Search results for: water quality index.

Authors: C. Alexandridou, G. N. Angelopoulos, F. A. Coutelieris

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Construction industry in Greece consumes annually more than 25 million tons of natural aggregates originating mainly from quarries. At the same time, more than 2 million tons of construction and demolition waste are deposited every year, usually without control, therefore increasing the environmental impact of this sector. A potential alternative for saving natural resources and minimize landfilling, could be the recycling and re-use of Concrete and Demolition Waste (CDW) in concrete production. Moreover, in order to conform to the European legislation, Greece is obliged to recycle non-hazardous construction and demolition waste to a minimum of 70% by 2020. In this paper characterization of recycled materials - commercially and laboratory produced, coarse and fine, Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCA) - has been performed. Namely, X-Ray Fluorescence and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were used for chemical and mineralogical analysis respectively. Physical properties such as particle density, water absorption, sand equivalent and resistance to fragmentation were also determined. This study, first time made in Greece, aims at outlining the differences between RCA and natural aggregates and evaluating their possible influence in concrete performance. Results indicate that RCA’s chemical composition is enriched in Si, Al, and alkali oxides compared to natural aggregates. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses results indicated the presence of calcite, quartz and minor peaks of mica and feldspars. From all the evaluated physical properties of coarse RCA, only water absorption and resistance to fragmentation seem to have a direct influence on the properties of concrete. Low Sand Equivalent and significantly high water absorption values indicate that fine fractions of RCA cannot be used for concrete production unless further processed. Chemical properties of RCA in terms of water soluble ions are similar to those of natural aggregates. Four different concrete mixtures were produced and examined, replacing natural coarse aggregates with RCA by a ratio of 0%, 25%, 50% and 75% respectively. Results indicate that concrete mixtures containing recycled concrete aggregates have a minor deterioration of their properties (3-9% lower compression strength at 28 days) compared to conventional concrete containing the same cement quantity.

Keywords: Chemical and physical characterization, compressive strength, mineralogical analysis, recycled concrete aggregates, waste management.

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Authors: Adithya Nadig

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In the field of production, characterization of surface roughness plays a vital role in assessing the quality of a manufactured product. The defined parameters for this assessment, each, have their own drawbacks in describing a profile surface. From the purview of small-scale and medium-scale industries, an increase in time spent for manual inspection of a product for various parameters adds to the cost of the product. In order to reduce this, a uniform and established standard is necessary for quantifying a profile of a manufactured product. The inspection procedure in the small and medium-scale manufacturing units at Jigani Industrial area, Bangalore, was observed. The parameters currently in use in those industries are described in the paper and a change in the inspection method is proposed.

Keywords: Efficiency of quality assessment, areal profiling technique, manufacturing, standardization, Surface Roughness Characterization.

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Authors: I. Kruashvili, I. Inashvili, K. Bziava, M. Lomishvili

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Seepage capillary anomalies in the active layer of soil, related to the soil water movement, often cause variation of soil hydrophysical properties and become one of the main objectives of the hydroecology. It is necessary to mention that all existing equations for computing the seepage flow particularly from soil channels, through dams, bulkheads, and foundations of hydraulic engineering structures are preferable based on the linear seepage law. Regarding the existing beliefs, anomalous seepage is based on postulates according to which the fluid in free volume is characterized by resistance against shear deformation and is presented in the form of initial gradient. According to the above-mentioned information, we have determined: Equation to calculate seepage coefficient when the velocity of transition flow is equal to seepage flow velocity; by means of power function, equations for the calculation of average and maximum velocities of seepage flow have been derived; taking into consideration the fluid continuity condition, average velocity for calculation of average velocity in capillary tube has been received.

Keywords: Seepage, soil, velocity, water.

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Authors: Rim Messaoudi, Nogaye-Gueye Gning, François Azelart

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Automatic text classification applies mostly natural language processing (NLP) and other artificial intelligence (AI)-guided techniques to automatically classify text in a faster and more accurate manner. This paper discusses the subject of using predictive maintenance to manage incident tickets inside the sociality. It focuses on proposing a tool that treats and analyses comments and notes written by administrators after resolving an incident ticket. The goal here is to increase the quality of these comments. Additionally, this tool is based on NLP and machine learning techniques to realize the textual analytics of the extracted data. This approach was tested using real data taken from the French National Railways (SNCF) company and was given a high-quality result.

Keywords: Machine learning, text classification, NLP techniques, semantic representation.

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Authors: Chi-Yuan Huang, Mei-Chuan Kuo, Ching-Yi Hsiao

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In this study, acids with various chain lengths (C₆, C₈, C₁₀ and C₁₂) modified by methane sulfonic acid (MSA) and temperature were used to modify tapioca starch (TPS), then the glycerol (GA) were added into modified starch, to prepare new blends. The mechanical properties, thermal properties and physical properties of blends were studied. This investigation was divided into two parts.  First, the biodegradable materials were used such as starch and glycerol with hexanedioic acid (HA), suberic acid (SBA), sebacic acid (SA), decanedicarboxylic acid (DA) manufacturing with different temperatures (90, 110 and 130 °C). And then, the solution was added into modified starch to prepare the blends by using single-screw extruder. The FT-IR patterns indicated that the characteristic peak of C=O in ester was observed at 1730 cm^-1. It is proved that different chain length acids (C₆, C₈, C₁₀ and C₁₂) reacted with glycerol by esterification and these are used to plasticize blends during extrusion. In addition, the blends would improve the hydrolysis and thermal stability. The water contact angle increased from 43.0° to 64.0°.  Second, the HA (110 °C), SBA (110 °C), SA (110 °C), and DA blends (130 °C) were used in study, because they possessed good mechanical properties, water resistances and thermal stability. On the other hand, the various contents (0, 0.005, 0.010, 0.020 g) of MSA were also used to modify the mechanical properties of blends. We observed that the blends were added to MSA, and then the FT-IR patterns indicated that the C=O ester appeared at 1730 cm^-1. For this reason, the hydrophobic blends were produced. The water contact angle of the MSA blends increased from 55.0° to 71.0°. Although break elongation of the MSA blends reduced from the original 220% to 128%, the stress increased from 2.5 MPa to 5.1 MPa. Therefore, the optimal composition of blends was the DA blend (130 °C) with adding of MSA (0.005 g).

Keywords: Chain length acids, methane sulfonic acid, tapioca starch, tensile stress.

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Pirestani, Mehdi Shafaghati, Amir Ahmad Dehghani

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From the beginning of creation, human being has ever fought against the ecosystem by changes has made in environment. The most environmental changes on the nature have been done after starting the concentrated life in the same region. Dams are one of the most important buildings in water resources and transferring. These buildings have been made from old times without access to hydrological, hydraulically, hydro mechanical information. Dams have positive and negative effects on environment. Constructing a dam relatively causes equal ecological consequences. According to different criteria, environmental effects of dams can lead short term and long term damages. These effects may influence on the situation and treatment of meteorology, biology, culture, ancient works, etc and severely causes to change and complicate it. So considering importance of positive effects of dam construction, it is necessary to minimize negative environmental effects of dams to achieve a stable development. In this article the considered effects and their solutions in influencing on assessment of destructive environmental effects of dams construction have been surveyed and presented.

Keywords: Dam, Environment, Water Resources, Assessment

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Authors: Lee Boudreau, Ash Kumar Khaitu, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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In April 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing, injuring, and displacing thousands of people. The earthquake also damaged water and sanitation service networks, leading to a high risk of diarrheal disease and the associated negative health impacts. In response to the disaster, the Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO), a Kathmandu-based non-governmental organization, worked with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST), a Canadian education, training and consulting organization, to develop two training programs to educate volunteers on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs. The first training program was intended for acute response, with the second focusing on longer term recovery. A key focus was to equip the volunteers with the knowledge and skills to formulate useful WASH advice in the unanticipated circumstances they would encounter when working in affected areas. Within the first two weeks of the disaster, a two-day acute response training was developed, which focused on enabling volunteers to educate those affected by the disaster about local WASH issues, their link to health, and their increased importance immediately following emergency situations. Between March and October 2015, a total of 19 training events took place, with over 470 volunteers trained. The trained volunteers distributed hygiene kits and liquid chlorine for household water treatment. They also facilitated health messaging and WASH awareness activities in affected communities. A three-day recovery phase training was also developed and has been delivered to volunteers in Nepal since October 2015. This training focused on WASH issues during the recovery and reconstruction phases. The interventions and recommendations in the recovery phase training focus on long-term WASH solutions, and so form a link between emergency relief strategies and long-term development goals. ENPHO has trained 226 volunteers during the recovery phase, with training ongoing as of April 2016. In the aftermath of the earthquake, ENPHO found that its existing pool of volunteers were more than willing to help those in their communities who were more in need. By training these and new volunteers, ENPHO was able to reach many more communities in the immediate aftermath of the disaster; together they reached 11 of the 14 earthquake-affected districts. The collaboration between ENPHO and CAWST in developing the training materials was a highly collaborative and iterative process, which enabled the training materials to be developed within a short response time. By training volunteers on basic WASH topics during both the immediate response and the recovery phase, ENPHO and CAWST have been able to link immediate emergency relief to long-term developmental goals. While the recovery phase training continues in Nepal, CAWST is planning to decontextualize the training used in both phases so that it can be applied to other emergency situations in the future. The training materials will become part of the open content materials available on CAWST’s WASH Resources website.

Keywords: Water and sanitation, emergency response, education and training, building resilience.

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Authors: Y. Duvarci, S. Mizokami

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Today, the preferences and participation of the TD groups such as the elderly and disabled is still lacking in decision-making of transportation planning, and their reactions to certain type of policies are not well known. Thus, a clear methodology is needed. This study aimed to develop a method to extract the preferences of the disabled to be used in the policy-making stage that can also guide to future estimations. The method utilizes the combination of cluster analysis and data filtering using the data of the Arao city (Japan). The method is a process that follows: defining the TD group by the cluster analysis tool, their travel preferences in tabular form from the household surveys by policy variableimpact pairs, zones, and by trip purposes, and the final outcome is the preference probabilities of the disabled. The preferences vary by trip purpose; for the work trips, accessibility and transit system quality policies with the accompanying impacts of modal shifts towards public mode use as well as the decreasing travel costs, and the trip rate increase; for the social trips, the same accessibility and transit system policies leading to the same mode shift impact, together with the travel quality policy area leading to trip rate increase. These results explain the policies to focus and can be used in scenario generation in models, or any other planning purpose as decision support tool.

Keywords: Transportation Disadvantaged, Disabled, Mixed Preference, Stated Preference Data.

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Authors: Taruna Katyal Arora, Geeta Kumari, Hari Shankar, Neelima Mishra

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Substandard and counterfeit antimalarials is a major problem in malaria endemic areas. The availability of counterfeit/ substandard medicines is not only decreasing the efficacy in patients, but it is also one of the contributing factors for developing antimalarial drug resistance. Owing to this, a pilot study was conducted to survey quality of drugs collected from different malaria endemic areas of India. Artesunate+Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (AS+SP), Artemether-Lumefantrine (AL), Chloroquine (CQ) tablets were randomly picked from public health facilities in selected states of India. The quality of antimalarial drugs from these areas was assessed by using Global Pharma Health Fund Minilab test kit. This includes physical/visual inspection and disintegration test. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) was carried out for semi-quantitative assessment of active pharmaceutical ingredients. A total of 45 brands, out of which 21 were for CQ, 14 for AL and 10 for AS+SP were tested from Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), Mizoram, Meghalaya and Gujrat states. One out of 45 samples showed variable disintegration and retension factor. The variable disintegration and retention factor which would have been due to substandard quality or other factors including storage. However, HPLC analysis confirms standard active pharmaceutical ingredient, but may be due to humid temperature and moisture in storage may account for the observed result.

Keywords: Antimalarial medicines, counterfeit, substandard, thin layer chromatography.

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: Break Even Point, Fuzzy Crisp Data, Fuzzy Sets, Productivity, Productivity Cycle, Total Productive Maintenance.

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Authors: Mimi Mohaffyza Mohamad, Yee Mei Heong, Nurfirdawati Muhammad Hanafi Tee Tze Kiong

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This study is conducted to investigate the disparity of between learning styles and cognitive abilities specifically in Vocational Education.  Felder and Silverman Learning Styles Model (FSLSM) was applied to measure the students’ learning styles while the content in Building Construction Subject consists; knowledge, skills and problem solving were taken into account in constructing the elements of cognitive abilities. Building Construction is one of the vocational courses offered in Vocational Education structure. There are four dimension of learning styles proposed by Felder and Silverman intended to capture student learning preferences with regards to processing either active or reflective, perception based on sensing or intuitive, input of information used visual or verbal and understanding information represent with sequential or global learner. Felder-Solomon Learning Styles Index was developed based on FSLSM and the questions were used to identify what type of student learning preferences. The index consists 44 item-questions characterize for learning styles dimension in FSLSM. The achievement test was developed to determine the students’ cognitive abilities. The quantitative data was analyzed in descriptive and inferential statistic involving Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). The study discovered students are tending to be visual learners and each type of learner having significant difference whereas cognitive abilities there are different finding for each type of learners in knowledge, skills and problem solving. This study concludes the gap between type of learner and the cognitive abilities in few illustrations and it explained how the connecting made. The finding may help teachers to facilitate students more effectively and to boost the student’s cognitive abilities.

Keywords: Learning Styles, Cognitive Abilities, Dimension of Learning Styles, Learning Preferences.

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Authors: Saeed Sedighizadeh, Abbas Mansoori, Mohammad Reza Pirestani, Davoud Sedighizadeh

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The usual method of river flow diversion involves construction of tunnels and cofferdams. Given the fact that the cost of diversion works could be as high as 10-20% of the total dam construction cost, due attention should be paid to optimum design of the diversion works. The cost of diversion works depends, on factors, such as: the tunnel dimensions and the intended tunneling support measures during and after excavation; quality and characterizes of the rock through which the tunnel should be excavated; the dimensions of the upstream (and downstream) cofferdams; and the magnitude of river flood the system is designed to divert. In this paper by use of the cost of unit prices for tunnel excavation, tunnel lining, tunnel support (rock bolt + shotcrete) and cofferdam fill the cost function was determined. The function is then minimized by the aid of PSO Algorithm (particle swarm optimization). It is found that the optimum diameter and the total diversion cost are directly related to the river flood discharge (Q). It has also shown that in addition to optimum diameter design discharge (Q), river length, tunnel length, is mainly a function of the ratios (not the absolute values) of the unit prices and does not depend on the overall price levels in the respective country. The results of optimization use in some of the case study lead us to significant changes in the cost.

Keywords: Diversion Tunnel, Optimization, PSO Algorithm

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Authors: Is Fatimah, Winda Novita, Yopi Andika, Imam Sahroni, Basitoh Djaelani, Yuyun Yunani N.

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Contamination of aromatic compounds in water can cause severe long-lasting effects not only for biotic organism but also on human health. Several alternative technologies for remediation of polluted water have been attempted. One of these is adsorption process of aromatic compounds by using organic modified clay mineral. Porous structure of clay is potential properties for molecular adsorptivity and it can be increased by immobilizing hydrophobic structure to attract organic compounds. In this work natural montmorillonite were modified with cetyltrimethylammonium (CTMA+) and was evaluated for use as adsorbents of aromatic compounds: benzene, toluene, and 2-chloro phenol in its single and multicomponent solution by ethanol:water solvent. Preparation of CTMA-montmorillonite was conducted by simple ion exchange procedure and characterization was conducted by using x-day diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infra red (FTIR) and gas sorption analysis. The influence of structural modification of montmorillonite on its adsorption capacity and adsorption affinity of organic compound were studied. It was shown that adsorptivity of montmorillonite was increased by modification associated with arrangements of CTMA+ in the structure even the specific surface area of modified montmorillonite was lower than raw montmorillonite. Adsorption rate indicated that material has affinity to adsorb compound by following order: benzene> toluene > 2-chloro phenol. The adsorption isotherms of benzene and toluene showed 1st order adsorption kinetic indicating a partition phenomenon of compounds between the aqueous and organophilic CTMAmontmorillonite.

Keywords: Adsorption, Desorption, Montmorillonite, Organoclay, Surfactant.

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Authors: Sakshi Kausha, R.K Sharma

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High speed networks provide realtime variable bit rate service with diversified traffic flow characteristics and quality requirements. The variable bit rate traffic has stringent delay and packet loss requirements. The burstiness of the correlated traffic makes dynamic buffer management highly desirable to satisfy the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper presents an algorithm for optimization of adaptive buffer allocation scheme for traffic based on loss of consecutive packets in data-stream and buffer occupancy level. Buffer is designed to allow the input traffic to be partitioned into different priority classes and based on the input traffic behavior it controls the threshold dynamically. This algorithm allows input packets to enter into buffer if its occupancy level is less than the threshold value for priority of that packet. The threshold is dynamically varied in runtime based on packet loss behavior. The simulation is run for two priority classes of the input traffic – realtime and non-realtime classes. The simulation results show that Adaptive Partial Buffer Sharing (ADPBS) has better performance than Static Partial Buffer Sharing (SPBS) and First In First Out (FIFO) queue under the same traffic conditions.

Keywords: Buffer Management, Consecutive packet loss, Quality-of-Service, Priority based packet discarding, partial buffersharing.

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Authors: M. K. Pradhan, Mayank Meena, Shubham Sen, Arvind Singh

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In this study, a multi objective optimization for end milling of Al 6061 alloy has been presented to provide better surface quality and higher Material Removal Rate (MRR). The input parameters considered for the analysis are spindle speed, depth of cut and feed. The experiments were planned as per Taguchis design of experiment, with L27 orthogonal array. The Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) has been used for transforming multiple quality responses into a single response and the weights of the each performance characteristics are determined by employing the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), so that their relative importance can be properly and objectively described. The results reveal that Taguchi based G-PCA can effectively acquire the optimal combination of cutting parameters.

Keywords: Material Removal Rate, Surface Roughness, Taguchi Method, Grey Relational Analysis, Principal Component Analysis.

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Authors: Haji M Shoaib Khan, Naveed Akhtar, Fatima Rasool, Barkat Ali Khan, Tariq Mahmood, Muhammad Shuaib Khan

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Antioxidants contribute to endogenous photoprotection and are important for the maintenance of skin health. The study was carried out to compare the skin hydration and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) effects of a stable cosmetic preparation containing flavonoids, following two applications a day over a period of tenth week. The skin trans-epidermal water loss and skin hydration effect was measured at the beginning and up to the end of study period of ten weeks. Any effect produced was measured by Corneometer and TEWA meter (Non-invasive probe). Two formulations were developed for this study design. Formulation one the control formulation in which no apple juice extract( Flavonoids) was incorporated while second one was the active formulation in which the apple juice extract (3%) containing flavonoids was incorporated into water in oil emulsion using Abil EM 90 as an emulsifier. Stable formulations (control and Active) were applied on human cheeks (n = 12) for a study period of 10 weeks. Result of each volunteer of skin hydration and TEWL was measured by corneometer and TEWA meter. By using ANOVA and Paired sample t test as a statistical evaluation, result of both base and formulation were compared. Statistical significant results (p≤0.05) were observed regarding skin hydration and TEWL when two creams, control and Formulation were compared. It showed that desired formulation (Active) may have interesting application as an active moisturizing cream on healthy skin.

Keywords: Apple juice extract, TEWL, Corneometer, flavonoids.

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Authors: Somsri Binraman, Boonliang Kaewnapan, Krittika Tanprasert

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In the package design industry, there are a lot of tacit knowledge resided within each designer. The objectives are to capture them and compile it to be used as a teaching resource and to create a video clip of package design process as well as to evaluate its quality and learning effectiveness. Interview were used as a technique for capturing knowledge in brand design concept, differentiation, recognition, rank of recognition factor, consumer survey, knowledge about marketing, research, graphic design, the effect of color, and law and regulation. Video clip about package design were created. The clip consisted of both the speech and clip of actual process. The quality of the video in term of media was ranked as good while the content was ranked as excellent. The students- score on post-test was significantly greater than that of pretest (p>0.001).

Keywords: Tacit knowledge, interview, video, packaging, design.

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Authors: Valeriy Naumov, Olli Martikainen

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In this paper we propose new method for simultaneous generating multiple quantiles corresponding to given probability levels from data streams and massive data sets. This method provides a basis for development of single-pass low-storage quantile estimation algorithms, which differ in complexity, storage requirement and accuracy. We demonstrate that such algorithms may perform well even for heavy-tailed data.

Keywords: Quantile estimation, data stream, heavy-taileddistribution, tail index.

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Authors: Thomas Jin-Chee Liu, Jin-Wei Liang, Wei-Long Chen, Teng-Hui Chen

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The finite element analysis is adopted in this primary study. Using the Tsai-Wu criterion and delamination criterion, the stacking sequence [45/0₄/-45₄/90₄]_s is the final optimal design for the wheelchair frame. On the contrary, the uni-directional laminates, i.e. [90₁₃]_s, [45₁₃]_s and [-45₁₃]_s, are bad designs due to the higher failure indexes.

Keywords: Wheelchair frame, stacking sequence, failure index, finite element.

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Authors: Marni Pazos, Blanca Mendoza, Luis Gimeno

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The relationship between tropical cyclogenesis and solar activity is addressed in this paper, analyzing the relationship between important parameters in the evolution of tropical cyclones as the CAPE, wind shear and relative vorticity, and the Dst geomagnetic index as a parameter of solar activity. The apparent relationship between all this phenomena has a different response depending on the phase of the solar cycles.

Keywords: tropical cyclones, solar-earth relationship, climate change.

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Authors: Supriyono, Sumardiyono

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Biodiesel is one of the alternative fuels that promising for substituting petro diesel as energy source which is advantage on sustainability and ecofriendly. Due to the raw material that tend to decompose during storage, biodiesel also have the same characteristic that tend to decompose and formed higher acid value which is the result of oxidation to double bond on a chain of ester. Decomposition of biodiesel due to oxidation reaction could prevent by introduce a small amount of antioxidant. The origin of raw materials and the process for producing biodiesel will determine the effectiveness of antioxidant. The quality degradation on biodiesel could evaluate by measuring iodine value and acid number of biodiesel. Biodiesel made from high fatty acid Jatropha curcas oil by using esterification and transesterification process will stand on the quality by introduce 90 ppm pyrogallol powder on the biodiesel, which could increase Induction period time from 2 hours to more than 6 hours in rancimat test evaluation.

Keywords: Acid value, antioxidant, biodiesel, iodine value.

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Authors: Ammar Ali Saleh Jaber, Amer Hayat Khan, Syed Azhar Syed Sulaiman

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Tuberculosis (TB) is considered as a major disease that affects daily activities and impairs health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The impact of TB on HRQoL can affect treatment outcome and may lead to treatment defaulting. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the HRQoL of TB treatment lost to follow-up during and after treatment in Yemen. For this aim, this prospective study enrolled a total of 399 TB lost to follow-up patients between January 2011 and December 2015. By applying HRQoL criteria, only 136 fill the survey during treatment. Moreover, 96 were traced and fill out the HRQoL survey. All eight HRQol domains were categorized into the physical component score (PCS) and mental component score (MCS), which were calculated using QM scoring software. Results show that all lost to follow-up TB patients reported a score less than 47 for all eight domains, except general health (67.3) during their treatment period. Low scores of 27.9 and 29.8 were reported for emotional role limitation (RE) and mental health (MH), respectively. Moreover, the mental component score (MCS) was found to be only 28.9. The trace lost follow-up shows a significant improvement in all eight domains and a mental component score of 43.1. The low scores of 27.9 and 29.8 for role emotion and mental health, respectively, in addition to the MCS score of 28.9, show that severe emotional condition and reflect the higher depression during treatment period that can result to lost to follow-up. The low MH, RE, and MCS can be used as a clue for predicting future TB treatment lost to follow-up.

Keywords: Yemen, tuberculosis, health-related quality of life, khat.

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Authors: Hudli Mohd. Rameez, K.H.Inamdar

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Many organisations are nowadays interested to adopt lean manufacturing strategy that would enable them to compete in this competitive globalisation market. In this respect, it is necessary to assess the implementation of lean manufacturing in different organisations so that the important best practices can be identified. This paper describes the development of key areas which will be used to assess the adoption and implementation of lean manufacturing practices. There are some key areas developed to evaluate and reduce the most optimal projects so as to enhance their production efficiency and increase the purpose of the economic benefits of the manufacturing unit. Lean manufacturing is becoming lean enterprise by treating its customers and suppliers as partners. This gives the extra edge in today-s cost and time competitive markets. The organisation is becoming strong in all the conventional competition points. They are Price, Quality and Delivery. Lean enterprise owners can deliver high quality products quickly, with low price.

Keywords: Competitive points, implementation, Leanmanufacturing, tools and techniques

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Authors: Vita Levkane, Sandra Muizniece-Brasava, Lija Dukalska

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Experiments have been carried out at the Latvia University of Agriculture Department of Food Technology. The aim of this work was to assess the effect of sous vide packaging during the storage time of salad with meat in mayonnaise at different storage temperature. Samples were evaluated at 0, 1, 3, 7, 10, 15, 18, 25, 29, 42, and 52 storage days at the storage temperature of +4±0.5 ºC and +10±0.5 ºC. Experimentally the quality of the salad with meat in mayonnaise was characterized by measuring colour, pH and microbiological properties. The sous vide packaging was effective in protecting the product from physical, chemical, and microbial quality degradation. The sous vide packaging significantly reduces microbial growth at storage temperature of +4±0.5 ºC and +10±0.5 ºC. Moreover, it is possible to extend the product shelf life to 52 days even when stored at +10±0.5 ºC.

Keywords: salad with meat in mayonnaise, shelf life, sous videpackaging.

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Authors: Davide Fuscà, Kanan Rahimli, Roberto Leuzzi

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Prevent abuse and illegal activities in a given area of the sea is a very difficult and expensive task. Artificial intelligence offers the possibility to implement new methods to identify the vessel class type from the kinematic features of the vessel itself. The task strictly depends on the quality of the data. This paper explores the application of a deep Long Short-Term Memory model by using AIS flow only with a relatively low quality. The proposed model reaches high accuracy on detecting nine vessel classes representing the most common vessel types in the Ionian-Adriatic Sea. The model has been applied during the Adriatic-Ionian trial period of the international EU ANDROMEDA H2020 project to identify vessels performing behaviours far from the expected one, depending on the declared type.

Keywords: maritime surveillance, artificial intelligence, behaviour analysis, LSTM

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Authors: W. E. Igwegbe, B. C. Okoro, J. C. Osuagwu

Abstract:

The study assessed the effectiveness of Pawpaw (Carica papaya) wood in reducing the concentrations of heavy metals in wastewater acting as a bio-sorbent. The following heavy metals were considered; Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Copper, Iron, Selenium, Nickel and Manganese. The physiochemical properties of Carica papaya stem were studied. The experimental sample was sourced from the trunk of a felled matured pawpaw tree. Wastewater for experimental use was prepared by dissolving soil samples collected from a dump site at Owerri, Imo state of Nigeria in water. The concentration of each metal remaining in solution as residual metal after bio-sorption was determined using Atomic absorption Spectrometer. The effects of pH and initial heavy metal concentration were studied in a batch reactor. The results of Spectrometer test showed that there were different functional groups detected in the Carica papaya stem biomass. There was increase in metal removal as the pH increased for all the metals considered except for Nickel and Manganese. Optimum bio-sorption occurred at pH 5.9 with 5g/100ml solution of bio-sorbent. The results of the study showed that the treated wastewater is fit for irrigation purpose based on Canada wastewater quality guideline for the protection of Agricultural standard. This approach thus provides a cost effective and environmentally friendly option for treating wastewater.

Keywords: Biomass, bio-sorption, Carica papaya, heavy metal, wastewater.

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Authors: Farshid Fathinia, Mohammad Parsazadeh, Amirhossein Heshmati

Abstract:

Turbulent forced convection flow in a 2-dimensional channel over periodic grooves is numerically investigated. Finite volume method is used to study the effect of turbulence model. The range of Reynolds number varied from 10000 to 30000 for the ribheight to channel-height ratio (B/H) of 2. The downstream wall is heated by a uniform heat flux while the upstream wall is insulated. The investigation is analyzed with different types of nanoparticles such as SiO2, Al2O3, and ZnO, with water as a base fluid are used. The volume fraction is varied from 1% to 4% and the nanoparticle diameter is utilized between 20nm to 50nm. The results revealed 114% heat transfer enhancement compared to the water in a grooved channel by using SiO2 nanoparticle with volume fraction and nanoparticle diameter of 4% and 20nm respectively.

Keywords: Forced convection, Periodic grooves, Nanofluids, Turbulent model, Heat transfer.

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Authors: Helene Martin, Solmaz Boroomandi Barati, Jean-Charles Pinoli, Stephane Valette, Yann Gavet

Abstract:

In the present work we developed an image processing algorithm to measure water droplets characteristics during dropwise condensation on pillared surfaces. The main problem in this process is the similarity between shape and size of water droplets and the pillars. The developed method divides droplets into four main groups based on their size and applies the corresponding algorithm to segment each group. These algorithms generate binary images of droplets based on both their geometrical and intensity properties. The information related to droplets evolution during time including mean radius and drops number per unit area are then extracted from the binary images. The developed image processing algorithm is verified using manual detection and applied to two different sets of images corresponding to two kinds of pillared surfaces.

Keywords: Dropwise condensation, textured surface, image processing, watershed.

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Authors: Ali Abdrhman Ukasha

Abstract:

This paper presented two new efficient algorithms for contour approximation. The proposed algorithm is compared with Ramer (good quality), Triangle (faster) and Trapezoid (fastest) in this work; which are briefly described. Cartesian co-ordinates of an input contour are processed in such a manner that finally contours is presented by a set of selected vertices of the edge of the contour. In the paper the main idea of the analyzed procedures for contour compression is performed. For comparison, the mean square error and signal-to-noise ratio criterions are used. Computational time of analyzed methods is estimated depending on a number of numerical operations. Experimental results are obtained both in terms of image quality, compression ratios, and speed. The main advantages of the analyzed algorithm is small numbers of the arithmetic operations compared to the existing algorithms.

Keywords: Polygonal approximation, Ramer, Triangle and Trapezoid methods.

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Authors: Aparajita Goswami, Mihir K Purkait

Abstract:

In the present study Schwertmannite (an iron oxide hydroxide) is selected as an adsorbent for defluoridation of water. The adsorbent was prepared by wet chemical process and was characterized by SEM, XRD and BET. The fluoride adsorption efficiency of the prepared adsorbent was determined with respect to contact time, initial fluoride concentration, adsorbent dose and pH of the solution. The batch adsorption data revealed that the fluoride adsorption efficiency was highly influenced by the studied factors. Equilibrium was attained within one hour of contact time indicating fast kinetics and the adsorption data followed pseudo second order kinetic model. Equilibrium isotherm data fitted to both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models for a concentration range of 5-30 mg/L. The adsorption system followed Langmuir isotherm model with maximum adsorption capacity of 11.3 mg/g. The high adsorption capacity of Schwertmannite points towards the potential of this adsorbent for fluoride removal from aqueous medium.

Keywords: Adsorption, fluoride, isotherm study, kinetics, schwertmannite.

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