Search results for: John A. Posada

Authors: Fatemeh Afsharnia, Mohammad Amin Asoodar, Abbas Abdeshahi

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In economical evaluation literature, although the combination of some variables such as repair and maintenance costs and accumulated use hours has been widely considered in determining of optimum life for tractor, no investigation has indicated the influence of failure rate on repair and maintenance costs. In this study, the owners of three hundred tractors, which include Massey Ferguson, John Deere and Universal, were interviewed, from five regions of Khouzestan Province. A regression model was used to predict the tractors annual repair and maintenance costs based on failure rate. Results showed that the maximum percentage of annual repair and maintenance costs occurred in engine parts for MF285, JD3140 and U650 tractors while these costs for tire, ring, ball bearing and operator seat were higher compared to other MF399 tractor systems. According to the results of the regression, the failure rate increase would lead to annual repair and maintenance costs increase for all tractors. But, of all the tractors, repair and maintenance costs of JD3140 tractors extremely affected by the failure rate increase.

Keywords: Failure rate, tractor, annual repair and maintenance costs, regression model, Khouzestan.

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Authors: John McCullagh, Jaclyn Munge, NivanWeerakkody, Kerrie Gamble

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of preexercise glycerol hyperhydration on endurance performance in a heat chamber designed to simulate the World Championship Distance (WCD) duathlon (10km run, 40km ride, 5 km run). Duathlons are often performed in hot and humid conditions and as a result hydration is a major issue. Glycerol enhances the body’s capacity for fluid retention by inducing hyperhydration, which is theorized to improve thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses, and thereby improve performance. Six well-trained athletes completed the testing protocol in a heat chamber at the La Trobe University Exercise Physiology Laboratory. Each testing session was approximately 4.5 hours in duration (2 hours of pre-exercise glycerol hyper-hydration followed by approximately 2.5 hours of exercise). The results showed an increased water retention pre-exercise and an improved overall performance of 2.04% was achieved by subjects ingesting the glycerol solution.

Keywords: Endurance performance, glycerol hyperhydration, heat chamber.

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Authors: K. Lee

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Many teachers are experienced; however, experience does not necessarily equate to excellence. Excellence in teaching is the single most powerful influence on student achievement. This qualitative, interpretivist case study investigates the practices of one of the nation’s most acknowledged teachers in enterprise education. In a number of semi-structured interviews, and observational visits, this remote regional teacher talked freely about what skills and strategies she used to achieve this success. Findings from this study were compared to key ideas developed by Professor John Hattie with regards to differences between expert, excellent and experienced teachers. Key findings showed the ‘expert teacher’ central to this study; ensured learning was engaging, challenging yet achievable for all (for both teacher and student of all abilities), authentic and driven by local needs, involved community supports; and ensured the process and learning was constantly monitored and teaching adjusted accordingly. It is anticipated that the data collected via observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis will help others to support students to gain greater success (in whatever form that may take).

Keywords: Expert teacher, enterprise education, excellence, skills and strategies.

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Authors: John R. Rose, James P. Cleveland, Alvin Fox

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Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is the engine driving high-throughput protein identification. Protein mixtures possibly representing thousands of proteins from multiple species are treated with proteolytic enzymes, cutting the proteins into smaller peptides that are then analyzed generating MS/MS spectra. The task of determining the identity of the peptide from its spectrum is currently the weak point in the process. Current approaches to de novo sequencing are able to compute candidate peptides efficiently. The problem lies in the limitations of current scoring functions. In this paper we introduce the concept of proteome signature. By examining proteins and compiling proteome signatures (amino acid usage) it is possible to characterize likely combinations of amino acids and better distinguish between candidate peptides. Our results strongly support the hypothesis that a scoring function that considers amino acid usage patterns is better able to distinguish between candidate peptides. This in turn leads to higher accuracy in peptide prediction.

Keywords: Tandem mass spectrometry, proteomics, scoring, peptide, de novo, mutual information

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Authors: Chanin Park, Sundarapandian Thangapandian, Yuno Lee, Minky Son, Shalini John, Young-sik Sohn, Keun Woo Lee

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Hypertension is characterized with stress on the heart and blood vessels thus increasing the risk of heart attack and renal diseases. The Renin angiotensin system (RAS) plays a major role in blood pressure control. Renin is the enzyme that controls the RAS at the rate-limiting step. Our aim is to develop new drug-like leads which can inhibit renin and thereby emerge as therapeutics for hypertension. To achieve this, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and receptor-based pharmacophore modeling were implemented, and three rennin-inhibitor complex structures were selected based on IC50 value and scaffolds of inhibitors. Three pharmacophore models were generated considering conformations induced by inhibitor. The compounds mapped to these models were selected and subjected to drug-like screening. The identified hits were docked into the active site of renin. Finally, hit1 satisfying the binding mode and interaction energy was selected as possible lead candidate to be used in novel renin inhibitors.

Keywords: Renin inhibitor, Molecular dynamics simulation, Structure-based pharmacophore modeling

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Authors: Walter Hussak, John Keane

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The usual correctness condition for a schedule of concurrent database transactions is some form of serializability of the transactions. For general forms, the problem of deciding whether a schedule is serializable is NP-complete. In those cases other approaches to proving correctness, using proof rules that allow the steps of the proof of serializability to be guided manually, are desirable. Such an approach is possible in the case of conflict serializability which is proved algebraically by deriving serial schedules using commutativity of non-conflicting operations. However, conflict serializability can be an unnecessarily strong form of serializability restricting concurrency and thereby reducing performance. In practice, weaker, more general, forms of serializability for extended models of transactions are used. Currently, there are no known methods using proof rules for proving those general forms of serializability. In this paper, we define serializability for an extended model of partitioned transactions, which we show to be as expressive as serializability for general partitioned transactions. An algebraic method for proving general serializability is obtained by giving an initial-algebra specification of serializable schedules of concurrent transactions in the model. This demonstrates that it is possible to conduct algebraic proofs of correctness of concurrent transactions in general cases.

Keywords: Algebraic Specification, Partitioned Transactions, Serializability.

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Authors: Hamad N. Altalyan, Brian G. Jones, John Bradd

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A comprehensive study was conducted to examine the removal of inorganic contaminants that exist in surface and groundwater in the Illawarra and Sydney regions. The ability of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), as a generation of membrane technology, was examined using a dead-end filtration cell setup. A set of ten compounds were examined in this study that represent the significant inorganic cations and anions commonly found in contaminated surface and groundwater. The performance of MWCNT buckypaper membranes in excluding anions was found to be better than that of its cation exclusion. This phenomenon can be attributed to the Donnan exclusion mechanism (charge repulsion mechanism). Furthermore, the results revealed that phosphate recorded the highest exclusion value reaching 69.2%, whereas the lowest rejection value was for potassium where no removal occurred (0%). The reason for this is that the molecular weight of phosphate (95.0 g/mol) is greater than the molecular weight of potassium (39.10 g/mol).

Keywords: Nanotechnology, buckypaper, carbon nanotube, CNT, multi-walled carbon nanotube, MWCNT, Botany Bay, Russell Vale.

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Authors: John O. Jacob, Abdullahi Mann, Olanrewaju I. Adeshina, Mohammed M. Ndamitso

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Strychnos spinosa, Detarium microcarpum, Diospyros mespiliformis, Dialium guineese and Gardenia ternifolia are some of the wild fruits consume in the villages around Minna, Niger State. This investigation was conducted to assess the nutritional potentials of these fruits both for human consumption and for possible application in animal feed formulations. Standard analytical methods were employed in the determination of the various nutritional parameters. The proximate analysis results showed that the moisture contents ranged between (6.17-10.70%); crude fat (2.04-8.85%); crude protein (5.16-6.80%); crude fibre (7.23-19.65%); Ash (3.46-5.56%); carbohydrate (57.77-69.79%); energy value (284.49-407 kcal/mg); Vitamin C (7.2-39.93 mg/100g). The mineral analysis shows that the selected wild fruits could contribute considerable amount of both micro and macro elements to human nutrition potassium, sodium and calcium range between; potassium (343.27-764.71%); sodium (155.04-348.44%); calcium (52.47-101%). The macro element for the fruits pulp were in the order K>Na>Mg>Ca, hence, they could be included in diet to supplement daily nutrient requirement and in animal feed formulations. The domestication of these fruits is also encouraged.

Keywords: Minerals, nutrition, supplements, wild fruits.

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Authors: Aeslina Abdul Kadir, Abbas Mohajerani, Felicity Roddick, John Buckeridge

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Several trillion cigarettes produced worldwide annually lead to many thousands of kilograms of toxic waste. Cigarette butts (CBs) accumulate in the environment due to the poor biodegradability of the cellulose acetate filters. This paper presents some of the results from a continuing study on recycling CBs into fired clay bricks. Physico-mechanical properties of fired clay bricks manufactured with different percentages of CBs are reported and discussed. The results show that the density of fired bricks was reduced by up to 30 %, depending on the percentage of CBs incorporated into the raw materials. Similarly, the compressive strength of bricks tested decreased according to the percentage of CBs included in the mix. The thermal conductivity performance of bricks was improved by 51 and 58 % for 5 and 10 % CBs content respectively. Leaching tests were carried out to investigate the levels of possible leachates of heavy metals from the manufactured clay-CB bricks. The results revealed trace amounts of heavy metals.

Keywords: Cigarette butts, Fired clay bricks, Light bricks, Recycling waste, Thermal conductivity, Leachates, Leaching test

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Authors: Lina Paola Orozco-Marín, Yuliet Montoya, John Bustamante

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Ischemic events can culminate in acute myocardial infarction with irreversible cardiac lesions that cannot be restored due to the limited regenerative capacity of the heart. Tissue engineering proposes therapeutic alternatives by using biomaterials to resemble the native extracellular medium combined with healthy and functional cells. This research focused on developing a natural thermosensitive hydrogel, its physical-chemical characterization and in vitro biocompatibility determination. Hydrogels’ morphological characterization was carried out through scanning electron microscopy and its chemical characterization by employing Infrared Spectroscopy technic. In addition, the biocompatibility was determined using fetal human ventricular cardiomyocytes cell line RL-14 and the MTT cytotoxicity test according to the ISO 10993-5 standard. Four biocompatible and thermosensitive hydrogels were obtained with a three-dimensional internal structure and two gelation times. The results show the potential of the hydrogel to increase the cell survival rate to the cardiac cell therapies under investigation and lay the foundations to continue with its characterization and biological evaluation both in vitro and in vivo models.

Keywords: cardiac cell therapy, cardiac ischemia, natural polymers, thermosensitive hydrogel

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Authors: Bobby Anak John, Zamri Noranai, Md. Norrizam Mohmad Jaat, Hamidon Salleh, Mohammad Zainal Md Yusof

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Air conditioning is mainly use as human comfort cooling medium. It use more in high temperatures are country such as Malaysia. Proper estimation of cooling load will archive ideal temperature. Without proper estimation can lead to over estimation or under estimation. The ideal temperature should be comfort enough. This study is to develop a program to calculate an ideal cooling load demand, which is match with heat gain. Through this study, it is easy to calculate cooling load estimation. Objective of this study are to develop user-friendly and easy excess cooling load program. This is to insure the cooling load can be estimate by any of the individual rather than them using rule-of-thumb. Developed software is carryout by using Matlab-GUI. These developments are only valid for common building in Malaysia only. An office building was select as case study to verify the applicable and accuracy of develop software. In conclusion, the main objective has successfully where developed software is user friendly and easily to estimate cooling load demand.

Keywords: Cooling Load, Heat Gain, Building and GUI.

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Authors: Khelood A. Mkalaf, Peter Gibson, John Flanagan

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This study investigates the relationship between the reliability of critical medical equipment (CME) and the effectiveness of CME maintenance management strategies in relation to patient outcomes in 84 public hospitals of a top 20 OECD country. The work has examined the effectiveness of CME maintenance management strategies used by the public hospital system of a large state run health organization. The conceptual framework was designed to examine the significance of the relationship between six variables: (1) types of maintenance management strategies, (2) maintenance services, (3) maintenance practice, (4) medical equipment reliability, (5) maintenance costs and (6) patient outcomes. The results provide interesting insights into the effectiveness of the maintenance strategies used. For example, there appears to be about a 1 in 10 000 probability of failure of anesthesia equipment, but these seem to be confined to specific maintenance situations. There are also some findings in relation to outsourcing of maintenance. For each of the variables listed, results are reported in relation to the various types of maintenance strategies and services. Decision-makers may use these results to evaluate more effective maintenance strategies for their CME and generate more effective patient outcomes.

Keywords: Critical medical equipment, maintenance strategy, patient outcomes, reliability.

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Authors: Stella Y. Ng, John B. Peacock, Kay Chuan Tan

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This paper discusses the use of a computerized test to measure the decision-making abilities of teenage basketball players in Singapore. There are five sections in this test – Competitive state anxiety inventory-2 (CSAI-2) questionnaire (measures player’s cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence), Corsi block-tapping task (measures player’s short-term spatial memory), situation awareness global assessment technique (SAGAT) (measures players’ situation awareness in a basketball game), multiple choice questions on basketball knowledge (measures players’ knowledge of basketball rules and concepts), and lastly, a learning test that requires participants to recall and recognize basketball set plays (measures player’s ability to learn and recognize set plays). A total of 25 basketball players, aged 14 to 16 years old, from three secondary school teams participated in this experiment. The results that these basketball players obtained from this cognitive test were then used to compare with their physical fitness and basketball performance.

Keywords: Basketball, cognitive abilities, computerized test, decision-making.

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Authors: Norzita Ngadi, John Abrahamson, Conan Fee, Ken Morison

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Poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) molecules attached to surfaces have shown high potential as a protein repellent due to their flexibility and highly water solubility. A quartz crystal microbalance recording frequency and dissipation changes (QCM-D) has been used to study the adsorption from aqueous solutions, of lysozyme and α-lactalbumin proteins (the last with and without calcium) onto modified stainless steel surfaces. Surfaces were coated with poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) and silicate before grafting on PEG molecules. Protein adsorption was also performed on the bare stainless steel surface as a control. All adsorptions were conducted at 23°C and pH 7.2. The results showed that the presence of PEG molecules significantly reduced the adsorption of lysozyme and α- lactalbumin (with calcium) onto the stainless steel surface. By contrast, and unexpected, PEG molecules enhanced the adsorption of α-lactalbumin (without calcium). It is suggested that the PEG -α- lactalbumin hydrophobic interaction plays a dominant role which leads to protein aggregation at the surface for this latter observation. The findings also lead to the general conclusion that PEG molecules are not a universal protein repellent. PEG-on-PEI surfaces were better at inhibiting the adsorption of lysozyme and α-lactalbumin (with calcium) than with PEG-on-silicate surfaces.

Keywords: Stainless steel, PEG, QCM-D, protein, PEI layer, silicate layer.

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Authors: Mitchell J. McHugh, John J. Case

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Systems engineering is a holistic discipline that seeks to organize and optimize complex, interdisciplinary systems. With the growth of artificial intelligence, systems engineers must face the challenge of leveraging artificial intelligence systems to solve complex problems. This paper analyzes the integration of systems engineering and artificial intelligence and discusses how artificial intelligence systems embody the systems decision process (SDP). The SDP is a four-stage problem-solving framework that outlines how systems engineers can design and implement solutions using value-focused thinking. This paper argues that artificial intelligence models can replicate the SDP, thus validating its flexible, value-focused foundation. The authors demonstrate this by developing a machine vision mobile application that can classify weapons to augment the decision-making role of an Army subject matter expert. This practical application was an end-to-end design challenge that highlights how artificial intelligence systems embody systems engineering principles. The impact of this research demonstrates that the SDP is a dynamic tool that systems engineers should leverage when incorporating artificial intelligence within the systems that they develop.

Keywords: Computer vision, machine learning, mobile application, systems engineering, systems decision process.

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Authors: John N. Ellinas

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In this paper, a new reversible watermarking method is presented that reduces the size of a stereoscopic image sequence while keeping its content visible. The proposed technique embeds the residuals of the right frames to the corresponding frames of the left sequence, halving the total capacity. The residual frames may result in after a disparity compensated procedure between the two video streams or by a joint motion and disparity compensation. The residuals are usually lossy compressed before embedding because of the limited embedding capacity of the left frames. The watermarked frames are visible at a high quality and at any instant the stereoscopic video may be recovered by an inverse process. In fact, the left frames may be exactly recovered whereas the right ones are slightly distorted as the residuals are not embedded intact. The employed embedding method reorders the left frame into an array of consecutive pixel pairs and embeds a number of bits according to their intensity difference. In this way, it hides a number of bits in intensity smooth areas and most of the data in textured areas where resulting distortions are less visible. The experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed scheme is quite effective.

Keywords: Stereoscopic video, Reversible watermarking, Disparity compensation, Joint compensation

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Authors: David J. Chato, John B. McQuillen, Brian J.Motil, David F. Chao, Nengli Zhang

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In order to better understand the performance of screen channel liquid acquisition devices (LADs) in liquid oxygen (LOX), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of LOX passing through a LAD screen channel was conducted. In the simulation, the screen is taken as a 'porous jump' where the pressure drop across the screen depends on the incoming velocity and is formulated by Δp = Av + Bv2 . The CFD simulation reveals the importance of the pressure losses due to the flow entering from across the screen and impacting and merging with the channel flow and the vortices in the channel to the cumulative flow resistance. In fact, both the flow resistance of flows impact and mergence and the resistance created by vortices are much larger than the friction and dynamic pressure losses in the channel and are comparable to the flow resistance across the screen. Therefore, these resistances in the channel must be considered as part of the evaluation for the LAD channel performance. For proper operation of a LAD in LOX these resistances must be less than the bubble point pressure for the screen channel in LOX. The simulation also presents the pressure and velocity distributions within the LAD screen channel, expanding the understanding of the fluid flow characteristics within the channel.

Keywords: Liquid acquisition devices, liquid oxygen, pressure drop, vortex, bubble point, flow rate limitation.

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Authors: Oladeinde Mobolaji Humphrey, Akpobi John

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A mathematical model for the hydrodynamic lubrication of parabolic slider bearings with couple stress lubricants is presented. A numerical solution for the mathematical model using finite element scheme is obtained using three nodes isoparametric quadratic elements. Stiffness integrals obtained from the weak form of the governing equations were solved using Gauss Quadrature to obtain a finite number of stiffness matrices. The global system of equations was obtained for the bearing and solved using Gauss Seidel iterative scheme. The converged pressure solution was used to obtain the load capacity of the bearing. Parametric studies were carried out and it was shown that the effect of couple stresses and profile parameter are to increase the load carrying capacity of the parabolic slider bearing. Numerical experiments reveal that the magnitude of the profile parameter at which maximum load is obtained increases with decrease in couple stress parameter. The results are presented in graphical form.

Keywords: Finite element, numerical, parabolic slider.

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Authors: Oliver Kinnane, Aidan Reilly, John Grimes, Sara Pavia, Rosanne Walker

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Unwanted sound reflection can create acoustic discomfort and lead to problems of speech comprehensibility. Contemporary building techniques enable highly finished internal walls resulting in sound reflective surfaces. In contrast, sustainable construction materials using natural and vegetal materials, are often more porous and absorptive. Hemp shiv is used as an aggregate and when mixed with lime binder creates a low-embodied-energy concrete. Cement replacements such as ground granulated blast slag (GGBS), a byproduct of other industrial processes, are viewed as more sustainable alternatives to high-embodied-energy cement. Hemp concretes exhibit good hygrothermal performance. This has focused much research attention on them as natural and sustainable low-energy alternatives to standard concretes. A less explored benefit is the acoustic absorption capability of hemp-based concretes. This work investigates hemp-lime-GGBS concrete specifically, and shows that it exhibits high levels of sound absorption.

Keywords: Hemp, hempcrete, acoustic absorption, GGBS.

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Authors: Daniel Gonzales, Zev Winkelman, Trung Tran, Ricardo Sanchez, Dulani Woods, John Hollywood

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We have developed a distributed computing capability, Digital Forensics Compute Cluster (DFORC2) to speed up the ingestion and processing of digital evidence that is resident on computer hard drives. DFORC2 parallelizes evidence ingestion and file processing steps. It can be run on a standalone computer cluster or in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. When running in a virtualized computing environment, its cluster resources can be dynamically scaled up or down using Kubernetes. DFORC2 is an open source project that uses Autopsy, Apache Spark and Kafka, and other open source software packages. It extends the proven open source digital forensics capabilities of Autopsy to compute clusters and cloud architectures, so digital forensics tasks can be accomplished efficiently by a scalable array of cluster compute nodes. In this paper, we describe DFORC2 and compare it with a standalone version of Autopsy when both are used to process evidence from hard drives of different sizes.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cybersecurity, digital forensics, Kafka, Kubernetes, Spark.

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Authors: Anuchita Moongngarm, John E. Bronlund, Nigel Grigg, Naruemon Sriwai

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The study aimed to investigate the effect of rice types on chewing behaviours (chewing time, number of chews, and portion size) and bolus properties (bolus moisture content, solid loss, and particle size distribution (PSD)) in human subjects. Five cooked rice types including brown rice (BR), white rice (WR), parboiled white rice (PR), high amylose white rice (HR) and waxy white rice (WXR) were chewed by six subjects. The chewing behaviours were recorded and the food boluses were collected during mastication. Rice typeswere found to significantly influence all chewing parameters evaluated. The WXR and BR showed the most pronounced differences compared with other rice types. The initial moisture content of un-chewed WXR was lowest (43.39%) whereas those of other rice types were ranged from 66.86 to 70.33%. The bolus obtained from chewing the WXR contained lowest moisture content (56.43%) whilst its solid loss (22.03%) was not significant different from those of all rice types. In PSD evaluation using Mastersizer S, the diameter of particles measured was ranged between 4 to 3500 μm. The particle size of food bolus from BR, HR, and WXR contained much finer particles than those of WR and PR.

Keywords: Chewing behavior, Mastication, Rice, Rice types, Bolus properties

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Authors: Adarsh Patil, David A. Power, John P. Morrison

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Grid environments consist of the volatile integration of discrete heterogeneous resources. The notion of the Grid is to unite different users and organisations and pool their resources into one large computing platform where they can harness, inter-operate, collaborate and interact. If the Grid Community is to achieve this objective, then participants (Users and Organisations) need to be willing to donate or share their resources and permit other participants to use their resources. Resources do not have to be shared at all times, since it may result in users not having access to their own resource. The idea of reward-based computing was developed to address the sharing problem in a pragmatic manner. Participants are offered a reward to donate their resources to the Grid. A reward may include monetary recompense or a pro rata share of available resources when constrained. This latter point may imply a quality of service, which in turn may require some globally agreed reservation mechanism. This paper presents a platform for economybased computing using the WebCom Grid middleware. Using this middleware, participants can configure their resources at times and priority levels to suit their local usage policy. The WebCom system accounts for processing done on individual participants- resources and rewards them accordingly.

Keywords: WebCom, Economy-based computing, WebComGrid Bank Reward, Condensed Graph, Distributor, Accounting, GridPoint.

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Authors: A. Thomas, B. John Oommen

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Although the field of parametric Pattern Recognition (PR) has been thoroughly studied for over five decades, the use of the Order Statistics (OS) of the distributions to achieve this has not been reported. The pioneering work on using OS for classification was presented in [1] for the Uniform distribution, where it was shown that optimal PR can be achieved in a counter-intuitive manner, diametrically opposed to the Bayesian paradigm, i.e., by comparing the testing sample to a few samples distant from the mean. This must be contrasted with the Bayesian paradigm in which, if we are allowed to compare the testing sample with only a single point in the feature space from each class, the optimal strategy would be to achieve this based on the (Mahalanobis) distance from the corresponding central points, for example, the means. In [2], we showed that the results could be extended for a few symmetric distributions within the exponential family. In this paper, we attempt to extend these results significantly by considering asymmetric distributions within the exponential family, for some of which even the closed form expressions of the cumulative distribution functions are not available. These distributions include the Rayleigh, Gamma and certain Beta distributions. As in [1] and [2], the new scheme, referred to as Classification by Moments of Order Statistics (CMOS), attains an accuracy very close to the optimal Bayes’ bound, as has been shown both theoretically and by rigorous experimental testing.

Keywords: Classification using Order Statistics (OS), Exponential family, Moments of OS

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Authors: Minky Son, Chanin Park, Ayoung Baek, Shalini John, Keun Woo Lee

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3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) catalyzes the conversion of HMG-CoA to mevalonate using NADPH and the enzyme is involved in rate-controlling step of mevalonate. Inhibition of HMGR is considered as effective way to lower cholesterol levels so it is drug target to treat hypercholesterolemia, major risk factor of cardiovascular disease. To discover novel HMGR inhibitor, we performed structure-based pharmacophore modeling combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Four HMGR inhibitors were used for MD simulation and representative structure of each simulation were selected by clustering analysis. Four structure-based pharmacophore models were generated using the representative structure. The generated models were validated used in virtual screening to find novel scaffolds for inhibiting HMGR. The screened compounds were filtered by applying drug-like properties and used in molecular docking. Finally, four hit compounds were obtained and these complexes were refined using energy minimization. These compounds might be potential leads to design novel HMGR inhibitor.

Keywords: Anti-hypercholesterolemia drug, HMGR inhibitor, Molecular dynamics simulation, Structure-based pharmacophore modeling.

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Authors: Chau-Kuang Chen, John Hughes, Jr., A. Dexter Samuels

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The prediction models for the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) Steps 1 and 2 performances were constructed by the Monte Carlo simulation modeling approach via linear regression. The purpose of this study was to build robust simulation models to accurately identify the most important predictors and yield the valid range estimations of the Steps 1 and 2 scores. The application of simulation modeling approach was deemed an effective way in predicting student performances on licensure examinations. Also, sensitivity analysis (a/k/a what-if analysis) in the simulation models was used to predict the magnitudes of Steps 1 and 2 affected by changes in the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Basic Science Subject Board scores. In addition, the study results indicated that the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) Verbal Reasoning score and Step 1 score were significant predictors of the Step 2 performance. Hence, institutions could screen qualified student applicants for interviews and document the effectiveness of basic science education program based on the simulation results.

Keywords: Prediction Model, Sensitivity Analysis, Simulation Method, USMLE.

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Authors: Suneel M. Agerwala, Ashley Votta, Briana Hogan, John Yannocone, Steven Samuels, SheilaChiffriller

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Road rage is an increasingly prevalent expression of aggression in our society. Its dangers are apparent and understanding its causes may shed light on preventative measures. This study involved a fifteen-minute survey administered to 147 undergraduate students at a North Eastern suburban university. The survey consisted of a demographics section, questions regarding financial investment in respondents- vehicles, experience driving, habits of driving, experiences witnessing role models driving, and an evaluation of road rage behavior using the Driving Vengeance Questionnaire. The study found no significant differences in driving aggression between respondents who were financially invested in their vehicle compared to those who were not, or between respondents who drove in heavy traffic hours compared to those who did not, suggesting internal factors correlate with aggressive driving habits. The study also found significant differences in driving aggression between males versus females, those with more points on their license versus fewer points, and those who witnessed parents driving aggressively very often versus rarely or never. Additional studies can investigate how witnessing parents driving aggressively is related to future driving behaviors.

Keywords: Aggression, college, driving, road rage.

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Authors: John S. Anagnostopoulos, Dimitrios E. Papantonis

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The incorporation of computational fluid dynamics in the design of modern hydraulic turbines appears to be necessary in order to improve their efficiency and cost-effectiveness beyond the traditional design practices. A numerical optimization methodology is developed and applied in the present work to a Turgo water turbine. The fluid is simulated by a Lagrangian mesh-free approach that can provide detailed information on the energy transfer and enhance the understanding of the complex, unsteady flow field, at very small computing cost. The runner blades are initially shaped according to hydrodynamics theory, and parameterized using Bezier polynomials and interpolation techniques. The use of a limited number of free design variables allows for various modifications of the standard blade shape, while stochastic optimization using evolutionary algorithms is implemented to find the best blade that maximizes the attainable hydraulic efficiency of the runner. The obtained optimal runner design achieves considerably higher efficiency than the standard one, and its numerically predicted performance is comparable to a real Turgo turbine, verifying the reliability and the prospects of the new methodology.

Keywords: Turgo turbine, Lagrangian flow modeling, Surface parameterization, Design optimization, Evolutionary algorithms.

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Authors: Marina Kapsali, John S. Anagnostopoulos

Abstract:

On the basis of comparative analysis of alternative “development scenarios” for electricity generation, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the techno-economic viability of high wind energy (WE) use at the local (island) level. An integrated theoretical model is developed based on first principles assuming two main possible scenarios for covering future electrification needs of a medium–sized Greek island, i.e. Lesbos. The first scenario (S1), assumes that the island will keep using oil products as the main source for electricity generation. The second scenario (S2) involves the interconnection of the island with the mainland grid to satisfy part of the electricity demand, while remarkable WE penetration is also achieved. The economic feasibility of the above solutions is investigated in terms of determining their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for the time-period 2020-2045, including also a sensitivity analysis on the worst/reference/best Cases. According to the results obtained, interconnection of Lesbos Island with the mainland grid (S2) presents considerable economic interest in comparison to autonomous development (S1) with WE having a prominent role to this effect.

Keywords: Electricity generation cost, levelized cost of energy, mainland, wind energy surplus.

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Authors: Yadgar Tayfur, Antony Darby, Tim Ibell, Mark Evernden, John Orr

Abstract:

Fabric form-work is a technique to cast concrete structures with a great advantage of saving concrete material of up to 40%. This technique is particularly associated with the optimized concrete structures that usually have smaller cross-section dimensions than equivalent prismatic members. However, this can make the structural system produced from these members prone to smaller serviceability safety margins. Therefore, it is very important to understand the serviceability issue of non-prismatic concrete structures. In this paper, an analytical computer-based model to optimize concrete beams and to predict load-deflection behaviour of both prismatic and non-prismatic concrete beams is presented. The model was developed based on the method of sectional analysis and integration of curvatures. Results from the analytical model were compared to load-deflection behaviour of a number of beams with different geometric and material properties from other researchers. The results of the comparison show that the analytical program can accurately predict the load-deflection response of concrete beams with medium reinforcement ratios. However, it over-estimates deflection values for lightly reinforced specimens. Finally, the analytical program acceptably predicted load-deflection behaviour of on-prismatic concrete beams.

Keywords: Concrete beams, deflections, fabric formwork, optimisation, serviceability.

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Authors: Vignesh Rangaraj, Jerin John, N. Naveen, M. Karuppasamy Pandian, P. Sathyan, V. R. Sanal Kumar

Abstract:

In this paper parametric analytical studies have been carried out to examine the intrinsic flow physics pertaining to the liftoff time of solid propellant rockets. Idealized inert simulators of solid rockets are selected for numerical studies to examining the preignition chamber dynamics. Detailed diagnostic investigations have been carried out using an unsteady two-dimensional k-omega turbulence model. We conjectured from the numerical results that the altered variations of the igniter jet impingement angle, turbulence level, time and location of the first ignition, flame spread characteristics, the overall chamber dynamics including the boundary layer growth history are having bearing on the time for nozzle flow chocking for establishing the required thrust for the rocket liftoff. We concluded that the altered flow choking time of strap-on motors with the pre-determined identical ignition time at the lift off phase will lead to the malfunctioning of the rocket. We also concluded that, in the light of the space debris, an error in predicting the liftoff time can lead to an unfavorable launch window amounts the satellite injection errors and/or the mission failures.

Keywords: Liftoff, Nozzle Choking, Solid Rocket, Takeoff.

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