Search results for: working heart rate

Authors: Faten A. Dawood, Rahmita W. Rahmat, Suhaini B. Kadiman, Lili N. Abdullah, Mohd D. Zamrin

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Echocardiography imaging is one of the most common diagnostic tests that are widely used for assessing the abnormalities of the regional heart ventricle function. The main goal of the image enhancement task in 2D-echocardiography (2DE) is to solve two major anatomical structure problems; speckle noise and low quality. Therefore, speckle noise reduction is one of the important steps that used as a pre-processing to reduce the distortion effects in 2DE image segmentation. In this paper, we present the common filters that based on some form of low-pass spatial smoothing filters such as Mean, Gaussian, and Median. The Laplacian filter was used as a high-pass sharpening filter. A comparative analysis was presented to test the effectiveness of these filters after being applied to original 2DE images of 4-chamber and 2-chamber views. Three statistical quantity measures: root mean square error (RMSE), peak signal-to-ratio (PSNR) and signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) are used to evaluate the filter performance quantitatively on the output enhanced image.

Keywords: Gaussian operator, median filter, speckle texture, peak signal-to-ratio

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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

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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

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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

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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: B. Rajkumarsingh, S. Goolaup, A. Galleegadoo

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Laboratory classes in Electrical Engineering are often hampered by safety issues, as students have to work on high voltage lines. One solution is to make use of virtual laboratory simulations, to help students understand the concepts taught in their coursework. In this context, we have conceived and implemented virtual lab experiments in connection with the study of earthing arrangements. In this work, software was developed, which aid student in understanding the working of a residual current device (RCD) in a TT earthing system. Various parameters, such as the earthing resistances, leakage currents and harmonics were included for a TT system with RCD connection.

Keywords: TT system, RCD, LabVIEW, Learning aids.

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

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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: Ezenwa Chinenye Amanamba

Abstract:

There is a call to ensure that the issues of safety and efficient throughput are considered during design; the solutions to these issues can also be retrofitted at locations where they were not captured during design, but have become problems to road users over time. This paper adopts several methods to analyze the performance of an intersection which was formerly a ‘priority-controlled’ intersection, but has now been converted to a ‘signal-controlled’ intersection. Extensive review of literature helped form the basis for result analysis and discussion. The Ikot-Ekpene/Anagha-Ezikpe intersection, located at the heart of Umuahia was adopted as case study; considering the high traffic volume on the route. Anecdotal evidence revealed that traffic signals imposed enormous delays at the intersection, especially for traffic on the major road. The major road has arrival flow which surpasses the saturation flow obtained from modelling of the isolated signalized intersection. Similarly, there were several geometric elements that did not agree with the specific function of the road. A roundabout, particularly flower roundabout was recommended as a better traffic control measure.

Keywords: Highway function, level of service, roundabout, traffic delays, Umuahia.

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

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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: J. P. Méreaux, E. Lamy, J. C. Lopez

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In the face of new regulations related to waste management, it has become essential to understand the organizational process that accompanies this change. Through an experiment on the sorting of food waste in the community of Grand Reims, this research explores the acceptability, the behavior and the tools needed to manage the change. Our position within a private company, SUEZ, a key player in the waste management sector, has allowed us to set up a driven team with concerned public organizations. The research was conducted through a theoretical study combined with semi-structured interviews. This qualitative method allowed us to conduct exchanges with users to assess the motivations and obstacles linked to the sorting of bio-waste. The results revealed the action levers necessary for the project's sustainability. Making the sorting gestures accessible and simplified makes it possible to target all populations. Playful communication adapted to each type of persona allows the user and stakeholders to be placed at the heart of the strategy. These recommendations are spotlighted thanks to the combination of theoretical and operational contributions, with the aim of facilitating the new public management and inducing the notion of performance while providing an example of added value.

Keywords: Bio-waste, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, stakeholders, public policies.

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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: Ammar Elyas babiker, M.Nordin B. Zakaria, Hassan Yosif, Samir B. Ibrahim

Abstract:

Variable channel conditions in underwater networks, and variable distances between sensors due to water current, leads to variable bit error rate (BER). This variability in BER has great effects on energy efficiency of error correction techniques used. In this paper an efficient energy adaptive hybrid error correction technique (AHECT) is proposed. AHECT adaptively changes error technique from pure retransmission (ARQ) in a low BER case to a hybrid technique with variable encoding rates (ARQ & FEC) in a high BER cases. An adaptation algorithm depends on a precalculated packet acceptance rate (PAR) look-up table, current BER, packet size and error correction technique used is proposed. Based on this adaptation algorithm a periodically 3-bit feedback is added to the acknowledgment packet to state which error correction technique is suitable for the current channel conditions and distance. Comparative studies were done between this technique and other techniques, and the results show that AHECT is more energy efficient and has high probability of success than all those techniques.

Keywords: Underwater communication, wireless sensornetworks, error correction technique, energy efficiency

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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: T Rusu, P I Moraru, I Bogdan, A I Pop, M L Sopterean

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The paper presents the influence of the conventional ploughing tillage technology in comparison with the minimum tillage, upon the soil properties, weed control and yield in the case of maize (Zea mays L.), soya-bean (Glycine hispida L.) and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in a three years crop rotation. A research has been conducted at the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The use of minimum soil tillage systems within a three years rotation: maize, soya-bean, wheat favorites the rise of the aggregates hydro stability with 5.6-7.5% on a 0-20 cm depth and 5-11% on 20-30 cm depth. The minimum soil tillage systems – paraplow, chisel or rotary grape – are polyvalent alternatives for basic preparation, germination bed preparation and sowing, for fields and crops with moderate loose requirements being optimized technologies for: soil natural fertility activation and rationalization, reduction of erosion, increasing the accumulation capacity for water and realization of sowing in the optimal period. The soil tillage system influences the productivity elements of cultivated species and finally the productions thus obtained. Thus, related to conventional working system, the productions registered in minimum tillage working represented 89- 97% in maize, 103-112% in soya-bean, 93-99% in winter-wheat. The results of investigations showed that the yield is a conclusion soil tillage systems influence on soil properties, plant density assurance and on weed control. Under minimum tillage systems in the case of winter weat as an option for replacing classic ploughing, the best results in terms of quality indices were obtained from version worked with paraplow, followed by rotary harrow and chisel. At variants worked with paraplow were obtained quality indices close to those of the variant worked with plow, and protein and gluten content was even higher. At Ariesan variety, highest protein content, 12.50% and gluten, 28.6% was obtained for the variant paraplow.

Keywords: Minimum tillage, soil properties, yields quality.

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Authors: Aida Amirazodi

Abstract:

"Bazaar" is a Persian word from the language of Iranians of 2500 years ago which has entered the languages of other countries. “Bazaar", the trading or marketing place with the architectural principles and concerns, was formed in Iran because of the long experience of marketing. This has become a valuable inheritance of Islamic ideological civilization and Iranian advanced architecture and a model of Islamic-marketing places with spectacular elements and parts, and the place for economical, social and cultural exchanges. “Bazaars" are found in cities of Iran and many Islamic countries in west of Asia and north of Africa. With the stable structure and function as a symbol of social values, this place has become the economic center and the illustration of stable architecture and advanced principles. “Bazaars" as the heart of Iranian cities economy with several major and minor rows of shops, in closed and open areas, along a fixed line or branches with beautiful arcs, patios, and frameworks are among the main national inheritance of Iran and one of the important Iranian architectural treasures because of its Iranian nobility.

Keywords: Traditional Bazaar, Form of Bazaar, Iranian Architecture

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

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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: 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: Daniel Olmos-Liceaga

Abstract:

Ventricular fibrillation is a very important health problem as is the cause of most of the sudden deaths in the world. Waves of electrical activity are sent by the SA node, propagate through the cardiac tissue and activate the mechanisms of cell contraction, and therefore are responsible to pump blood to the body harmonically. A spiral wave is an abnormal auto sustainable wave that is responsible of certain types of arrhythmias. When these waves break up, give rise to the fibrillation regime, in which there is a complete loss in the coordination of the contraction of the heart muscle. Interaction of spiral waves and obstacles is also of great importance as it is believed that the attachment of a spiral wave to an obstacle can provide with a transition of two different arrhythmias. An obstacle can be partially excitable or non excitable. In this talk, we present a numerical study of the interaction of meandering spiral waves with partially and non excitable obstacles and focus on the problem where the obstacle plays a fundamental role in the switch between different spiral regimes, which represent different arrhythmic regimes. Particularly, we study the phenomenon of destabilization of spiral waves due to the presence of obstacles, a phenomenon not completely understood (This work will appear as a Chapter in a Book named Cardiac Arrhytmias by INTECH under the name "Spiral Waves, Obstacles and Cardiac Arrhythmias", ISBN 979-953-307-050-5.).

Keywords: Arrhythmias, Cardiac tissue, Obstacles, Spiral waves

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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

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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: Olatinwo M. O., Oyeleke Olaosebikan, David Henry O.

Abstract:

Rain attenuation plays a lot of roles in the design of satellite and terrestrial microwave radio links, hence a good knowledge of its effect is of great interest to Engineers and scientists in that it is often required to give a high level of accuracy of the rainrate distribution that expresses rainrate from the lowest value to the highest. This study proposes a model to express rainrate parameters alpha (α) and beta (β) as a function of geographical location at 0.01% of the time. The tropical locations used in the development of the effect were Ilorin, Ile-Ife, Douala, Dar-es-Selam, Nairobi, Lusaka, and Brazilia.

This expression clearly confirms the variability of rainfall from place to place. When consistency test was carried out using the expression to generate rainrate for each location examined, the result obtained was reliable for rain intensities between 5mm/h and 200mm/h. The variability of α and β with latitude also shows that different latitudes have different cumulative rain distribution. The model proposed in this study would be one of the useful tools to Radio Engineers since the precipitation effect in the design of satellite and terrestrial microwave radio links is among the factors to consider when designing communication systems.

Keywords: Rain rate, attenuation, geographical location.

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

Abstract:

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

Abstract:

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

Abstract:

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

Abstract:

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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