Search results for: random effects.

Authors: Walid MOUDANI

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The healthcare environment is generally perceived as being information rich yet knowledge poor. However, there is a lack of effective analysis tools to discover hidden relationships and trends in data. In fact, valuable knowledge can be discovered from application of data mining techniques in healthcare system. In this study, a proficient methodology for the extraction of significant patterns from the Coronary Heart Disease warehouses for heart attack prediction, which unfortunately continues to be a leading cause of mortality in the whole world, has been presented. For this purpose, we propose to enumerate dynamically the optimal subsets of the reduced features of high interest by using rough sets technique associated to dynamic programming. Therefore, we propose to validate the classification using Random Forest (RF) decision tree to identify the risky heart disease cases. This work is based on a large amount of data collected from several clinical institutions based on the medical profile of patient. Moreover, the experts- knowledge in this field has been taken into consideration in order to define the disease, its risk factors, and to establish significant knowledge relationships among the medical factors. A computer-aided system is developed for this purpose based on a population of 525 adults. The performance of the proposed model is analyzed and evaluated based on set of benchmark techniques applied in this classification problem.

Keywords: Multi-Classifier Decisions Tree, Features Reduction, Dynamic Programming, Rough Sets.

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Authors: Jozef Mindas, Jaroslav Skvarenina, Jana Skvareninova

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Study of the effects of climate change on Norway Spruce (Picea abies) forests has mainly focused on the diversity of tree species diversity of tree species as a result of the ability of species to tolerate temperature and moisture changes as well as some effects of disturbance regime changes. The tree species’ diversity changes in spruce forests due to climate change have been analyzed via gap model. Forest gap model is a dynamic model for calculation basic characteristics of individual forest trees. Input ecological data for model calculations have been taken from the permanent research plots located in primeval forests in mountainous regions in Slovakia. The results of regional scenarios of the climatic change for the territory of Slovakia have been used, from which the values are according to the CGCM3.1 (global) model, KNMI and MPI (regional) models. Model results for conditions of the climate change scenarios suggest a shift of the upper forest limit to the region of the present subalpine zone, in supramontane zone. N. spruce representation will decrease at the expense of beech and precious broadleaved species (Acer sp., Sorbus sp., Fraxinus sp.). The most significant tree species diversity changes have been identified for the upper tree line and current belt of dwarf pine (Pinus mugo) occurrence. The results have been also discussed in relation to most important disturbances (wind storms, snow and ice storms) and phenological changes which consequences are little known. Special discussion is focused on biomass production changes in relation to carbon storage diversity in different carbon pools.

Keywords: Biodiversity, climate change, Norway spruce forests, gap model.

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Authors: Horia Păunescu

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Purpose: The study aimed to assess the depressant or antidepressant effects of several Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) in mice: the selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor meloxicam, and the non-selective COX-1 and COX-2 inhibitors lornoxicam, sodium metamizole, and ketorolac. The current literature data regarding such effects of these agents are scarce. Materials and methods: The study was carried out on NMRI mice weighing 20-35 g, kept in a standard laboratory environment. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy „Carol Davila”, Bucharest. The study agents were injected intraperitoneally, 10 mL/kg body weight (bw) 1 hour before the assessment of the locomotor activity by cage testing (n=10 mice/ group) and 2 hours before the forced swimming tests (n=15). The study agents were dissolved in normal saline (meloxicam, sodium metamizole), ethanol 11.8% v/v in normal saline (ketorolac), or water (lornoxicam), respectively. Negative and positive control agents were also given (amitryptilline in the forced swimming test). The cage floor used in the locomotor activity assessment was divided into 20 equal 10 cm squares. The forced swimming test involved partial immersion of the mice in cylinders (15/9cm height/diameter) filled with water (10 cm depth at 28C), where they were left for 6 minutes. The cage endpoint used in the locomotor activity assessment was the number of treaded squares. Four endpoints were used in the forced swimming test (immobility latency for the entire 6 minutes, and immobility, swimming, and climbing scores for the final 4 minutes of the swimming session), recorded by an observer that was „blinded” to the experimental design. The statistical analysis used the Levene test for variance homogeneity, ANOVA and post-hoc analysis as appropriate, Tukey or Tamhane tests. Results: No statistically significant increase or decrease in the number of treaded squares was seen in the locomotor activity assessment of any mice group. In the forced swimming test, amitryptilline showed an antidepressant effect in each experiment, at the 10 mg/kg bw dosage. Sodium metamizole was depressant at 100 mg/kg bw (increased the immobility score, p=0.049, Tamhane test), but not in lower dosages as well (25 and 50 mg/kg bw). Ketorolac showed an antidepressant effect at the intermediate dosage of 5 mg/kg bw, but not so in the dosages of 2.5 and 10 mg/kg bw, respectively (increased the swimming score, p=0.012, Tamhane test). Meloxicam and lornoxicam did not alter the forced swimming endpoints at any dosage level. Discussion: 1) Certain NSAIDs caused changes in the forced swimming patterns without interfering with locomotion. 2) Sodium metamizole showed a depressant effect, whereas ketorolac proved antidepressant. Conclusion: NSAID-induced mood changes are not class effects of these agents and apparently are independent of the type of inhibited cyclooxygenase (COX-1 or COX-2). Disclosure: This paper was co-financed from the European Social Fund, through the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, project number POSDRU /159 /1.5 /S /138907 "Excellence in scientific interdisciplinary research, doctoral and postdoctoral, in the economic, social and medical fields -EXCELIS", coordinator The Bucharest University of Economic Studies.

Keywords: Antidepressant, depressant, forced swim, NSAIDs.

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Authors: Alireza Ansariyar, Safieh Laaly

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Over the last decades, the vehicle industry has shown increased interest in integrating autonomous, connected, and electrical technologies in vehicle design with the primary hope of improving mobility and road safety while reducing transportation’s environmental impact. Using the State of Maryland (M.D.) in the United States as a pilot study, this research investigates Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) fuel consumption and air pollutants including Carbon Monoxide (CO), Particulate Matter (PM), and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and utilizes meaningful linear regression models to predict CAV’s environmental effects. Maryland transportation network was simulated in VISUM software, and data on a set of variables were collected through a comprehensive survey. The number of pollutants and fuel consumption were obtained for the time interval 2010 to 2021 from the macro simulation. Eventually, four linear regression models were proposed to predict the amount of C.O., NOx, PM pollutants, and fuel consumption in the future. The results highlighted that CAVs’ pollutants and fuel consumption have a significant correlation with the income, age, and race of the CAV customers. Furthermore, the reliability of four statistical models was compared with the reliability of macro simulation model outputs in the year 2030. The error of three pollutants and fuel consumption was obtained at less than 9% by statistical models in SPSS. This study is expected to assist researchers and policymakers with planning decisions to reduce CAV environmental impacts in M.D.

Keywords: Connected and autonomous vehicles, statistical model, environmental effects, pollutants and fuel consumption, VISUM, linear regression models.

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Authors: Amir Saber Gharamaleki, Beitollah Alipour, Zeinab Faghfoori, Ahmad YariKhosroushahi

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent cancers and intestinal microbial community plays an important role in colorectal tumorigenesis. Probiotics have recently been assessed as effective anti-proliferative agents and thus this study was performed to examine whether CRC undergo apoptosis by treating with isolated Iranian native dairy yeast, Kluyveromyces marxianus YAS, secretion metabolites. The cytotoxicity assessments on cells (HT-29, Caco-2) were accomplished through 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay as well as qualitative DAPI (4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole staining) and quantitative (flow cytometry assessments) evaluations of apoptosis. To evaluate the main mechanism of apoptosis, Real time PCR method was applied. Kluyveromyces marxianus YAS secretions (IC50) showed significant cytotoxicity against HT-29 and Caco-2 cancer cell lines (66.57 % and 66.34 % apoptosis) similar to 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) while apoptosis only was developed in 27.57 % of KDR normal cells. The prophylactic effects of Kluyveromyces marxianus (PTCC 5195), as a reference yeast, was not similar to Kluyveromyces marxianus YAS indicating strain dependency of bioactivities on CRC disease prevention. Based on real time PCR results, the main cytotoxicity is related to apoptosis phenomenon and the core related mechanism is depended on the overexpression of BAX, CASP 9, CASP 8 and CASP 3 inducing apoptosis genes. However, several investigations should be conducted to precisely determine the effective compounds to be used as anticancer therapeutics in the future.

Keywords: Anticancer, anti-proliferative, apoptosis, cytotoxicity, yeast.

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Authors: J. P. Dubois, Omar M. Abdul-Latif

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Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a statistical learning tool developed to a more complex concept of structural risk minimization (SRM). In this paper, SVM is applied to signal detection in communication systems in the presence of channel noise in various environments in the form of Rayleigh fading, additive white Gaussian background noise (AWGN), and interference noise generalized as additive color Gaussian noise (ACGN). The structure and performance of SVM in terms of the bit error rate (BER) metric is derived and simulated for these advanced stochastic noise models and the computational complexity of the implementation, in terms of average computational time per bit, is also presented. The performance of SVM is then compared to conventional binary signaling optimal model-based detector driven by binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. We show that the SVM performance is superior to that of conventional matched filter-, innovation filter-, and Wiener filter-driven detectors, even in the presence of random Doppler carrier deviation, especially for low SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) ranges. For large SNR, the performance of the SVM was similar to that of the classical detectors. However, the convergence between SVM and maximum likelihood detection occurred at a higher SNR as the noise environment became more hostile.

Keywords: Colour noise, Doppler shift, innovation filter, least square-support vector machine, matched filter, Rayleigh fading, Wiener filter.

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Authors: A. Soria-Verdugo, A. Morato-Godino, L. M. García-Gutiérrez, N. García-Hernando

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The evolution of the pyrolysis of sewage sludge in a fixed and a fluidized bed was analyzed using a novel measuring technique. This original measuring technique consists of installing the whole reactor over a precision scale, capable of measuring the mass of the complete reactor with enough precision to detect the mass released by the sewage sludge sample during its pyrolysis. The inert conditions required for the pyrolysis process were obtained supplying the bed with a nitrogen flowrate, and the bed temperature was adjusted to either 500 ºC or 600 ºC using a group of three electric resistors. The sewage sludge sample was supplied through the top of the bed in a batch of 10 g. The measurement of the mass released by the sewage sludge sample was employed to determine the evolution of the reaction rate during the pyrolysis, the total amount of volatile matter released, and the pyrolysis time. The pyrolysis tests of sewage sludge in the fluidized bed were conducted using two different bed materials of the same size but different densities: silica sand and sepiolite particles. The higher density of silica sand particles induces a flotsam behavior for the sewage sludge particles which move close to the bed surface. In contrast, the lower density of sepiolite produces a neutrally-buoyant behavior for the sewage sludge particles, which shows a proper circulation throughout the whole bed in this case. The analysis of the evolution of the pyrolysis process in both fluidized beds show that the pyrolysis is faster when buoyancy effects are negligible, i.e. in the bed conformed by sepiolite particles. Moreover, sepiolite was found to show an absorbent capability for the volatile matter released during the pyrolysis of sewage sludge.

Keywords: Bubbling fluidized bed, pyrolysis time, segregation effects, sewage sludge.

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Authors: Yao Wu

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In the context of financial globalization, China has put forward the policy goal of high-quality development, and the digital economy, with its advantage of information resources, is driving China's export trade to achieve high-quality development. Due to the long-standing financing constraints of small and medium-sized export enterprises, how to expand the export scale of small and medium-sized enterprises has become a major threshold for the development of China's export trade. This paper firstly adopts the hierarchical analysis method to establish the evaluation system of high-quality development of China's export trade; secondly, the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2018 are selected for empirical analysis to establish the impact model of digital inclusive finance on the high-quality development of China's export trade; based on the analysis of the heterogeneous enterprise trade model, a mediating effect model is established to verify the mediating role of credit constraint in the development of high-quality export trade in China. Based on the above analysis, this paper concludes that inclusive digital finance, with its unique digital and inclusive nature, alleviates the credit constraint problem among SMEs, enhances the binary marginal effect of SMEs' exports, optimizes their export scale and structure, and promotes the high-quality development of regional and even national export trade. Finally, based on the findings of this paper, we propose insights and suggestions for inclusive digital finance to promote the high-quality development of export trade.

Keywords: Digital inclusive finance, high-quality development of export trade, fixed effects, binary marginal effects.

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Authors: Patrick Cummings, Laura Cassani, Deirdre Kelliher

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In this paper we present findings from a research effort to apply a hybrid collaborative-context approach for a system focused on Marine Corps civil affairs data collection, aggregation, and analysis called the Marine Civil Information Management System (MARCIMS). The goal of this effort is to provide operators with information to make sense of the interconnectedness of entities and relationships in their area of operation and discover existing data to support civil military operations. Our approach to build a recommendation engine was designed to overcome several technical challenges, including 1) ensuring models were robust to the relatively small amount of data collected by the Marine Corps civil affairs community; 2) finding methods to recommend novel data for which there are no interactions captured; and 3) overcoming confirmation bias by ensuring content was recommended that was relevant for the mission despite being obscure or less well known. We solve this by implementing a combination of collective matrix factorization (CMF) and graph-based random walks to provide recommendations to civil military operations users. We also present a method to resolve the challenge of computation complexity inherent from highly connected nodes through a precomputed process.

Keywords: Recommendation engine, collaborative filtering, context based recommendation, graph analysis, coverage, civil affairs operations, Marine Corps.

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Authors: Izian Abd. Karim, Kachalla Mohammed, Nora Farah A. A. Aziz, Law Teik Hua

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The economic use and ease of construction of profiled deck composite slab is marred with the complex and un-economic strength verification required for the serviceability and general safety considerations. Beside these, albeit factors such as shear span length, deck geometries and mechanical frictions greatly influence the longitudinal shear strength, that determines the ultimate strength of profiled deck composite slab, and number of methods available for its determination; partial shear and slope-intercept are the two methods according to Euro-code 4 provision. However, the complexity associated with shear behavior of profiled deck composite slab, the use of these methods in determining the load carrying capacities of such slab yields different and conflicting values. This couple with the time and cost constraint associated with the strength verification is a source of concern that draws more attentions nowadays, the issue is critical. Treating some of these known shear strength influencing factors as random variables, the load carrying capacity violation of profiled deck composite slab from the use of the two-methods defined according to Euro-code 4 are determined using reliability approach, and comparatively studied. The study reveals safety values from the use of m-k method shows good standing compared with that from the partial shear method.

Keywords: Composite slab, first order reliability method, longitudinal shear, partial shear connection, slope-intercept.

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Authors: D. Mowla, N. Rasti, P. Keshavarz

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Reduction of fossil fuels sources, increasing of pollution gases emission, and global warming effects increase the demand of renewable fuels. One of the main candidates of alternative fuels is biodiesel. Biodiesel limits greenhouse gas effects due to the closed CO₂ cycle. Biodiesel has more biodegradability, lower combustion emissions such as CO, SO_x, HC, PM and lower toxicity than petro diesel. However, biodiesel has high production cost due to high price of plant oils as raw material. So, the utilization of waste cooking oils (WCOs) as feedstock, due to their low price and disposal problems reduce biodiesel production cost. In this study, production of biodiesel by transesterification of methanol and WCO using modified sodic potassic (SP) clinoptilolite zeolite and sodic potassic calcic (SPC) clinoptilolite zeolite as heterogeneous catalysts have been investigated. These natural clinoptilolite zeolites were modified by KOH solution to increase the site activity. The optimum biodiesel yields for SP clinoptilolite and SPC clinoptilolite were 95.8% and 94.8%, respectively. Produced biodiesel were analyzed and compared with petro diesel and ASTM limits. The properties of produced biodiesel confirm well with ASTM limits. The density, kinematic viscosity, cetane index, flash point, cloud point, and pour point of produced biodiesel were all higher than petro diesel but its acid value was lower than petro diesel. Finally, the reusability and regeneration of catalysts were investigated. The results indicated that the spent zeolites cannot be reused directly for the transesterification, but they can be regenerated easily and can obtain high activity.

Keywords: Biodiesel, renewable fuel, transesterification, waste cooking oil.

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Authors: S. S. Pathak, M. A. Borkar, S. S. Patel

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To compare Healing Effects of an Ayurvedic Preparation and Silver Sulfadiazine on burn wounds in Albino Rats. Methods: Albino rats– 30 male / female rats weighing between 150-200 g were used in the study. They were individually housed and maintained on normal diet and water ad libitum. Partial thickness burn wounds were inflicted, on overnight-starved animals under pentobarbitone (30mg/kg, i.p.) anaesthesia, by pouring hot molten wax at 80oC into a plastic cylinder of 300 mm2 circular openings placed on the shaven back of the animal. Apart from the drugs under investigation no local/ systemic chemotherapeutic cover will be provided to animals. All the animals were assessed for the percentage of wound contraction, signs of infection, scab formation and histopathological examination. Results: Percentage of wound healing was significantly better in the test ointment group compared to the standard. Signs of infection were observed in more animals in the test ointment group compared to the standard. Scab formation also took place earlier in the test ointment group compared to standard. Epithelial regeneration and healing profile was better in the test ointment compared to the standard. Moreover the test ointment group did not show any raised margins in the wound or blackish discoloration as was observed in silver sulfadiazine group. Conclusion: The burn wound healing effect of the ayurvedic ointment under study is better in comparison to standard therapy of silver sulfadiazine. The problem of infection encountered with the test ointment can be overcome by changing the concentrations and proportions of the ingredients in the test ointment which constitutes the further plan of the study.

Keywords: Ayurvedic test ointment, burn wounds, Silver sulfadiazine.

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Authors: M. H. Arslan, U. K. Sahin, H. Acikgoz-Tufan, I. Gocek, I. Erdem

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Various exterior factors have perpetual effects on textile materials during wear, use and laundering in everyday life. In accordance with their frequency of use, textile materials are required to be laundered at certain intervals. The medium in which the laundering process takes place have inevitable detrimental physical and chemical effects on textile materials caused by the unique parameters of the process inherently existing. Connatural structures of various textile materials result in many different physical, chemical and mechanical characteristics. Because of their specific structures, these materials have different behaviors against several exterior factors. By modeling the behavior of commercial and test textiles as group-wise against laundering process, it is possible to disclose the relation in between these two groups of materials, which will lead to better understanding of their behaviors in terms of similarities and differences against the washing parameters of the laundering. Thus, the goal of the current research is to examine the behavior of two groups of textile materials as commercial textiles and as test textiles towards the main washing machine parameters during laundering process such as temperature, load quantity, mechanical action and level of water amount by concentrating on shrinkage, pilling, sewing defects, collar abrasion, the other defects other than sewing, whitening and overall properties of textiles. In this study, cotton fabrics were preferred as commercial textiles due to the fact that garments made of cotton are the most demanded products in the market by the textile consumers in daily life. Full factorial experimental set-up was used to design the experimental procedure. All profiles always including all of the commercial and the test textiles were laundered for 20 cycles by commercial home laundering machine to investigate the effects of the chosen parameters. For the laundering process, a modified version of ‘‘IEC 60456 Test Method’’ was utilized. The amount of detergent was altered as 0.5% gram per liter depending on varying load quantity levels. Datacolor 650®, EMPA Photographic Standards for Pilling Test and visual examination were utilized to test and characterize the textiles. Furthermore, in the current study the relation in between commercial and test textiles in terms of their performance was deeply investigated by the help of statistical analysis performed by MINITAB® package program modeling their behavior against the parameters of the laundering process. In the experimental work, the behaviors of both groups of textiles towards washing machine parameters were visually and quantitatively assessed in dry state.

Keywords: Behavior against washing machine parameters, performance evaluation of textiles, statistical analysis, commercial and test textiles.

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Authors: Ceren Ince, Berkay Z. Erdem, Shahram Derogar, Nabi Yuzer

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Fibre cement plates, often used in construction, generally are made using quartz as an inert material, cement as a binder and cellulose as a fibre. This paper, first of all, investigates the mechanical properties and durability of fibre cement plates when quartz is both partly and fully replaced with diatomite. Diatomite does not only have lower density compared to quartz but also has high pozzolanic activity. The main objective of this paper is the investigation of the effects of supplementary cementing materials (SCMs) on the short and long term mechanical properties and durability characteristics of fibre cement plates prepared using diatomite. Supplementary cementing materials such as ground granulated blast furnace slug (GGBS) and fly ash (FA) are used in this study. Volume proportions of 10, 20, 30 and 40% of GGBS and FA are used as partial replacement materials to cement. Short and long term mechanical properties such as compressive and flexural strengths as well as sorptivity characteristics and mass were investigated. Consistency and setting time at each replacement levels of SCMs were also recorded. The effects of using supplementary cementing materials on the carbonation and sulphate resistance of fibre cement plates were then experimented. The results, first of all, show that the use of diatomite as a full or partial replacement to quartz resulted in a systematic decrease in total mass of the fibre cement plates. The reduction of mass was largely due to the lower density and finer particle size of diatomite compared to quartz. The use of diatomite did not only reduce the mass of these plates but also increased the compressive strength significantly as a result of its high pozzolanic activity. The replacement levels of both GGBS and FA resulted in a systematic decrease in short term compressive strength with increasing replacement levels. This was essentially expected as the total rate of hydration is much lower in GGBS and FA than that of cement. Long term results however, indicated that the compressive strength of fibre cement plates prepared using both GGBS and FA increases with time and hence the compressive strength of plates prepared using SCMs is either equivalent or more than the compressive strength of plates prepared using cement alone. Durability characteristics of fibre cement plates prepared using SCMs were enhanced significantly. Measurements of sopritivty characteristics were also indicated that the plates prepared using SCMs has much lower water absorption capacities compared to plates prepared cement alone. Much higher resistance to carbonation and sulphate attach were observed with plates prepared using SCMs. The results presented in this paper show that the use of SCMs does not only support the production of more sustainable construction materials but also enhances the mechanical properties and durability characteristics of fibre cement plates.

Keywords: Diatomite, fibre, strength, supplementary cementing materials.

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Authors: R. May, K. Jinno, I. Yusoff

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The paper aims at evaluating the effects of heavy groundwater withdrawal and artificial groundwater recharge of an ex-mining pond to the aquifer system of the Langat Basin through the three-dimensional (3D) numerical modeling. Many mining sites have been left behind from the massive mining exploitations in Malaysia during the England colonization era and from the last few decades. These sites are able to accommodate more than a million cubic meters of water from precipitation, runoff, groundwater, and river. Most of the time, the mining sites are turned into ponds for recreational activities. In the current study, an artificial groundwater recharge from an ex-mining pond in the Langat Basin was proposed due to its capacity to store >50 million m3 of water. The location of the pond is near the Langat River and opposite a steel company where >4 million gallons of groundwater is withdrawn on a daily basis. The 3D numerical simulation was developed using the Groundwater Modeling System (GMS). The calibrated model (error about 0.7 m) was utilized to simulate two scenarios (1) Case 1: artificial recharge pond with no pumping and (2) Case 2: artificial pond with pumping. The results showed that in Case 1, the pond played a very important role in supplying additional water to the aquifer and river. About 90,916 m3/d of water from the pond, 1,173 m3/d from the Langat River, and 67,424 m3/d from the direct recharge of precipitation infiltrated into the aquifer system. In Case 2, due to the abstraction of groundwater from a company, it caused a steep depression around the wells, river, and pond. The result of the water budget showed an increase rate of inflow in the pond and river with 92,493m3/d and 3,881m3/d respectively. The outcome of the current study provides useful information of the aquifer behavior of the Langat Basin.

Keywords: Groundwater and surface water interaction, groundwater modeling, GMS, artificial recharge pond, ex-mining site.

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Authors: Oliver Ohneiser, Francesca De Crescenzio, Gianluca Di Flumeri, Jan Kraemer, Bruno Berberian, Sara Bagassi, Nicolina Sciaraffa, Pietro Aricò, Gianluca Borghini, Fabio Babiloni

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An increasing degree of automation in air traffic will also change the role of the air traffic controller (ATCO). ATCOs will fulfill significantly more monitoring tasks compared to today. However, this rather passive role may lead to Out-Of-The-Loop (OOTL) effects comprising vigilance decrement and less situation awareness. The project MINIMA (Mitigating Negative Impacts of Monitoring high levels of Automation) has conceived a system to control and mitigate such OOTL phenomena. In order to demonstrate the MINIMA concept, an experimental simulation set-up has been designed. This set-up consists of two parts: 1) a Task Environment (TE) comprising a Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) simulator as well as 2) a Vigilance and Attention Controller (VAC) based on neurophysiological data recording such as electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking devices. The current vigilance level and the attention focus of the controller are measured during the ATCO’s active work in front of the human machine interface (HMI). The derived vigilance level and attention trigger adaptive automation functionalities in the TE to avoid OOTL effects. This paper describes the full-scale experimental set-up and the component development work towards it. Hence, it encompasses a pre-test whose results influenced the development of the VAC as well as the functionalities of the final TE and the two VAC’s sub-components.

Keywords: Automation, human factors, air traffic controller, MINIMA, OOTL, Out-Of-The-Loop, EEG, electroencephalography, HMI, human machine interface.

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Authors: Lule Herman, E. Ovuga, M. Mshilla, S. Ojara, G. Kimbugwe, A. P. Adrawa, N. Mahuro

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Adolescents in Northern Uganda are at risk of teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). There is silence on sex both at home and school. This cross sectional descriptive analytical study interviews a random sample of 827 students and 13 teachers on knowledge, perception and acceptability to a comprehensive adolescent sexual and reproductive health education in “O” and “A” level secondary schools in Gulu District. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Directed content analysis of themes of transcribed qualitative data was conducted manually for common codes, sub-categories and categories. Of the 827 students; 54.3% (449) reported being in a sexual relationship especially those aged 15-17 years. Majority 96.1% (807) supported the teaching of a comprehensive ASRHE, citing no negative impact 71.5% (601). Majority 81.6% (686) agreed that such education could help prevention of STIs, abortions and teenage pregnancies, and that it should be taught by health workers 69.0% (580). Majority 76.6% (203) reported that ASRHE was not currently being taught in their schools. Students had low knowledge levels and misconceptions about ASRHE. ASRHE was highly acceptable though not being emphasized; its success in school settings requires multidisciplinary culturally sensitive approaches amongst which health workers should be frontiers.

Keywords: Acceptability, ASRHE, Knowledge, Perception.

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Authors: Chareerut Phruksaniyom, Khwanthana Grataitong, Permphan Dharmasaroja, Surapol Issaragrisil

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Bone marrow-derived stem cells have been widely studied as an alternative source of stem cells. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were mostly investigated and studies showed MSCs can promote neurogenesis. Little is known about the non-mesenchymal mononuclear cell fraction, which contains both hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic cells, including monocytes and endothelial progenitor cells. This study focused on unfractionated bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs), which remained 72 h after MSCs were adhered to the culture plates. We showed that BMMC-conditioned medium promoted morphological changes of human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells from an epithelial-like phenotype towards a neuron-like phenotype as indicated by an increase in neurite outgrowth, like those observed in retinoic acid (RA)-treated cells. The result could be explained by the effects of trophic factors released from BMMCs, as shown in the RT-PCR results that BMMCs expressed nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF). Similar results on the cell proliferation rate were also observed between RA-treated cells and cells cultured in BMMC-conditioned medium, suggesting that cells creased proliferating and differentiated into a neuronal phenotype. Using real-time RT-PCR, a significantly increased expression of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) mRNA in SHSY5Y cells indicated that BMMC-conditioned medium induced catecholaminergic identities in differentiated SH-SY5Y cells.

Keywords: bone marrow, neuronal differentiation, neurite outgrowth, trophic factor, tyrosine hydroxylase

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Authors: Salako Emmanuel Adekunle

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Computer education is referred to as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology efficiently, with a range of skills covering levels from basic use to advance. Computer continues to make an ever-increasing impact on all aspect of human endeavours such as education. With numerous benefits of computer education, what are the insights of students on computer education? This study investigated the perception of senior secondary school students on computer education in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria. A sample of 7500 senior secondary schools students was involved in the study, one hundred (100) private and fifty (50) public schools within FCT. They were selected by using simple random sampling technique. A questionnaire [PSSSCEQ] was developed and validated through expert judgement and reliability coefficient of 0.84 was obtained. It was used to gather relevant data on computer education. Findings confirmed that the students in the FCT had positive perception on computer education. Some factors were identified that affect students’ perception on computer education. The null hypotheses were tested using t-test and ANOVA statistical analyses at 0.05 level of significance. Based on these findings, some recommendations were made which include competent teachers should be employed into all secondary schools. This will help students to acquire relevant knowledge in computer education, technological supports should be provided to all secondary schools; this will help the users (students) to solve specific problems in computer education and financial supports should be provided to procure computer facilities that will enhance the teaching and the learning of computer education.

Keywords: Computer education, perception, secondary school, students.

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Authors: Salako Emmanuel Adekunle

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With numerous advantages of ICT in teaching such as using images to improve the retentive memory of students, academic staff is yet to deliver instructions adequately and effectively due to no power supply, lack of technical supports and non-availability of functional ICT tools. This study was conducted to investigate the attitudes of academic staff towards the use of information communication technology as a pedagogical tool for effective teaching in FCT College of Education, Zuba-Abuja, Nigeria. A sample of 200 academic staff from five schools/faculties was involved in the study. The respondents were selected by using simple random sampling technique (SRST). A questionnaire was developed and validated by the experts in Measurement and Evaluation, and reliability co-efficient of 0.85 was obtained. It was used to gather relevant data from the respondents. This study revealed that the respondents had positive attitudes towards the use of ICT as a pedagogical tool for effective teaching. Also, the uses of ICT by the academic staff included: to encourage closer relationship for attainment of higher academic, and to deliver instructions effectively. The study also revealed that there is a significant relationship between the attitudes and the uses of ICT by the academic staff. Based on these findings, some recommendations were made which include: power supply should be provided to operate ICT facilities for effective teaching, and technical assistance on ICT usage for effective delivery of instructions should be provided among other recommendations.

Keywords: Academic staff, attitudes, information communication technology, pedagogical tool, teaching and use.

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Authors: Sayed M. Soleimani, Nader H. Ghareeb, Nourhan H. Shaker, Muhammad B. Siddiqui

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Honeycomb sandwich panels have been widely used as protective structural elements against blast loading. The main advantages of these panels include their light weight due to the presence of voids, as well as their energy absorption capability. Terrorist activities have imposed new challenges to structural engineers to design protective measures for vital structures. Since blast loading is not usually considered in the load combinations during the design process of a structure, researchers around the world have been motivated to study the behavior of potential elements capable of resisting sudden loads imposed by the detonation of explosive materials. One of the best candidates for this objective is the honeycomb sandwich panel. Studying the effects of explosive materials on the panels requires costly and time-consuming experiments. Moreover, these type of experiments need permission from defense organizations which can become a hurdle. As a result, modeling and simulation using an appropriate tool can be considered as a good alternative. In this research work, the finite element package ABAQUS® is used to study the behavior of hexagonal and squared honeycomb steel sandwich panels under the explosive effects of different amounts of trinitrotoluene (TNT). The results of finite element modeling of a specific honeycomb configuration are initially validated by comparing them with the experimental results from literature. Afterwards, several configurations including different geometrical properties of the honeycomb wall are investigated and the results are compared with the original model. Finally, the effectiveness of the core shape and wall thickness are discussed, and conclusions are made.

Keywords: Blast loading, finite element modeling, steel honeycomb sandwich panel.

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Authors: A. S. Haruna, M. U. Tambawal, A. A. Salawu

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The psychological impact of peer influence on its individual group members, can make them resist HIV/AIDS counselling and testing. This study investigated the correlate of peer influence and resistance to HIV/AIDS counselling and testing among students in tertiary institutions in Kano state, Nigeria. To achieve this, three null hypotheses were postulated and tested. Cross- Sectional Survey Design was employed in which 1512 sample was selected from a student population of 104,841.Simple Random Sampling was used in the selection. A self-developed 20-item scale called Peer Influence and Psychological Resistance Inventory (PIPRI) was used for data collection. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMCC) via test-retest method was applied to estimate a reliability coefficient of 0.86 for the scale. Data obtained was analyzed using t-test and PPMCC at 0.05 level of confidence. Results reveal 26.3% (397) of the respondents being influenced by their peer group, while 39.8% showed resistance. Also, the t-tests and PPMCC statistics were greater than their respective critical values. This shows that there was a significant gender difference in peer influence and a difference between peer influence and resistance to HIV/AIDS counselling and testing. However, a positive relationship between peer influence and resistance to HIV/AIDS counselling and testing was shown. A major recommendation offered suggests the use of reinforcement and social support for positive attitudes and maintenance of safe behaviour among students who patronize HIV/AIDS counselling.

Keywords: Peer influence, HIV/AIDS counselling and testing, Resistance.

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Authors: Aya Salama

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Digital Twin has emerged as a compelling research area, capturing the attention of scholars over the past decade. It finds applications across diverse fields, including smart manufacturing and healthcare, offering significant time and cost savings. Notably, it often intersects with other cutting-edge technologies such as Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. However, the concept of a Human Digital Twin (HDT) is still in its infancy and requires further demonstration of its practicality. HDT takes the notion of Digital Twin a step further by extending it to living entities, notably humans, who are vastly different from inanimate physical objects. The primary objective of this research was to create an HDT capable of automating real-time human responses by simulating human behavior. To achieve this, the study delved into various areas, including clustering, supervised classification, topic extraction, and sentiment analysis. The paper successfully demonstrated the feasibility of HDT for generating personalized responses in social messaging applications. Notably, the proposed approach achieved an overall accuracy of 63%, a highly promising result that could pave the way for further exploration of the HDT concept. The methodology employed Random Forest for clustering the question database and matching new questions, while K-nearest neighbor was utilized for sentiment analysis.

Keywords: Human Digital twin, sentiment analysis, topic extraction, supervised machine learning, unsupervised machine learning, classification and clustering.

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Authors: Wai Prathumpai, Pranee Rachtawee, Sutamat Khajeeram, Pariya Na Nakorn

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The  β-glucan produced by Ophiocordyceps dipterigena BCC 2073 is a (1, 3)-β-D-glucan with highly branching O-6-linkedside chains that is resistant to acid hydrolysis (by hydrochloric acid and porcine pancreatic alpha-amylase). This β-glucan can be utilized as a prebiotic due to its advantageous structural and biological properties. The effects of using this β-glucan as the sole carbon source for the in vitro growth of two probiotic bacteria (L. acidophilus BCC 13938 and B. animalis ATCC 25527) were investigated. Compared with the effect of using 1% glucose or fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS) as the sole carbon source, using 1% β-glucan for this purpose showed that this prebiotic supported and stimulated the growth of both types of probiotic bacteria and induced them to produce the highest levels of metabolites during their growth. The highest levels of lactic and acetic acid, 10.04 g·L^-1 and 2.82 g·L^-1, respectively, were observed at 2 h of cultivation using glucose as the sole carbon source. Furthermore, the fermentation broth obtained using 1% β-glucan as the sole carbon source had greater antibacterial activity against selected pathogenic bacteria (B. subtilis TISTR 008, E. coli TISTR 780, and S. typhimurium TISTR 292) than did the broths prepared using glucose or FOS as the sole carbon source. The fermentation broth obtained by growing L. acidophilus BCC 13938 in the presence of β-glucan inhibited the growth of B. subtilis TISTR 008 by more than 70% and inhibited the growth of both S. typhimurium TISTR 292 and E. coli TISTR 780 by more than 90%. In conclusion, O. dipterigena BCC 2073 is a potential source of a β-glucan prebiotic that could be used for commercial production in the near future.

Keywords: β-glucan, Ophiocordyceps dipterigena, prebiotic, probiotic, antimicrobial.

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Authors: E. Tarantino, G. Disciglio, G. Gatta, L. Frabboni, A. Libutti, A. Tarantino

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Worldwide, about two-thirds of industrial and domestic wastewater effluent is discharged without treatment, which can cause contamination and eutrophication of the water. In particular, for Mediterranean countries, irrigation with treated wastewater would mitigate the water stress and support the agricultural sector. Changing global weather patterns will make the situation worse, due to increased susceptibility to drought, which can cause major environmental, social, and economic problems. The study was carried out in open field in an intensive agricultural area of the Apulian region in Southern Italy where freshwater resources are often scarce. As well as providing a water resource, irrigation with treated wastewater represents a significant source of nutrients for soil–plant systems. However, the use of wastewater might have further effects on soil. This study thus investigated the long-term impact of irrigation with reclaimed agro-industrial wastewater on the chemical characteristics of the soil. Two crops (processing tomato and broccoli) were cultivated in succession in Stornarella (Foggia) over four years from 2012 to 2016 using two types of irrigation water: groundwater and tertiary treated agro-industrial wastewater that had undergone an activated sludge process, sedimentation filtration, and UV radiation. Chemical analyses were performed on the irrigation waters and soil samples. The treated wastewater was characterised by high levels of several chemical parameters including TSS, EC, COD, BOD₅, Na⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, NH₄-N, PO₄-P, K⁺, SAR and CaCO₃, as compared with the groundwater. However, despite these higher levels, the mean content of several chemical parameters in the soil did not show relevant differences between the irrigation treatments, in terms of the chemical features of the soil.

Keywords: Agro-industrial wastewater, broccoli, long-term re-use, tomato.

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Authors: Y. Zheng, W. Sun

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This paper describes a new approach which can be used to interpret the experimental creep deformation data obtained from miniaturized thin plate bending specimen test to the corresponding uniaxial data based on an inversed application of the reference stress method. The geometry of the thin plate is fully defined by the span of the support, l, the width, b, and the thickness, d. Firstly, analytical solutions for the steady-state, load-line creep deformation rate of the thin plates for a Norton’s power law under plane stress (b→0) and plane strain (b→∞) conditions were obtained, from which it can be seen that the load-line deformation rate of the thin plate under plane-stress conditions is much higher than that under the plane-strain conditions. Since analytical solution is not available for the plates with random b-values, finite element (FE) analyses are used to obtain the solutions. Based on the FE results obtained for various b/l ratios and creep exponent, n, as well as the analytical solutions under plane stress and plane strain conditions, an approximate, numerical solutions for the deformation rate are obtained by curve fitting. Using these solutions, a reference stress method is utilised to establish the conversion relationships between the applied load and the equivalent uniaxial stress and between the creep deformations of thin plate and the equivalent uniaxial creep strains. Finally, the accuracy of the empirical solution was assessed by using a set of “theoretical” experimental data.

Keywords: Bending, Creep, Miniature Specimen, Thin Plate.

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Authors: Shibesh Dutta, Sivaramakrishnan R., Sundar Gopalan, Balakrishnan Shankar

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MOSCAPs of various combinations of Hafnium oxide and Titanium oxide of varying thickness with Aluminum as gate electrode have been fabricated and electrically characterized. The effects of voltage stress on the I-V characteristics for prolonged time durations have been studied and compared. Results showed hard breakdown and negligible degradation of reliability under stress.

Keywords: breakdown, MOSCAP, voltage stress.

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Authors: Feng-Sheng Wang, Wu-Hsiung Wu, Kai-Cheng Hsu

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The optimization of biological systems, which is a branch of metabolic engineering, has generated a lot of industrial and academic interest for a long time. In the last decade, metabolic engineering approaches based on mathematical optimizations have been used extensively for the analysis and manipulation of metabolic networks. In practical optimization of metabolic reaction networks, designers have to manage the nature of uncertainty resulting from qualitative characters of metabolic reactions, e.g., the possibility of enzyme effects. A deterministic approach does not give an adequate representation for metabolic reaction networks with uncertain characters. Fuzzy optimization formulations can be applied to cope with this problem. A fuzzy multi-objective optimization problem can be introduced for finding the optimal engineering interventions on metabolic network systems considering the resilience phenomenon and cell viability constraints. The accuracy of optimization results depends heavily on the development of essential kinetic models of metabolic networks. Kinetic models can quantitatively capture the experimentally observed regulation data of metabolic systems and are often used to find the optimal manipulation of external inputs. To address the issues of optimizing the regulatory structure of metabolic networks, it is necessary to consider qualitative effects, e.g., the resilience phenomena and cell viability constraints. Combining the qualitative and quantitative descriptions for metabolic networks makes it possible to design a viable strain and accurately predict the maximum possible flux rates of desired products. Considering the resilience phenomena in metabolic networks can improve the predictions of gene intervention and maximum synthesis rates in metabolic engineering. Two case studies will present in the conference to illustrate the phenomena.

Keywords: Fuzzy multi-objective optimization problem, kinetic model, metabolic engineering.

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Authors: Rohit Sharma, Fabio Cozzi

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A 3C-2D PIV technique was applied to investigate the swirling flow generated by an axial plus tangential type swirl generator. This work is focused on the near-exit region of an isothermal swirling jet to characterize the effect of swirl on the flow field and to identify the large coherent structures both in unconfined and confined conditions for geometrical swirl number, S_g = 4.6. Effects of the Reynolds number on the flow structure were also studied. The experimental results show significant effects of the confinement on the mean velocity fields and its fluctuations. The size of the recirculation zone was significantly enlarged upon confinement compared to the free swirling jet. Increasing in the Reynolds number further enhanced the recirculation zone. The frequency characteristics have been measured with a capacitive microphone which indicates the presence of periodic oscillation related to the existence of precessing vortex core, PVC. Proper orthogonal decomposition of the jet velocity field was carried out, enabling the identification of coherent structures. The time coefficients of the first two most energetic POD modes were used to reconstruct the phase-averaged velocity field of the oscillatory motion in the swirling flow. The instantaneous minima of negative swirl strength values calculated from the instantaneous velocity field revealed the presence of two helical structures located in the inner and outer shear layers and this structure fade out at an axial location of approximately z/D = 1.5 for unconfined case and z/D = 1.2 for confined case. By phase averaging the instantaneous swirling strength maps, the 3D helical vortex structure was reconstructed.

Keywords: Acoustic probes, 3C-2D particle image velocimetry, PIV, precessing vortex core, PVC, recirculation zone.

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Authors: I. Sonia d’Apolito, Bianca Sisinni, Mirko Grimaldi, Barbara Gili Fivela

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The American English contrast /ɑ-ʌ/ (cop-cup) is difficult to be produced by Italian learners since they realize L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ as L1-/ɔ-a/ respectively, due to differences in phonetic-phonological systems and also in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules. In this paper, we try to answer the following research questions: Can a short training improve the production of English /ɑ-ʌ/ by Italian learners? Is a perceptual training better than an articulatory (ultrasound - US) training? Thus, we compare a perceptual training with an US articulatory one to observe: 1) the effects of short trainings on L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ productions; 2) if the US articulatory training improves the pronunciation better than the perceptual training. In this pilot study, 9 Salento-Italian monolingual adults participated: 3 subjects performed a 1-hour perceptual training (ES-P); 3 subjects performed a 1-hour US training (ES-US); and 3 control subjects did not receive any training (CS). Verbal instructions about the phonetic properties of L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ and L1-/ɔ-a/ and their differences (representation on F1-F2 plane) were provided during both trainings. After these instructions, the ES-P group performed an identification training based on the High Variability Phonetic Training procedure, while the ES-US group performed the articulatory training, by means of US video of tongue gestures in L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ production and dynamic view of their own tongue movements and position using a probe under their chin. The acoustic data were analyzed and the first three formants were calculated. Independent t-tests were run to compare: 1) /ɑ-ʌ/ in pre- vs. post-test respectively; /ɑ-ʌ/ in pre- and post-test vs. L1-/a-ɔ/ respectively. Results show that in the pre-test all speakers realize L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ as L1-/ɔ-a/ respectively. Contrary to CS and ES-P groups, the ES-US group in the post-test differentiates the L2 vowels from those produced in the pre-test as well as from the L1 vowels, although only one ES-US subject produces both L2 vowels accurately. The articulatory training seems more effective than the perceptual one since it favors the production of vowels in the correct direction of L2 vowels and differently from the similar L1 vowels.

Keywords: L2 vowel production, perceptual training, articulatory training, ultrasound.

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