication in adhoc environments. Hence key management is the fundamental challenge in achieving reliable secure communication using multicast key distribution for mobile adhoc networks. Thus in designing a reliable multicast key distribution scheme, reliability and congestion control over throughput are essential components. This paper proposes and evaluates the performance of an enhanced optimized multicast cluster tree algorithm with destination sequenced distance vector routing protocol to provide reliable multicast key distribution. Simulation results in NS2 accurately predict the performance of proposed scheme in terms of key delivery ratio and packet loss rate under varying network conditions. This proposed scheme achieves reliability, while exhibiting low packet loss rate with high key delivery ratio compared with the existing scheme.

Keywords: Key Distribution, Mobile Adhoc Network, Multicast and Reliability.

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Authors: Chih-Chung Chang, Sy-Chi Kuo, Chen-Kang Huang, Sih-Li Chen

Abstract:

This study experimentally and numerically investigates motor cooling performance. The motor consists of a centrifugal fan, two axial fans, a shaft, a stator, a rotor and a heat exchanger with 637 cooling tubes. The pressure rise-flow rate (P-Q) performance curves of the cooling fans at 1800 rpm are tested using a test apparatus complying with the Chinese National Standard (CNS) 2726. Compared with the experimental measurements, the numerical analysis results show that the P-Q performance curves of the axial fan and centrifugal fan can be estimated within about 2% and 6%, respectively. By using the simplified model, setting up the heat exchanger and stator as porous media, the flow field in the motor is calculated. By using the results of the flow field near the rotor and stator, and subjecting the heat generation rate as a boundary condition, the temperature distributions of the stator and rotor are also calculated. The simulation results show that the calculated temperature of the stator winding near the axial fans is lower by about 5% than the measured value, and the calculated temperature of the stator core located at the center of the stator is about 1% higher than the measured value. Besides, discussion is made to improve the motor cooling performance.

Keywords: Motor cooling, P-Q performance curves, CNS, porous media.

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Authors: Sankar Chandrasekar, Rana Niranchan V.S., Joseph Sidharth Leon

Abstract:

As the demand and prices of various petroleum products have been on the rise in recent years, there is a growing need for alternative fuels. Biodiesel, which consists of alkyl monoesters of fatty acids from vegetable oils and animal fats, is considered as an alternative to petroleum diesel. Biodiesel has comparable performance with that of diesel and has lower brake specific fuel consumption than diesel with significant reduction in emissions of CO, hydrocarbons (HC) and smoke with however, a slight increase in NOx emissions. This paper analyzes the effect of cooled exhaust gas recirculation in the combustion characteristics of a direct injection compression ignition engine using biodiesel blended fuel as opposed to the conventional system. The combustion parameters such as cylinder pressure, heat release rate, delay period and peak pressure were analyzed at various loads. The maximum cylinder pressure reduces as the fraction of biodiesel increases in the blend the maximum rate of pressure rise was found to be higher for diesel at higher engine loads.

Keywords: Cylinder pressure, delay period, EGR, heat release.

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Authors: Goreti Botelho, Filomena Gomes, Fernanda M. Ferreira, Ilda Caldeira

Abstract:

The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo L.) is a small tree or shrub from botanical Ericaceae family that grows spontaneously nearby the Mediterranean basin and produce edible red fruits. A traditional processed fruit application, in Mediterranean countries, is the production of a spirit (known as aguardente de medronho, in Portugal) obtained from the fermented fruit. The main objective of our study was to contribute to the knowledge about the influence of the degree of maturation of fruits in the volatile composition and quality of arbutus spirit. The major volatiles in the three distillates fractions (head, heart and tail) obtained from fermentation of two different fruit maturation levels were quantified by GC-FID analysis and ANOVA one-way was performed. Additionally, the total antioxidant capacity and total phenolic compounds of both arbutus fruit spirits were determined, by ABTS and Folin-Ciocalteau method, respectively. The methanol concentration is higher (1022.39 g/hL a.a.) in the spirit made from fruits with highest total soluble solids, which is a value above the legal limit (1000 g/hL a.a.). Overall, our study emphasizes, for the first time, the influence of maturation degree of arbutus fruits in the spirit volatile composition and quality.

Keywords: Arbutus fruit, maturation, quality, spirit.

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Authors: D. Latha, V. Sunitha, Samson Mathew

Abstract:

In India, most of the pavement is laid by bituminous road and the consumption of binder is high for pavement construction and also modified binders are used to satisfy any specific pavement requirement. Since the binders are visco-elastic material which is having the mechanical properties of binder transition from viscoelastic solid to visco-elastic fluid. In this paper, two different protocols were used to measure the viscosity property of binder using a Brookfield Viscometer and there is a need to find the appropriate mixing and compaction temperatures of various types of binders which can result in complete aggregate coating and adequate field density of HMA mixtures. The aim of this work is to find the transition temperature from Non-Newtonian behavior to Newtonian behavior of the binder by adopting a steady shear protocol and the shear rate ramp protocol. The transition from non-Newtonian to Newtonian can occur through an increase of temperature and shear of the material. The test has been conducted for unmodified binder VG 30. The transition temperature was found in the unmodified binder VG is 120oC. Therefore, the application of both modified binder and unmodified binder in the pavement construction needs to be studied properly by considering temperature and traffic loading factors of the respective project site.

Keywords: Unmodified and modified binders, Brookfield Viscometer, transition temperature, steady shear, shear rate protocol.

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Authors: Rasha Salameh

Abstract:

In light of the tense relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran, this research paper sheds some light on Saudi-owned television network, Al-Arabiya’s reporting of the Coronavirus in the Gulf region. Particularly because most of the cases in the beginning were coming from Iran, some programs of this Saudi channel embraced a conspiracy theory. Hate speech has been used in the talking and discussions about the topic. The results of these discussions will be detailed in this paper in percentages with regard to the research sample, which includes five programs on the Al-Arabiya channel: ‘DNA’, ‘Marraya’ (Mirrors), ‘Panorama’, ‘Tafaolcom’ (Your Interaction) and ‘Diplomatic Street’, in the period between January 19, that is, the date of the first case in Iran, and April 10, 2020. The research shows the use of a conspiracy theory in the programs, in addition to some professional violations. The surveyed sample also shows that the matter receded due to the Arab Gulf states' preoccupation with the successively increasing cases that have appeared there since the start of the pandemic. The results indicate that hate speech was present in the sample at a rate of 98.1%, and that most of the programs that dealt with the Iranian issue under the Coronavirus pandemic on Al Arabiya used the conspiracy theory at a rate of 75.5%.

Keywords: Al-Arabiya, Iran, COVID-19, hate speech, conspiracy theory, politicization of the pandemic

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Authors: Manisha Chaudhary, Joydip Dhar, Govind Prasad Sahu

Abstract:

A mathematical model is proposed considering the forest biomass density B(t), density of wood based industries W(t) and density of synthetic industries S(t). It is assumed that the forest biomass grows logistically in the absence of wood based industries, but depletion of forestry biomass is due to presence of wood based industries. The growth of wood based industries depends on B(t), while S(t) grows at a constant rate, independent of B(t). Further there is a competition between W(t) and S(t) according to market demand. The proposed model has four ecologically feasible steady states, namely, E1: forest biomass free and wood industries free equilibrium; E2: wood industries free equilibrium and two coexisting equilibria E∗1 , E∗2 . Behavior of the system near all feasible equilibria is analyzed using the stability theory of differential equations. In the proposed model, the natural depletion rate h1 is a crucial parameter and system exhibits Hopf-bifurcation about the non-trivial equilibrium with respect to h1. The analytical results are verified using numerical simulation.

Keywords: A mathematical model, Competition between wood based and synthetic industries, Hopf-bifurcation, Stability analysis.

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Authors: Sh. Edrisi, M. Moeeni, A. Farahbakhsh

Abstract:

To study the effect of nitrogenous additive spray solution on the efficacy of three herbicides i.e. pinoxaden (Trade name: Axial), sulfosulfuron+metsulfuron-methyl (Trade name: Total) and sulfosulfuron (Trade name: Apirus) in controlling wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum C. Koch), in different growth stages, a greenhouse experiment as a split plot in a completely randomized design in three replications was conducted. One month after treatments, all plants were harvested and growth parameters were determined. The data were analyzed with computer. The results showed that the herbicide applications with and without nitrogen additive caused significant reductions in growth parameters of wild barley at 2-4 leaf stage. However, the plants were not killed by this herbicide. Plants were killed completely due to applications of the two other herbicides i.e. Apirus and Total at 2-4 leaf. There was no significant difference between the effect of these two herbicides. There was no significant difference between the highest rate of each herbicide used alone and that of the lowest rate with nitrogenous additive.

Keywords: Growth stage, herbicide, nitrogenous additive, wild barley.

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Authors: Dalia. G. Aseel

Abstract:

Begomoviruses are economically important plant viruses that infect dicotyledonous plants and exclusively transmitted by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci. Here, replicative form was isolated from Okra, Cotton, Tomato plants and whitefly infected with Begomoviruses. Using coat protein specific primers (AV1), the viral infection was verified with amplicon at 450 bp. The sequence of OLCuV-AV1 gene was recorded and received an accession number (FJ441605) from Genebank. The phylogenetic tree of OLCuV was closely related to Okra leaf curl virus previously isolated from Cameroon and USA with nucleotide sequence identity of 92%. The protein purification was carried out using His-Tag methodology by using Affinity Chromatography. The purified protein was separated on SDS-PAGE analysis and an enriched expected size of band at 30 kDa was observed. Furthermore, RAPD and SDS-PAGE were used to detect genetic variability between different hosts of okra leaf curl virus (OLCuV), cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV), tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCuV) and the whitefly vector. Finally, the present study would help to understand the relationship between the whitefly and different economical crops in Egypt.

Keywords: Begomovirus, AV1 gene, sequence, cloning, whitefly, okra, cotton, tomato, RAPD, phylogenetic tree and SDS-PAGE.

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Authors: R. Bremananth, A. Chitra

Abstract:

Cryptography provides the secure manner of information transmission over the insecure channel. It authenticates messages based on the key but not on the user. It requires a lengthy key to encrypt and decrypt the sending and receiving the messages, respectively. But these keys can be guessed or cracked. Moreover, Maintaining and sharing lengthy, random keys in enciphering and deciphering process is the critical problem in the cryptography system. A new approach is described for generating a crypto key, which is acquired from a person-s iris pattern. In the biometric field, template created by the biometric algorithm can only be authenticated with the same person. Among the biometric templates, iris features can efficiently be distinguished with individuals and produces less false positives in the larger population. This type of iris code distribution provides merely less intra-class variability that aids the cryptosystem to confidently decrypt messages with an exact matching of iris pattern. In this proposed approach, the iris features are extracted using multi resolution wavelets. It produces 135-bit iris codes from each subject and is used for encrypting/decrypting the messages. The autocorrelators are used to recall original messages from the partially corrupted data produced by the decryption process. It intends to resolve the repudiation and key management problems. Results were analyzed in both conventional iris cryptography system (CIC) and non-repudiation iris cryptography system (NRIC). It shows that this new approach provides considerably high authentication in enciphering and deciphering processes.

Keywords: Autocorrelators, biometrics cryptography, irispatterns, wavelets.

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Authors: Bunakiye R. Japheth, Ogude U. Cyril

Abstract:

Since the process of transforming user requirements to modeling constructs are not very well supported by domain-specific frameworks, it became necessary to integrate domain requirements with the specific architectures to achieve an integrated customizable solutions space via artifact orientation. Domain-specific modeling language specifications of model-driven engineering technologies focus more on requirements within a particular domain, which can be tailored to aid the domain expert in expressing domain concepts effectively. Modeling processes through domain-specific language formalisms are highly volatile due to dependencies on domain concepts or used process models. A capable solution is given by artifact orientation that stresses on the results rather than expressing a strict dependence on complicated platforms for model creation and development. Based on this premise, domain-specific methods for producing artifacts without having to take into account the complexity and variability of platforms for model definitions can be integrated to support customizable development. In this paper, we discuss methods for the integration capabilities and necessities within a common structure and semantics that contribute a metamodel for artifact-orientation, which leads to a reusable software layer with concrete syntax capable of determining design intents from domain expert. These concepts forming the language formalism are established from models explained within the oil and gas pipelines industry.

Keywords: Control process, metrics of engineering, structured abstraction, semantic model.

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Authors: Negar Riazifar, Nigel G. Stocks

Abstract:

This paper proposes strategies in level crossing (LC) sampling and reconstruction that provide high fidelity signal reconstruction for speech signals; these strategies circumvent the problem of exponentially increasing number of samples as the bit-depth is increased and hence are highly efficient. Specifically, the results indicate that the distribution of the intervals between samples is one of the key factors in the quality of signal reconstruction; including samples with short intervals does not improve the accuracy of the signal reconstruction, whilst samples with large intervals lead to numerical instability. The proposed sampling method, termed reduced conventional level crossing (RCLC) sampling, exploits redundancy between samples to improve the efficiency of the sampling without compromising performance. A reconstruction technique is also proposed that enhances the numerical stability through linear interpolation of samples separated by large intervals. Interpolation is demonstrated to improve the accuracy of the signal reconstruction in addition to the numerical stability. We further demonstrate that the RCLC and interpolation methods can give useful levels of signal recovery even if the average sampling rate is less than the Nyquist rate.

Keywords: Level crossing sampling, numerical stability, speech processing, trigonometric polynomial.

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Authors: R.Karami, B.Kamkari, K.Kashefi

Abstract:

Applying corona wind as a novel technique can lead to a great level of heat and mass transfer augmentation by using very small amount of energy. Enhancement of forced flow evaporation rate by applying electric field (corona wind) has been experimentally evaluated in this study. Corona wind produced by a fine wire electrode which is charged with positive high DC voltage impinges to water surface and leads to evaporation enhancement by disturbing the saturated air layer over water surface. The study was focused on the effect of corona wind velocity, electrode spacing and air flow velocity on the level of evaporation enhancement. Two sets of experiments, i.e. with and without electric field, have been conducted. Data obtained from the first experiment were used as reference for evaluation of evaporation enhancement at the presence of electric field. Applied voltages ranged from corona threshold voltage to spark over voltage at 1 kV increments. The results showed that corona wind has great enhancement effect on water evaporation rate, but its effectiveness gradually diminishes by increasing air flow velocity. Maximum enhancements were 7.3 and 3.6 for air velocities of 0.125 and 1.75 m/s, respectively.

Keywords: Electrohydodynamics (EHD), corona wind, high electric field, Evaporation enhancement

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Authors: Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, C. Ardil

Abstract:

An effective approach for realizing the binary tree structure, representing a combinational logic functionality with enhanced throughput, is discussed in this paper. The optimization in maximum operating frequency was achieved through delay minimization, which in turn was possible by means of reducing the depth of the binary network. The proposed synthesis methodology has been validated by experimentation with FPGA as the target technology. Though our proposal is technology independent, yet the heuristic enables better optimization in throughput even after technology mapping for such Boolean functionality; whose reduced CNF form is associated with a lesser literal cost than its reduced DNF form at the Boolean equation level. For cases otherwise, our method converges to similar results as that of [12]. The practical results obtained for a variety of case studies demonstrate an improvement in the maximum throughput rate for Spartan IIE (XC2S50E-7FT256) and Spartan 3 (XC3S50-4PQ144) FPGA logic families by 10.49% and 13.68% respectively. With respect to the LUTs and IOBUFs required for physical implementation of the requisite non-regenerative logic functionality, the proposed method enabled savings to the tune of 44.35% and 44.67% respectively, over the existing efficient method available in literature [12].

Keywords: Binary logic tree, FPGA based design, Boolean function, Throughput rate, CNF, DNF.

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Authors: Hamed Sadeghi, Pouya A. Panahi, Hamed Nasiri, Mohammad Sadeghi

Abstract:

Collapsible soils like loess comprise an important category of problematic soils for construction purposes and sustainable development. As a result, research on both geological and geotechnical aspects of this type of soil have been in progress for decades. However, considerable natural variability in physical properties of in-situ loess strata even in a single block sample challenges the fundamental laboratory investigations. The reason behind this is that it is somehow impossible to remove the effect of a specific factor like void ratio from fair comparisons to come with a reliable conclusion. In order to cope with this limitation, two types of artificially made dispersive and calcareous loess are introduced which can be easily reproduced in any soil mechanics laboratory provided that all its compositions are known and controlled. The collapse potential is explored for a variety of soil water salinity and lime content and comparisons are made against the natural soil behavior. Trends are reported for the influence of pore water salinity on collapse potential under different osmotic flow conditions. The most important advantage of artificial loess is the ease of controlling cementing agent content like calcite or dispersive potential for studying their influence on mechanical soil behavior.

Keywords: Artificial loess, unsaturated soils, collapse potential, dispersive clays, laboratory tests.

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Authors: M Nazrul-Hakim, A Yaacob, Y Adam, A Zuraini

Abstract:

This study examined the toxicological effects and safety of polypeptide k isolated from the seeds of Momordica charantia in laboratory rats. 30 male Sprague Dawley rats (12 weeks old, bodyweight 180-200 g) were randomly divided into 3 groups (1000 mg/kg, 500 mg and 0 mg/kg). Rats were acclimatized to laboratory conditions for 7 days and at day 8 rats were dosed orally with polypeptide k (in 2% DMSO/normal saline) and the controls received the dosed vehicle only. Rats were then observed for 72 hours before sacrificed. Rats were anaesthetized by pentobarbital (50 mg/kg ip) and 2-3.0 mL of blood was taken by cardiac puncture and rats were scarified by anaesthetic overdose. Immediately, organs (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys) were weigh and taken for histology. Organ sections were then evaluated by a histopathologist. Serum samples were assayed for liver functions (ALT and γ-GT) and kidney functions (BUN and creatinine). All rats showed normal behavior after the dosing and no statistical changes were observed in all blood parameters and organ weight. Histological examinations revealed normal organ structures. In conclusion, dosing of rats up to 1000 mg/kg did not have any effects on the rat behavior, liver or kidney functions nor histology of the selected organs.

Keywords: Polypeptide k, safety, histology, toxicology, Momordica charantia

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Authors: S. Sowmyayani, P. Arockia Jansi Rani

Abstract:

This paper integrates Octagon and Square Search pattern (OCTSS) motion estimation algorithm into H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding) video codec in Adaptive Group of Pictures (AGOP) mode. AGOP structure is computed based on scene change in the video sequence. Octagon and square search pattern block-based motion estimation method is implemented in inter-prediction process of H.264/AVC. Both these methods reduce bit rate and computational complexity while maintaining the quality of the video sequence respectively. Experiments are conducted for different types of video sequence. The results substantially proved that the bit rate, computation time and PSNR gain achieved by the proposed method is better than the existing H.264/AVC with fixed GOP and AGOP. With a marginal gain in quality of 0.28dB and average gain in bitrate of 132.87kbps, the proposed method reduces the average computation time by 27.31 minutes when compared to the existing state-of-art H.264/AVC video codec.

Keywords: Block Distortion Measure, Block Matching Algorithms, H.264/AVC, Motion estimation, Search patterns, Shot cut detection.

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Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

Abstract:

Chronologic age (CA) of individuals is closely related to obesity and generally affects the magnitude of obesity parameters. On the other hand, close association between basal metabolic rate (BMR) and metabolic age (MA) is also a matter of concern. It is suggested that MA higher than CA is the indicator of the need to improve the metabolic rate. In this study, the aim was to assess some commonly used obesity parameters, such as obesity degree, visceral adiposity, BMR, BMR-to-weight ratio, in several groups with varying differences between MA and CA values. The study comprises adults, whose ages vary between 18 and 79 years. Four groups were constituted. Group 1, 2, 3 and 4 were composed of 55, 33, 76 and 47 adults, respectively. The individuals exhibiting -1, 0 and +1 for their MA-CA values were involved in Group 1, which was considered as the control group. Those, whose MA-CA values varying between -5 and -10 participated in Group 2. Those, whose MAs above their real ages were divided into two groups [Group 3 (MA-CA; from +5 to + 10) and Group 4 (MA-CA; from +11 to + 12)]. Body mass index (BMI) values were calculated. TANITA body composition monitor using bioelectrical impedance analysis technology was used to obtain values for obesity degree, visceral adiposity, BMR and BMR-to-weight ratio. The compiled data were evaluated statistically using a statistical package program; SPSS. Mean ± SD values were determined. Correlation analyses were performed. The statistical significance degree was accepted as p < 0.05. The increase in BMR was positively correlated with obesity degree. MAs and CAs of the groups were 39.9 ± 16.8 vs 39.9 ± 16.7 years for Group 1, 45.0 ± 15.3 vs 51.4 ± 15.7 years for Group 2, 47.2 ± 12.7 vs 40.0 ± 12.7 years for Group 3, and 53.6 ± 14.8 vs 42 ± 14.8 years for Group 4. BMI values of the groups were 24.3 ± 3.6 kg/m², 23.2 ± 1.7 kg/m², 30.3 ± 3.8 kg/m², and 40.1 ± 5.1 kg/m² for Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Values obtained for BMR were 1599 ± 328 kcal in Group 1, 1463 ± 198 kcal in Group 2, 1652 ± 350 kcal in Group 3, and 1890 ± 360 kcal in Group 4. A correlation was observed between BMR and MA-CA values in Group 1. No correlation was detected in other groups. On the other hand, statistically significant correlations between MA-CA values and obesity degree, BMI as well as BMR/weight were found in Group 3 and in Group 4. It was concluded that upon consideration of these findings in terms of MA-CA values, BMR-to-weight ratio was found to be much more useful indicator of the severe increase in obesity development than BMR. Also, the lack of associations between MA and BMR as well as BMR-to-weight ratio emphasize the importance of consideration of MA-CA values rather than MA.

Keywords: Basal metabolic rate, chronologic age, metabolic age, obesity degree.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, M. Mahdavi, H. Haddadian

Abstract:

Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is an important component of power system planning that its task is to minimize the network construction and operational cost while satisfying the demand increasing, imposed technical and economic conditions. Up till now, various methods have been presented to solve the static transmission network expansion planning (STNEP) problem. But in all of these methods, the lines adequacy rate has not been studied after the planning horizon, i.e. when the expanded network misses its adequacy and needs to be expanded again. In this paper, in order to take transmission lines condition after expansion in to account from the line loading view point, the adequacy of transmission network is considered for solution of STNEP problem. To obtain optimal network arrangement, a decimal codification genetic algorithm (DCGA) is being used for minimizing the network construction and operational cost. The effectiveness of the proposed idea is tested on the Garver's six-bus network. The results evaluation reveals that the annual worth of network adequacy has a considerable effect on the network arrangement. In addition, the obtained network, based on the DCGA, has lower investment cost and higher adequacy rate. Thus, the network satisfies the requirements of delivering electric power more safely and reliably to load centers.

Keywords: STNEP Problem, Network Adequacy, DCGA.

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Authors: Deepti Tamrakar, Pritee Khanna

Abstract:

This manuscript presents, palmprint recognition by combining different texture extraction approaches with high accuracy. The Region of Interest (ROI) is decomposed into different frequencytime sub-bands by wavelet transform up-to two levels and only the approximate image of two levels is selected, which is known as Approximate Image ROI (AIROI). This AIROI has information of principal lines of the palm. The Competitive Index is used as the features of the palmprint, in which six Gabor filters of different orientations convolve with the palmprint image to extract the orientation information from the image. The winner-take-all strategy is used to select dominant orientation for each pixel, which is known as Competitive Index. Further, PCA is applied to select highly uncorrelated Competitive Index features, to reduce the dimensions of the feature vector, and to project the features on Eigen space. The similarity of two palmprints is measured by the Euclidean distance metrics. The algorithm is tested on Hong Kong PolyU palmprint database. Different AIROI of different wavelet filter families are also tested with the Competitive Index and PCA. AIROI of db7 wavelet filter achievs Equal Error Rate (EER) of 0.0152% and Genuine Acceptance Rate (GAR) of 99.67% on the palm database of Hong Kong PolyU.

Keywords: DWT, EER, Euclidean Distance, Gabor filter, PCA, ROI.

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Authors: Jahedul Islam Chowdhury, Bao Kha Nguyen, David Thornhill, Roy Douglas, Stephen Glover

Abstract:

Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is the most commonly used method for recovering energy from small sources of heat. The investigation of the ORC in supercritical condition is a new research area as it has a potential to generate high power and thermal efficiency in a waste heat recovery system. This paper presents a steady state ORC model in supercritical condition and its simulations with a real engine’s exhaust data. The key component of ORC, evaporator, is modelled using finite volume method, modelling of all other components of the waste heat recovery system such as pump, expander and condenser are also presented. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of mass flow rate and evaporator outlet temperature on the efficiency of the waste heat recovery process. Additionally, the necessity of maintaining an optimum evaporator outlet temperature is also investigated. Simulation results show that modification of mass flow rate is the key to changing the operating temperature at the evaporator outlet.

Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle, supercritical condition, steady state model, waste heat recovery.

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Authors: Hasan Furkan Kurt, Tugba Nur Atabey, Onat Cavit Dereli, Ahmad Salmanogli, H. Selcuk Gecim

Abstract:

In the article, the main goal is to study the effect of the plasmonic properties on the photocurrent generated by a photodetector. Fundamentally, a typical photodetector is designed and simulated using the finite element methods. To utilize the plasmonic effect, gold nanoparticles with different shape, size and morphology are buried into the intrinsic region. Plasmonic effect is arisen through the interaction of the incoming light with nanoparticles by which electrical properties of the photodetector are manipulated. In fact, using plasmonic nanoparticles not only increases the absorption bandwidth of the incoming light, but also generates a high intensity near-field close to the plasmonic nanoparticles. Those properties strongly affect the generated photocurrent. The simulation results show that using plasmonic nanoparticles significantly enhances the electrical properties of the photodetectors. More importantly, one can easily manipulate the plasmonic properties of the gold nanoparticles through engineering the nanoparticles' size, shape and morphology. Another important phenomenon is plasmon-plasmon interaction inside the photodetector. It is shown that plasmon-plasmon interaction improves the electron-hole generation rate by which the rate of the current generation is severely enhanced. This is the key factor that we want to focus on, to improve the photodetector electrical properties.

Keywords: Nanoparticles, plasmonic, plasmon-plasmon interaction, plasmonic photodetector.

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Authors: Ilaria Lucrezia Amerise

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The statistical modelling of precipitation data for a given portion of territory is fundamental for the monitoring of climatic conditions and for Hydrogeological Management Plans (HMP). This modelling is rendered particularly complex by the changes taking place in the frequency and intensity of precipitation, presumably to be attributed to the global climate change. This paper applies the Wakeby distribution (with 5 parameters) as a theoretical reference model. The number and the quality of the parameters indicate that this distribution may be the appropriate choice for the interpolations of the hydrological variables and, moreover, the Wakeby is particularly suitable for describing phenomena producing heavy tails. The proposed estimation methods for determining the value of the Wakeby parameters are the same as those used for density functions with heavy tails. The commonly used procedure is the classic method of moments weighed with probabilities (probability weighted moments, PWM) although this has often shown difficulty of convergence, or rather, convergence to a configuration of inappropriate parameters. In this paper, we analyze the problem of the likelihood estimation of a random variable expressed through its quantile function. The method of maximum likelihood, in this case, is more demanding than in the situations of more usual estimation. The reasons for this lie, in the sampling and asymptotic properties of the estimators of maximum likelihood which improve the estimates obtained with indications of their variability and, therefore, their accuracy and reliability. These features are highly appreciated in contexts where poor decisions, attributable to an inefficient or incomplete information base, can cause serious damages.

Keywords: Generalized extreme values (GEV), likelihood estimation, precipitation data, Wakeby distribution.

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Authors: Diqiao S. Wei, M. Hossain, Zaid S. Saleh

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Polyphenolics and sugar are the components of many fruit juices. In this work, the performance of ultra-filtration (UF) for separating phenolic compounds from apple juice was studied by performing batch experiments in a membrane module with an area of 0.1 m2 and fitted with a regenerated cellulose membrane of 1 kDa MWCO. The effects of various operating conditions: transmembrane pressure (3, 4, 5 bar), temperature (30, 35, 40 ºC), pH (2, 3, 4, 5), feed concentration (3, 5, 7, 10, 15 ºBrix for apple juice) and feed flow rate (1, 1.5, 1.8 L/min) on the performance were determined. The optimum operating conditions were: transmembrane pressure 4 bar, temperature 30 ºC, feed flow rate 1 – 1.8 L/min, pH 3 and 10 Brix (apple juice). After performing ultrafiltration under these conditions, the concentration of polyphenolics in retentate was increased by a factor of up to 2.7 with up to 70% recovered in the permeate and with approx. 20% of the sugar in that stream.. Application of diafiltration (addition of water to the concentrate) can regain the flux by a factor of 1.5, which has been decreased due to fouling. The material balance performed on the process has shown the amount of deposits on the membrane and the extent of fouling in the system. In conclusion, ultrafiltration has been demonstrated as a potential technology to separate the polyphenolics and sugars from their mixtures and can be applied to remove sugars from fruit juice.

Keywords: Fouling, membrane, polyphenols, ultrafiltration.

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Authors: Anubha Kaushik, Raman Preet

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Distillery wastewater in the form of spent wash is a complex and strong industrial effluent, with high load of organic pollutants that may deplete dissolved oxygen on being discharged into aquatic systems and contaminate groundwater by leaching of pollutants, while untreated spent wash disposed on land acidifies the soil. Stringent legislative measures have therefore been framed in different countries for discharge standards of distillery effluent. Utilising the organic pollutants present in various types of wastes as food by mixed microbial populations is emerging as an eco-friendly approach in the recent years, in which complex organic matter is converted into simpler forms, and simultaneously useful gases are produced as renewable and clean energy sources. In the present study, wastewater from a rice bran based distillery has been used as the substrate in a dark fermenter, and native microbial consortium from the digester sludge has been used as the inoculum to treat the wastewater and produce hydrogen. After optimising the operational conditions in batch reactors, sequential batch mode and continuous flow stirred tank reactors were used to study the best operational conditions for enhanced and sustained hydrogen production and removal of pollutants. Since the rate of hydrogen production by the microbial consortium during dark fermentation is influenced by concentration of organic matter, pH and temperature, these operational conditions were optimised in batch mode studies. Maximum hydrogen production rate (347.87ml/L/d) was attained in 32h dark fermentation while a good proportion of COD also got removed from the wastewater. Slightly acidic initial pH seemed to favor biohydrogen production. In continuous stirred tank reactor, high H₂ production from distillery wastewater was obtained from a relatively shorter substrate retention time (SRT) of 48h and a moderate organic loading rate (OLR) of 172 g/l/d COD.

Keywords: Distillery wastewater, hydrogen, microbial consortium, organic pollution, sludge.

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Authors: Banaja Mohanty, Prakash Kumar Hota

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This paper presents a differential evolution algorithm to design a robust PI and PID controllers for Load Frequency Control (LFC) of nonlinear interconnected power systems considering the boiler dynamics, Governor Dead Band (GDB), Generation Rate Constraint (GRC). Differential evolution algorithm is employed to search for the optimal controller parameters. The proposed method easily copes of with nonlinear constraints. Further the proposed controller is simple, effective and can ensure the desirable overall system performance. The superiority of the proposed approach has been shown by comparing the results with published fuzzy logic controller for the same power systems. The comparison is done using various performance measures like overshoot, settling time and standard error criteria of frequency and tie-line power deviation following a 1% step load perturbation in hydro area. It is noticed that, the dynamic performance of proposed controller is better than fuzzy logic controller. Furthermore, it is also seen that the proposed system is robust and is not affected by change in the system parameters.

Keywords: Automatic Generation control (AGC), Generation Rate Constraint (GRC), Governor Dead Band (GDB), Differential Evolution (DE)

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Authors: Sara Ansari, Mohammad Hadi Sadreddini

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The increasing importance of data stream arising in a wide range of advanced applications has led to the extensive study of mining frequent patterns. Mining data streams poses many new challenges amongst which are the one-scan nature, the unbounded memory requirement and the high arrival rate of data streams. In this paper, we propose a new approach for mining itemsets on data stream. Our approach SFIDS has been developed based on FIDS algorithm. The main attempts were to keep some advantages of the previous approach and resolve some of its drawbacks, and consequently to improve run time and memory consumption. Our approach has the following advantages: using a data structure similar to lattice for keeping frequent itemsets, separating regions from each other with deleting common nodes that results in a decrease in search space, memory consumption and run time; and Finally, considering CPU constraint, with increasing arrival rate of data that result in overloading system, SFIDS automatically detect this situation and discard some of unprocessing data. We guarantee that error of results is bounded to user pre-specified threshold, based on a probability technique. Final results show that SFIDS algorithm could attain about 50% run time improvement than FIDS approach.

Keywords: Data stream, frequent itemset, stream mining.

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