Search results for: Family size intention
441 Polyphenolic Profile and Antioxidant Activities of Nigella Sativa Seed Extracts In Vitro and In Vivo
Authors: Asma Meziti, Hicham Meziti, Kaouthar Boudiaf, Benboubetra Mustapha, Hemama Bouriche.
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Nigella sativa L. is an aromatic plant belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. It has been used traditionally, especially in the middle East and India, for the treatment of asthma, cough, bronchitis, headache, rheumatism, fever, influenza and eczema. Several biological activities have been reported in Nigella sativa seeds, including antioxidant. In this context we tried to estimate the antioxidant activity of various extracts prepared from Nigella sativa seeds, methanolic extract (ME), chloroformic extract (CE), hexanic extract (HE : fixed oil), ethyl acetate extract (EAE) water extract (WE). The Folin-Ciocalteu assay showed that CE and EAE contained high level of phenolic compounds 81.31 and 72.43μg GAE/mg of extract respectively. Similarly, the CE and EAE exhibited the highest DPPH radical scavenging activity, with IC50 values of 106.56μg/ml and 121.62μg/ml respectively. In addition, CE and HE showed the most scavenging activity against superoxide radical generated in the PMS-NADH-NBT system with respective IC50 values of 361.86 μg/ml and 371.80 μg/ml, which is comparable to the activity of the standard antioxidant BHT (344.59 μg/ml). Ferrous ion chelating capacity assay showed that WE, EAE and ME are the most active with 40.57, 39.70 and 22.02 mg EDTA-E/g of extract. The inhibition of linoleic acid/ß-carotene coupled oxidation was estimated by ßcarotene bleaching assay, this showed a highest relative antioxidant activity with CE and EAE (69.82% of inhibition). The antioxidant activities of the methanolic extract and the fixed oil are confirmed by an in vivo assay in mice, the daily oral administration of methanolic extract (500 and 800 mg/kg/day) and fixed oil (2 and 4 ml/kg/day) during 21 days, resulted in a significant enhancement of the blood total antioxidant capacity (measured by KRL test) and the plasmatic antioxidant capacity towards DPPH radical.Keywords: Antioxidant Capacity, Chelating, Phenolic Compounds, Nigella Sativa, Scavenger
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4262440 Investigation on Polymer Based Nano-Silver as Food Packaging Materials
Authors: A. M. Metak, T. T. Ajaal
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Commercial nanocomposite food packaging type nano-silver containers were characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The presence of nanoparticles consistent with the incorporation of 1% nano-silver (Ag) and 0.1% titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticle into polymeric materials formed into food containers was confirmed. Both nanomaterials used in this type of packaging appear to be embedded in a layered configuration within the bulk polymer. The dimensions of the incorporated nanoparticles were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and determined by calculation using the Scherrer Formula; these were consistent with Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles in the size range 20-70nm both were spherical shape nanoparticles. Antimicrobial assessment of the nanocomposite container has also been performed and the results confirm the antimicrobial activity of Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles in food packaging containers. Migration assessments were performed in a wide range of food matrices to determine the migration of nanoparticles from the packages. The analysis was based upon the relevant European safety Directives and involved the application of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to identify the range of migration risk. The data pertain to insignificance levels of migration of Ag and TiO2 nanoparticles into the selected food matrices.
Keywords: Nano-silver, antimicrobial food packaging, migration, titanium dioxide.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6331439 Bayesian Network Model for Students- Laboratory Work Performance Assessment: An Empirical Investigation of the Optimal Construction Approach
Authors: Ifeyinwa E. Achumba, Djamel Azzi, Rinat Khusainov
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There are three approaches to complete Bayesian Network (BN) model construction: total expert-centred, total datacentred, and semi data-centred. These three approaches constitute the basis of the empirical investigation undertaken and reported in this paper. The objective is to determine, amongst these three approaches, which is the optimal approach for the construction of a BN-based model for the performance assessment of students- laboratory work in a virtual electronic laboratory environment. BN models were constructed using all three approaches, with respect to the focus domain, and compared using a set of optimality criteria. In addition, the impact of the size and source of the training, on the performance of total data-centred and semi data-centred models was investigated. The results of the investigation provide additional insight for BN model constructors and contribute to literature providing supportive evidence for the conceptual feasibility and efficiency of structure and parameter learning from data. In addition, the results highlight other interesting themes.Keywords: Bayesian networks, model construction, parameterlearning, structure learning, performance index, model comparison.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1714438 Adomian Decomposition Method Associated with Boole-s Integration Rule for Goursat Problem
Authors: Mohd Agos Salim Nasir, Ros Fadilah Deraman, Siti Salmah Yasiran
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The Goursat partial differential equation arises in linear and non linear partial differential equations with mixed derivatives. This equation is a second order hyperbolic partial differential equation which occurs in various fields of study such as in engineering, physics, and applied mathematics. There are many approaches that have been suggested to approximate the solution of the Goursat partial differential equation. However, all of the suggested methods traditionally focused on numerical differentiation approaches including forward and central differences in deriving the scheme. An innovation has been done in deriving the Goursat partial differential equation scheme which involves numerical integration techniques. In this paper we have developed a new scheme to solve the Goursat partial differential equation based on the Adomian decomposition (ADM) and associated with Boole-s integration rule to approximate the integration terms. The new scheme can easily be applied to many linear and non linear Goursat partial differential equations and is capable to reduce the size of computational work. The accuracy of the results reveals the advantage of this new scheme over existing numerical method.Keywords: Goursat problem, partial differential equation, Adomian decomposition method, Boole's integration rule.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1845437 Copper Contamination in the Sediments of Northern Kaohsiung Harbor, Taiwan
Authors: Chiu-Wen Chen, Chih-Feng Chen, Cheng-Di Dong
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The distribution, enrichment, accumulation, and potential ecological risk of copper (Cu) in the surface sediments of northern Kaohsiung Harbor, Taiwan were investigated. Sediment samples from 12 locations of northern Kaohsiung Harbor were collected and characterized for Cu, aluminum, water content, organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorous, total grease and grain size. Results showed that the Cu concentrations varied from 6.9–244 mg/kg with an average of 109±66 mg/kg. The spatial distribution of Cu reveals that the Cu concentration is relatively high in the river mouth region, and gradually diminishes toward the harbor entrance region. This indicates that upstream industrial and municipal wastewater discharges along the river bank are major sources of Cu pollution. Results from the enrichment factor and geo-accumulation index analyses imply that the sediments collected from the river mouth can be characterized between moderate and moderately severe degree enrichment and between none to medium and moderate accumulation of Cu, respectively. However, results of potential ecological risk index indicate that the sediment has low ecological potential risk.
Keywords: Accumulation, ecological risk, enrichment, copper, sediment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1326436 The Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Non-Healthcare Migrant Workers in a Construction Company in Saudi Arabia
Authors: Viviane Nascimento, Dania Mehmod
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Introduction: The Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease was firstly reported in Asia at the end of 2019 and became a pandemic at the beginning of 2020. It resulted in a significant impact over the global economy and the health care systems around the world. The immediate measure adopted worldwide to contain the virus was mainly the lockdown and curfews. This certainly had an important impact on expats workers due to the financial insecurity, culture barrier and distance from the family. Saudi Arabia has one of the largest flows of foreign workers in the world and expats are the majority of the workforce. The aim of this essay was assessing the psychological impact of COVID-19 in non-health care expats living in Saudi Arabia. Methods: The study was conducted in a construction company in Riyadh with non-health care employees. The cross-sectional study protocol was approved by the company's executive management. Employees who verbally agreed to participate in the study were asked to anonymously answer a questionnaire validated for behavioral research (DASS-21). In addition, a second questionnaire was created to assess feelings and emotions. Results: More than a third of participants screened positive for one or more psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety and stress) on the DASS-21 scale. Moreover, it was observed an increase on negative feelings on the additional questionnaire. Conclusion: This study reveals an increase on negative feelings and psychological symptoms among non-health care migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this, it is crucial to understand the emotional effects caused by the pandemic on migrant workers in order to create supportive and informative strategies minimizing the emotional impact on this vulnerable group.
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia, psychological effects, migrant workers.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 487435 Cooperative Energy Efficient Routing for Wireless Sensor Networks in Smart Grid Communications
Authors: Ghazi AL-Sukkar, Iyad Jafar, Khalid Darabkh, Raed Al-Zubi, Mohammed Hawa
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Smart Grids employ wireless sensor networks for their control and monitoring. Sensors are characterized by limitations in the processing power, energy supply and memory spaces, which require a particular attention on the design of routing and data management algorithms. Since most routing algorithms for sensor networks, focus on finding energy efficient paths to prolong the lifetime of sensor networks, the power of sensors on efficient paths depletes quickly, and consequently sensor networks become incapable of monitoring events from some parts of their target areas. In consequence, the design of routing protocols should consider not only energy efficiency paths, but also energy efficient algorithms in general. In this paper we propose an energy efficient routing protocol for wireless sensor networks without the support of any location information system. The reliability and the efficiency of this protocol have been demonstrated by simulation studies where we compare them to the legacy protocols. Our simulation results show that these algorithms scale well with network size and density.Keywords: Data-centric storage, Dynamic Address Allocation, Sensor networks, Smart Grid Communications.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1843434 Development of an Adhesive from Prosopis africana Seed Endosperm (Okpeyi)
Authors: Nwangwu Florence Chinyere, Ene Rosemary Ndidiamaka
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This research work is an experimental study, through development of an adhesive from Prosopis africana endosperm. The prosopis seed for this work were obtained from Enugu State in the South East part of Nigeria. The seeds were prepared by separating the endosperm from the seed coat and cotyledon. Three methods were used to separate them, which are acidic method, roasting method and boiling method. 20g of seed were treated with different concentrations (25, 40, 55, 70, and 85% w/w) at 100°C and constant time (30 minutes), under continuous stirring with magnetic stirrer. Also 20g of seed were treated with sulphuric acid of concentrations 40% w/w at 100°C with different time (10, 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes), under continuous stirring with magnetic stirrer. Finally, 20g of seed were treated with sulphuric acid of concentrations 40% w/w at different temperature (20°C, 40°C, 60°C, 80°C, and 100°C) with constant time (30 minutes), under continuous stirring with magnetic stirrer. The whole endosperm extracted was adhesive. The physical properties of the adhesive were determined (appearance, odour, taste, solubility, pH, size, and binding strength). The percentage of the adhesive yield makes the commercialization of the seed in Nigeria possible and profitable. The very high viscosity attained at low concentrations makes prosopis adhesive an excellent thickener in the food industry.Keywords: Endosperm, adhesive, ethanol, Prosopis africana seed.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1420433 Fast Adjustable Threshold for Uniform Neural Network Quantization
Authors: Alexander Goncharenko, Andrey Denisov, Sergey Alyamkin, Evgeny Terentev
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The neural network quantization is highly desired procedure to perform before running neural networks on mobile devices. Quantization without fine-tuning leads to accuracy drop of the model, whereas commonly used training with quantization is done on the full set of the labeled data and therefore is both time- and resource-consuming. Real life applications require simplification and acceleration of quantization procedure that will maintain accuracy of full-precision neural network, especially for modern mobile neural network architectures like Mobilenet-v1, MobileNet-v2 and MNAS. Here we present a method to significantly optimize training with quantization procedure by introducing the trained scale factors for discretization thresholds that are separate for each filter. Using the proposed technique, we quantize the modern mobile architectures of neural networks with the set of train data of only ∼ 10% of the total ImageNet 2012 sample. Such reduction of train dataset size and small number of trainable parameters allow to fine-tune the network for several hours while maintaining the high accuracy of quantized model (accuracy drop was less than 0.5%). Ready-for-use models and code are available in the GitHub repository.Keywords: Distillation, machine learning, neural networks, quantization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 721432 Performance Improvement of a Supersonic External Compression Inlet by Heat Source Addition
Authors: Mohammad Reza Soltani, Mohammad Farahani, Javad Sepahi Younsi
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Heat source addition to the axisymmetric supersonic inlet may improve the performance parameters, which will increase the inlet efficiency. In this investigation the heat has been added to the flow field at some distance ahead of an axisymmetric inlet by adding an imaginary thermal source upstream of cowl lip. The effect of heat addition on the drag coefficient, mass flow rate and the overall efficiency of the inlet have been investigated. The results show that heat addition causes flow separation, hence to prevent this phenomena, roughness has been added on the spike surface. However, heat addition reduces the drag coefficient and the inlet mass flow rate considerably. Furthermore, the effects of position, size, and shape on the inlet performance were studied. It is found that the thermal source deflects the flow streamlines. By improper location of the thermal source, the optimum condition has been obtained. For the optimum condition, the drag coefficient is considerably reduced and the inlet mass flow rate and its efficiency have been increased slightly. The optimum shape of the heat source is obtained too.Keywords: Drag coefficient, heat source, performanceparameters, supersonic inlet.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2278431 Analytical Studies on Volume Determination of Leg Ulcer using Structured Light and Laser Triangulation Data Acquisition Techniques
Authors: M. Abdul-Rani, K. K. Chong, A. F. M. Hani, Y. B. Yap, A. Jamil
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Imaging is defined as the process of obtaining geometric images either two dimensional or three dimensional by scanning or digitizing the existing objects or products. In this research, it applied to retrieve 3D information of the human skin surface in medical application. This research focuses on analyzing and determining volume of leg ulcers using imaging devices. Volume determination is one of the important criteria in clinical assessment of leg ulcer. The volume and size of the leg ulcer wound will give the indication on responding to treatment whether healing or worsening. Different imaging techniques are expected to give different result (and accuracies) in generating data and images. Midpoint projection algorithm was used to reconstruct the cavity to solid model and compute the volume. Misinterpretation of the results can affect the treatment efficacy. The objectives of this paper is to compare the accuracy between two 3D data acquisition method, which is laser triangulation and structured light methods, It was shown that using models with known volume, that structured-light-based 3D technique produces better accuracy compared with laser triangulation data acquisition method for leg ulcer volume determination.Keywords: Imaging, Laser Triangulation, Structured Light, Volume Determination.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1499430 Resveratrol Incorporated Liposomes Prepared from Pegylated Phospholipids and Cholesterol
Authors: Mont Kumpugdee-Vollrath, Khaled Abdallah
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Liposomes and pegylated liposomes were widely used as drug delivery system in pharmaceutical field since a long time. However, in the former time, polyethylene glycol (PEG) was connected into phospholipid after the liposomes were already prepared. In this paper, we intend to study the possibility of applying phospholipids which already connected with PEG and then they were used to prepare liposomes. The model drug resveratrol was used because it can be applied against different diseases. Cholesterol was applied to stabilize the membrane of liposomes. The thin film technique in a laboratory scale was a preparation method. The liposomes were then characterized by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) and light microscopic techniques. The stable liposomes can be produced and the particle sizes after filtration were in nanometers. The 2- and 3-chains-PEG-phospholipid (PL) caused in smaller particle size than the 4-chains-PEG-PL. Liposomes from PL 90G and cholesterol were stable during storage at 8 °C of 56 days because the particle sizes measured by PCS were almost not changed. There was almost no leakage of resveratrol from liposomes PL 90G with cholesterol after diffusion test in dialysis tube for 28 days. All liposomes showed the sustained release during measuring time of 270 min. The maximum release amount of 16-20% was detected with liposomes from 2- and 3-chains-PEG-PL. The other liposomes gave max. release amount of resveratrol only of 10%. The release kinetic can be explained by Korsmeyer-Peppas equation.
Keywords: Liposome, NTA, resveratrol, pegylation, cholesterol.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1051429 Preparation of Porous Metal Membrane by Thermal Annealing for Thin Film Encapsulation
Authors: Jaibir Sharma, Lee JaeWung, Merugu Srinivas, Navab Singh
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This paper presents thermal annealing de-wetting technique for the preparation of porous metal membrane for Thin Film Encapsulation (TFE) application. Thermal annealing de-wetting experimental results reveal that pore size formation in porous metal membrane depend upon i.e. 1. The substrate at which metal is deposited, 2. Melting point of metal used for porous metal cap layer membrane formation, 3. Thickness of metal used for cap layer, 4. Temperature used for formation of porous metal membrane. In order to demonstrate this technique, Silver (Ag) was used as a metal for preparation of porous metal membrane on amorphous silicon (a-Si) and silicon oxide. The annealing of the silver thin film of various thicknesses was performed at different temperature. Pores in porous silver film were analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). In order to check the usefulness of porous metal film for TFE application, the porous silver film prepared on amorphous silicon (a- Si) and silicon oxide was released using XeF2 and VHF, respectively. Finally, guide line and structures are suggested to use this porous membrane for robust TFE application.Keywords: De-wetting, thermal annealing, metal, melting point, porous.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2061428 Absorbed Dose Measurement in Gonads Menduring Abdominal and Pelvicradiotherapy
Authors: Sadegh Masoudi, Ali Asghar Yousefi, Somayeh Nourollahi, Fatemeh Noughani
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Two different testicular tissues have to be distinguished in regard to radiation damage: first the seminiferous tubules, corresponding to the sites of spermatogenesis, which are extremely radiosensitive. Second the testosterone secreting Leydig cells, which are considered to be less radiosensitive. This study aims to estimate testicular dose and the associated risks for infertility and hereditary effects from Abdominal and pelvic irradiation. Radiotherapy was simulated on a humanoid phantom using a 15 MV photon beam. Testicular dose was measured for various field sizes and tissue thicknesses along beam axis using an ionization chamber and TLD. For transmission Factor Also common method of measuring the absorbed dose distribution and electron contamination in the build-up region of high-energy beams for radiation therapy is by means of parallel-plate Ionisation chambers. Gonadal dose was reduced by placing lead cups around the testes supplemented by a field edge block. For a tumor dose of 100 cGy, testicular dose was 2.96-8.12 cGy depending upon the field size and the distance from the inferior field edge. The treatment at parameters, the presence of gonad shield and the somatometric characteristics determine whether testicular dose can exceed 1 Gy which allows a complete recovery of spermatogenesis.
Keywords: Absorbed Dose, Abdominal and pelvic, gonads men, Radiotherapy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2209427 Fuzzy Mathematical Morphology approach in Image Processing
Authors: Yee Yee Htun, Dr. Khaing Khaing Aye
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Morphological operators transform the original image into another image through the interaction with the other image of certain shape and size which is known as the structure element. Mathematical morphology provides a systematic approach to analyze the geometric characteristics of signals or images, and has been applied widely too many applications such as edge detection, objection segmentation, noise suppression and so on. Fuzzy Mathematical Morphology aims to extend the binary morphological operators to grey-level images. In order to define the basic morphological operations such as fuzzy erosion, dilation, opening and closing, a general method based upon fuzzy implication and inclusion grade operators is introduced. The fuzzy morphological operations extend the ordinary morphological operations by using fuzzy sets where for fuzzy sets, the union operation is replaced by a maximum operation, and the intersection operation is replaced by a minimum operation. In this work, it consists of two articles. In the first one, fuzzy set theory, fuzzy Mathematical morphology which is based on fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory; fuzzy Mathematical operations and their properties will be studied in details. As a second part, the application of fuzziness in Mathematical morphology in practical work such as image processing will be discussed with the illustration problems.Keywords: Binary Morphological, Fuzzy sets, Grayscalemorphology, Image processing, Mathematical morphology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3237426 Avicelase Production by a Thermophilic Geobacillus stearothermophilus Isolated from Soil using Sugarcane Bagasse
Authors: E. A. Makky
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Studies were carried out on the comparative study of the production of Avicelase enzyme using sugarcane bagasse-SCB in two different statuses (i.e. treated and untreated SCB) by thermophilic Geobacillus stearothermophilus at 50ºC. Only four thermophilic bacterial isolates were isolated and assayed for Avicelase production using UntSCB and TSCB. Only one isolate selected as most potent and identified as G. stearothermophilus used in this study. A specific endo-β-1,4-D-glucanase (Avicelase EC 3.2.1.91) was partially purified from a thermophilic bacterial strain was isolated from different soil samples when grown on cellulose enrichment SCB substrate as the sole carbon source. Results shown that G. stearothermophilus was the better Avicelase producer strain. Avicelase had an optimum pH and temperature 7.0 and 50ºC for both UntSCB and TSCB and exhibited good pH stability between "5-8" and "4-9", however, good temperature stability between (30-80ºC) for UntSCB and TSCB, respectively. Other factors affecting the production of Avicelase were compared (i.e. SCB concentration, inoculum size and different incubation periods), all results observed and obtained were revealed that the TSCB was exhibited maximal enzyme activity in comparison with the results obtained from UntSCB, so, the TSCB was enhancing the Avicelase production.
Keywords: Geobacillus stearothermophilus, Avicelase, Sugarcane bagasse
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2797425 An Efficient Energy Adaptive Hybrid Error Correction Technique for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Ammar Elyas babiker, M.Nordin B. Zakaria, Hassan Yosif, Samir B. Ibrahim
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Variable channel conditions in underwater networks, and variable distances between sensors due to water current, leads to variable bit error rate (BER). This variability in BER has great effects on energy efficiency of error correction techniques used. In this paper an efficient energy adaptive hybrid error correction technique (AHECT) is proposed. AHECT adaptively changes error technique from pure retransmission (ARQ) in a low BER case to a hybrid technique with variable encoding rates (ARQ & FEC) in a high BER cases. An adaptation algorithm depends on a precalculated packet acceptance rate (PAR) look-up table, current BER, packet size and error correction technique used is proposed. Based on this adaptation algorithm a periodically 3-bit feedback is added to the acknowledgment packet to state which error correction technique is suitable for the current channel conditions and distance. Comparative studies were done between this technique and other techniques, and the results show that AHECT is more energy efficient and has high probability of success than all those techniques.Keywords: Underwater communication, wireless sensornetworks, error correction technique, energy efficiency
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2141424 Semantically Enriched Web Usage Mining for Personalization
Authors: Suresh Shirgave, Prakash Kulkarni, José Borges
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The continuous growth in the size of the World Wide Web has resulted in intricate Web sites, demanding enhanced user skills and more sophisticated tools to help the Web user to find the desired information. In order to make Web more user friendly, it is necessary to provide personalized services and recommendations to the Web user. For discovering interesting and frequent navigation patterns from Web server logs many Web usage mining techniques have been applied. The recommendation accuracy of usage based techniques can be improved by integrating Web site content and site structure in the personalization process.
Herein, we propose semantically enriched Web Usage Mining method for Personalization (SWUMP), an extension to solely usage based technique. This approach is a combination of the fields of Web Usage Mining and Semantic Web. In the proposed method, we envisage enriching the undirected graph derived from usage data with rich semantic information extracted from the Web pages and the Web site structure. The experimental results show that the SWUMP generates accurate recommendations and is able to achieve 10-20% better accuracy than the solely usage based model. The SWUMP addresses the new item problem inherent to solely usage based techniques.
Keywords: Prediction, Recommendation, Semantic Web Usage Mining, Web Usage Mining.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3015423 Issues in the User Interface Design of a Content Rich Vocational Training Application for Digitally Illiterate Users
Authors: Jamie Otelsberg, Nagarajan Akshay, Rao R. Bhavani
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This paper discusses our preliminary experiences in the design of a user interface of a computerized content-rich vocational training courseware meant for users with little or no computer experience. In targeting a growing population with limited access to skills training of any sort, we faced numerous challenges, including language and cultural differences, resource limits, gender boundaries and, in many cases, the simple lack of trainee motivation. With the size of the unskilled population increasing much more rapidly than the numbers of sufficiently skilled teachers, there is little choice but to develop teaching techniques that will take advantage of emerging computer-based training technologies. However, in striving to serve populations with minimal computer literacy, one must carefully design the user interface to accommodate their cultural, social, educational, motivational and other differences. Our work, which uses computer based and haptic simulation technologies to deliver training to these populations, has provided some useful insights on potential user interface design approaches.
Keywords: User interface design, digitally illiterate, vocational training, navigation issues, computer human interaction, human factors.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2366422 Moving Object Detection Using Histogram of Uniformly Oriented Gradient
Authors: Wei-Jong Yang, Yu-Siang Su, Pau-Choo Chung, Jar-Ferr Yang
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Moving object detection (MOD) is an important issue in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). There are two important moving objects, pedestrians and scooters in ADAS. In real-world systems, there exist two important challenges for MOD, including the computational complexity and the detection accuracy. The histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) features can easily detect the edge of object without invariance to changes in illumination and shadowing. However, to reduce the execution time for real-time systems, the image size should be down sampled which would lead the outlier influence to increase. For this reason, we propose the histogram of uniformly-oriented gradient (HUG) features to get better accurate description of the contour of human body. In the testing phase, the support vector machine (SVM) with linear kernel function is involved. Experimental results show the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method. With SVM classifiers, the real testing results show the proposed HUG features achieve better than classification performance than the HOG ones.
Keywords: Moving object detection, histogram of oriented gradient histogram of oriented gradient, histogram of uniformly-oriented gradient, linear support vector machine.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1222421 Development of Cooling Load Demand Program for Building in Malaysia
Authors: Zamri Noranai, Dayang Siti Zainab Abang Bujang, Rosli Asmawi, Hamidon Salleh, Mohammad Zainal Md Yusof
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Air conditioning is mainly to be used as human comfort medium. It has been use more often in country in which the daily temperatures are high. In scientific, air conditioning is defined as a process of controlling the moisture, cooling, heating and cleaning air. Without proper estimation of cooling load, big amount of waste energy been used because of unsuitable of air conditioning system are not considering to overcoming heat gains from surrounding. This is due to the size of the room is too big and the air conditioning has to use more energy to cool the room and the air conditioning is too small for the room. The studies are basically to develop a program to calculate cooling load. Through this study it is easy to calculate cooling load estimation. Furthermore it-s help to compare the cooling load estimation by hourly and yearly. Base on the last study that been done, the developed software are not user-friendly. For individual without proper knowledge of calculating cooling load estimation might be problem. Easy excess and user-friendly should be the main objective to design something. This program will allow cooling load able be estimate by any users rather than estimation by using rule of thumb. Several of limitation of case study is judged to sure it-s meeting to Malaysia building specification. Finally validation is done by comparison manual calculation and by developed program.Keywords: Building, Energy and Coaling Load
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2937420 Surfactant-Free O/W-Emulsion as Drug Delivery System
Authors: M. Kumpugdee-Vollrath, J.-P. Krause, S. Bürk
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Most of the drugs used for pharmaceutical purposes are poorly water-soluble drugs. About 40% of all newly discovered drugs are lipophilic and the numbers of lipophilic drugs seem to increase more and more. Drug delivery systems such as nanoparticles, micelles or liposomes are applied to improve their solubility and thus their bioavailability. Besides various techniques of solubilization, oil-in-water emulsions are often used to incorporate lipophilic drugs into the oil phase. To stabilize emulsions surface active substances (surfactants) are generally used. An alternative method to avoid the application of surfactants was of great interest. One possibility is to develop O/W-emulsion without any addition of surface active agents or the so called “surfactant-free emulsion or SFE”. The aim of this study was to develop and characterize SFE as a drug carrier by varying the production conditions. Lidocaine base was used as a model drug. The injection method was developed. Effects of ultrasound as well as of temperature on the properties of the emulsion were studied. Particle sizes and release were determined. The long-term stability up to 30 days was performed. The results showed that the surfactant-free O/W emulsions with pharmaceutical oil as drug carrier can be produced.
Keywords: Emulsion, lidocaine, Miglyol, size, surfactant, light scattering, release, injection, ultrasound, stability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3302419 Comparative Productivity Analysis of Median Scale Battery Cage and Deep Litter Housing Chicken Egg Production in Rivers State, Nigeria
Authors: D. I. Ekine, C. C. Akpanibah
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This paper analyses the productivity of median scale battery cage and deep litter chicken egg producers in Rivers State, Nigeria. 90 battery cage and 90 deep litter farmers giving a total of 180 farmers were sampled through a multistage sampling procedure. Mean productivity was higher for the battery cage than the deep litter farmers at 2.65 and 2.33 respectively. Productivity of battery cage farmers were positively influenced by age, extension contacts, experience and feed quantity while the productivity of deep litter farmers was positively influenced by age, extension contacts, household size, experience and labour. The major constraints identified by both categories are high cost of feed, high price of day-old chick, inadequate finance, lack of credit and high cost of drug/vaccination. Furthermore, the work recommends that government should assist chicken egg farmers through subsidies of input resources and put policies to make financial institutions give out loans at low interest rate to the farmers. The farmers should abide by the recommended number of birds per unit area while stocking.
Keywords: Productivity, battery cage, deep litter, median scale, egg production.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 227418 Chitosan Nanoparticle as a Novel Delivery System for A/H1n1 Influenza Vaccine: Safe Property and Immunogenicity in Mice
Authors: Nguyen Anh Dzung, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hà, Dang Thi Hong Van, Nguyen Thi Lan Phuong, Nguyen Thi Nhu Quynh, Dinh Minh Hiep, Le Van Hiep
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The aims of this paper are to study the efficacy of chitosan nanoparticles in stimulating specific antibody against A/H1N1 influenza antigen in mice. Chitosan nanoparticles (CSN) were characterized by TEM. The results showed that the average size of CSN was from 80nm to 106nm. The efficacy of A/H1N1 influenza vaccine loaded on the surface of CSN showed that loading efficiency of A/H1N1 influenza antigen on CSN was from 93.75 to 100%. Safe property of the vaccine were tested. In 10 days post vaccination, group of CSN 30 kDa and 300 kDa loaded A/H1N1 influenza antigen were the rate of immune response on mice to be 100% (9/9) higher than Al(OH)3 and other adjuvant. 100% mice in the experiment of all groups had immune response in 20 days post vaccination. The results also showed that HI titer of the group using CSN 300 kDa as an adjuvant increased significantly up to 3971 HIU, over three-fold higher than the Al(OH)3 adjuvant, chitosan (CS), and one hundredfold than the A/H1N1 antigen only. Stability of the vaccine formulation was investigated.Keywords: Chitosan nanoparticles, A/H1N1 influenza antigen, vaccine, immunogenicity, adjuvant, antibody titer
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2473417 Evaluation of Energy-Aware QoS Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: M.K.Jeya Kumar
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Many advanced Routing protocols for wireless sensor networks have been implemented for the effective routing of data. Energy awareness is an essential design issue and almost all of these routing protocols are considered as energy efficient and its ultimate objective is to maximize the whole network lifetime. However, the introductions of video and imaging sensors have posed additional challenges. Transmission of video and imaging data requires both energy and QoS aware routing in order to ensure efficient usage of the sensors and effective access to the gathered measurements. In this paper, the performance of the energy-aware QoS routing Protocol are analyzed in different performance metrics like average lifetime of a node, average delay per packet and network throughput. The parameters considered in this study are end-to-end delay, real time data generation/capture rates, packet drop probability and buffer size. The network throughput for realtime and non-realtime data was also has been analyzed. The simulation has been done in NS2 simulation environment and the simulation results were analyzed with respect to different metrics.
Keywords: Cluster nodes, end-to-end delay, QoS routing, routing protocols, sensor networks, least-cost-path.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1932416 Optimization Approach to Estimate Hammerstein–Wiener Nonlinear Blocks in Presence of Noise and Disturbance
Authors: Leili Esmaeilani, Jafar Ghaisari, Mohsen Ahmadian
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Hammerstein–Wiener model is a block-oriented model where a linear dynamic system is surrounded by two static nonlinearities at its input and output and could be used to model various processes. This paper contains an optimization approach method for analysing the problem of Hammerstein–Wiener systems identification. The method relies on reformulate the identification problem; solve it as constraint quadratic problem and analysing its solutions. During the formulation of the problem, effects of adding noise to both input and output signals of nonlinear blocks and disturbance to linear block, in the emerged equations are discussed. Additionally, the possible parametric form of matrix operations to reduce the equation size is presented. To analyse the possible solutions to the mentioned system of equations, a method to reduce the difference between the number of equations and number of unknown variables by formulate and importing existing knowledge about nonlinear functions is presented. Obtained equations are applied to an instance H–W system to validate the results and illustrate the proposed method.Keywords: Identification, Hammerstein-Wiener, optimization, quantization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 792415 The Antibacterial Efficacy of Gold Nanoparticles Derived from Gomphrena celosioides and Prunus amygdalus (Almond) Leaves on Selected Bacterial Pathogens
Authors: M. E. Abalaka, S. Y. Daniyan, S. O. Adeyemo, D. Damisa
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Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have gained increasing interest in recent times. This is greatly due to their special features, which include unusual optical and electronic properties, high stability and biological compatibility, controllable morphology and size dispersion, and easy surface functionalization. In typical synthesis, AuNPs were produced by reduction of gold salt AuCl4 in an appropriate solvent. A stabilizing agent was added to prevent the particles from aggregating. The antibacterial activity of different sizes of gold nanoparticles was investigated against Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi and Pseudomonas pneumonia using the disk diffusion method in a Müeller–Hinton Agar. The Au-NPs were effective against all bacteria tested. That the Au-NPs were successfully synthesized in suspension and were used to study the antibacterial activity of the two medicinal plants against some bacterial pathogens suggests that Au-NPs can be employed as an effective bacteria inhibitor and may be an effective tool in medical field. The study clearly showed that the Au-NPs exhibiting inhibition towards the tested pathogenic bacteria in vitro could have the same effects in vivo and thus may be useful in the medical field if well researched into.
Keywords: Gold Nanoparticles, Gomphrena celesioides, Prunus amygdalus, Pathogens.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3815414 Triggering Supersonic Boundary-Layer Instability by Small-Scale Vortex Shedding
Authors: Guohua Tu, Zhi Fu, Zhiwei Hu, Neil D Sandham, Jianqiang Chen
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Tripping of boundary-layers from laminar to turbulent flow, which may be necessary in specific practical applications, requires high amplitude disturbances to be introduced into the boundary layers without large drag penalties. As a possible improvement on fixed trip devices, a technique based on vortex shedding for enhancing supersonic flow transition is demonstrated in the present paper for a Mach 1.5 boundary layer. The compressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved directly using a high-order (fifth-order in space and third-order in time) finite difference method for small-scale cylinders suspended transversely near the wall. For cylinders with proper diameter and mount location, asymmetry vortices shed within the boundary layer are capable of tripping laminar-turbulent transition. Full three-dimensional simulations showed that transition was enhanced. A parametric study of the size and mounting location of the cylinder is carried out to identify the most effective setup. It is also found that the vortex shedding can be suppressed by some factors such as wall effect.
Keywords: Boundary layer instability, boundary layer transition, vortex shedding, supersonic flows, flow control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 605413 Role of Dispersion of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes on Compressive Strength of Cement Paste
Authors: Jyoti Bharj, Sarabjit Singh, Subhash Chander, Rabinder Singh
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The outstanding mechanical properties of Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have generated great interest for their potential as reinforcements in high performance cementitious composites. The main challenge in research is the proper dispersion of carbon nanotubes in the cement matrix. The present work discusses the role of dispersion of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the compressive strength characteristics of hydrated Portland IS 1489 cement paste. Cement-MWCNT composites with different mixing techniques were prepared by adding 0.2% (by weight) of MWCNTs to Portland IS 1489 cement. Rectangle specimens of size approximately 40mm × 40mm ×160mm were prepared and curing of samples was done for 7, 14, 28 and 35days. An appreciable increase in compressive strength with both techniques; mixture of MWCNTs with cement in powder form and mixture of MWCNTs with cement in hydrated form 7 to 28 days of curing time for all the samples was observed.
Keywords: Carbon Nanotubes, Portland Cement, Composite, Compressive Strength.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3123412 Integrated Flavor Sensor Using Microbead Array
Authors: Ziba Omidi, Min-Ki Kim
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This research presents the design, fabrication and application of a flavor sensor for an integrated electronic tongue and electronic nose that can allow rapid characterization of multi-component mixtures in a solution. The odor gas and liquid are separated using hydrophobic porous membrane in micro fluidic channel. The sensor uses an array composed of microbeads in micromachined cavities localized on silicon wafer. Sensing occurs via colorimetric and fluorescence changes to receptors and indicator molecules that are attached to termination sites on the polymeric microbeads. As a result, the sensor array system enables simultaneous and near-real-time analyses using small samples and reagent volumes with the capacity to incorporate significant redundancies. One of the key parts of the system is a passive pump driven only by capillary force. The hydrophilic surface of the fluidic structure draws the sample into the sensor array without any moving mechanical parts. Since there is no moving mechanical component in the structure, the size of the fluidic structure can be compact and the fabrication becomes simple when compared to the device including active microfluidic components. These factors should make the proposed system inexpensive to mass-produce, portable and compatible with biomedical applications.
Keywords: Optical Sensor, Semiconductor manufacturing, Smell sensor, Taste sensor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1695