Search results for: Sigmoid decreasing Inertia Weight

Authors: Dike H. Ogbuagu, Etsede J. Oritsematosan

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This work investigated possible inductions of CaC₂, often misused by fruit vendors to stimulate artificial ripening, on mammalian sperm morphology and viability. Thirty isogenic strains of male albino mice, Mus musculus (age≈ 8weeks; weight= 32.52.0g) were acclimatized (ambient temperature 28.0±1.0°C) for 2 weeks and fed standard growers mash and water ad libutum. They were later exposed to graded toxicant concentrations (w/w) of 2.5000, 1.2500, 0.6250, and 0.3125% in 4 cages. A control cage was also established. After 5 weeks, 3 animals from each cage were sacrificed by cervical dislocation and the cauda epididymis excised. Sperm morphology and viability were determined by microscopic procedures. The ANOVA, means plots, Student’s t-test and variation plots were used to analyze data. The common abnormalities observed included Double Head, Pin Head, Knobbed Head, No Tail and With Hook. The higher toxicant concentrations induced significantly lower body weights [F_(829.899) ˃ F_crit(4.19)] and more abnormalities [F_(26.52) ˃ F_crit(4.00)] at P˂0.05. Sperm cells in the control setup were significantly more viable than those in the 0.625% (t=0.005) and 2.500% toxicant doses (t=0.018) at the 95% confidence limit. CaC₂ appeared to induced morphological abnormalities and reduced viability in sperm cells of M. musculus.

Keywords: Artificial ripening, Calcium carbide, fruit vendors, sperm morphology, sperm viability.

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Authors: T. M. Agbede, A. O. Adekiya

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Field experiments were conducted during 2013, 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons at Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, southwest Nigeria. The objective of the investigation was to determine the effect of Cocoa Pod Ash (CPA) and Poultry Manure (PM) applied solely and their combined form, as sources of fertilizers on soil properties, leaf nutrient composition, growth and yield of yam. Three soil amendments: CPA, PM (sole forms), CPA and PM (mixture), were applied at 20 t ha^-1 with an inorganic fertilizer (NPK 15-15-15) at 400 kg ha^-1 as a reference and a natural soil fertility, NSF (control). The five treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The test soil was slightly acidic, low in organic carbon (OC), N, P, K, Ca and Mg. Results showed that soil amendments significantly increased (p = 0.05) tuber weights and growth of yam, soil and leaf N, P, K, Ca and Mg, soil pH and OC concentrations compared with the NSF (control). The mixture of CPA+PM treatment increased tuber weights of yam by 36%, compared with inorganic fertilizer (NPK) and 19%, compared with PM alone. Sole PM increased tuber weight of yam by 15%, compared with NPK. Sole or mixed forms of soil amendments showed remarkable improvement in soil physical properties, nutrient availability, compared with NPK and the NSF (control). Integrated application of CPA at 10 t ha^-1 + PM at 10 t ha^-1 was the most effective treatment in improving soil physical properties, increasing nutrient availability and yam performance than sole application of any of the fertilizer materials.

Keywords: Cocoa pod ash, leaf nutrient composition, poultry manure, soil properties, yam.

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Authors: M. Analoui, M. Fadavi Amiri

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The design of a pattern classifier includes an attempt to select, among a set of possible features, a minimum subset of weakly correlated features that better discriminate the pattern classes. This is usually a difficult task in practice, normally requiring the application of heuristic knowledge about the specific problem domain. The selection and quality of the features representing each pattern have a considerable bearing on the success of subsequent pattern classification. Feature extraction is the process of deriving new features from the original features in order to reduce the cost of feature measurement, increase classifier efficiency, and allow higher classification accuracy. Many current feature extraction techniques involve linear transformations of the original pattern vectors to new vectors of lower dimensionality. While this is useful for data visualization and increasing classification efficiency, it does not necessarily reduce the number of features that must be measured since each new feature may be a linear combination of all of the features in the original pattern vector. In this paper a new approach is presented to feature extraction in which feature selection, feature extraction, and classifier training are performed simultaneously using a genetic algorithm. In this approach each feature value is first normalized by a linear equation, then scaled by the associated weight prior to training, testing, and classification. A knn classifier is used to evaluate each set of feature weights. The genetic algorithm optimizes a vector of feature weights, which are used to scale the individual features in the original pattern vectors in either a linear or a nonlinear fashion. By this approach, the number of features used in classifying can be finely reduced.

Keywords: Feature reduction, genetic algorithm, pattern classification, nearest neighbor rule classifiers (k-NNR).

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Authors: Dae Gon Woo, Ji Hyung Park, Chi Hoon Kim, Tae Woo Lee, Beob Yi Lee, Han Sung Kim

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The aim of the present study is to analyze the generation of osteoporotic vertebral bone induced by lack of calcium during growth period and analyze its effects for disc degeneration, based on biomechanical and histomorphometrical study. Mechanical and histomorphological characteristics of lumbar vertebral bones and discs of rats with calcium free diet (CFD) were detected and tracked by using high resolution in-vivo micro-computed tomography (in-vivo micro-CT), finite element (FE) and histological analysis. Twenty female Sprague-Dawley rats (6 weeks old, approximate weight 170g) were randomly divided into two groups (CFD group: 10, NOR group: 10). The CFD group was maintained on a refmed calcium-controlled semisynthetic diet without added calcium, to induce osteoporosis. All lumbar (L 1-L6) were scanned by using in vivo micro-CT with 35i.un resolution at 0, 4, 8 weeks to track the effects of CFD on the generation of osteoporosis. The fmdings of the present study indicated that calcium insufficiency was the main factor in the generation of osteoporosis and it induced lumbar vertebral disc degeneration. This study is a valuable experiment to firstly evaluate osteoporotic vertebral bone and disc degeneration induced by lack of calcium during growth period from a biomechanical and histomorphometrical point of view.

Keywords: Calcium free diet, Disc degeneration, Osteoporosis, in-vivo micro-CT, Finite element analysis, Histology.

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Authors: Shahryar Aftabi, Saeed Fathi, Mohammad H. Aminfar

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It is well known that cemented sand is one of the best approaches for soil stabilization. In some cases, a blend of sand, cement and other pozzolan materials such as zeolite, nano-particles and fiber can be widely (commercially) available and be effectively used in soil stabilization, especially in road construction. In this research, we investigate the effects of CaO which is based on the geotechnical characteristics of zeolite composition with sandy silt soil. Zeolites have low amount of CaO in their structures, that is, varying from 3% to 10%, and by removing the cement paste, we want to investigate the effect of zeolite pozzolan without any activator on soil samples strength. In this research, experiments are concentrated on various weight percentages of zeolite in the soil to examine the effect of the zeolite on drainage shear strength and California Bearing Ratio (CBR) both with and without curing. The study also investigates their liquid limit and plastic limit behavior and makes a comparative result by using Feng's and Wroth-Wood's methods in fall cone (cone penetrometer) device; in the final the SEM images have been presented. The results show that by increasing the percentage of zeolite in without-curing samples, the fine zeolite particles increase some soil's strength, but in the curing-state we can see a relatively higher strength toward without-curing state, since the zeolites have no plastic behavior, the pozzolanic property of zeolites plays a much higher role than cementing properties. Indeed, it is better to combine zeolite particle with activator material such as cement or lime to gain better results.

Keywords: CBR, direct shear, fall-cone, sandy-silt, SEM, zeolite.

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Authors: J. K. Khare, Abhay Kumar Sharma, Ajay Tiwari, Amol A. Talankar

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Powder metallurgy (P/M) is the only economic way to produce porous parts/products. P/M can produce near net shape parts hence reduces wastage of raw material and energy, avoids various machining operations. The most vital use of P/M is in production of metallic filters and self lubricating bush bearings and siding surfaces. The porosity of the part can be controlled by varying compaction pressure, sintering temperature and composition of metal powder mix. The present work is aimed for experimental analysis of friction and wear properties of self lubricating copper and tin bush bearing. Experimental results confirm that wear rate of sintered component is lesser for components having 10% tin by weight percentage. Wear rate increases for high tin percentage (experimented for 20% tin and 30% tin) at same sintering temperature. Experimental results also confirms that wear rate of sintered component is also dependent on sintering temperature, soaking period, composition of the preform, compacting pressure, powder particle shape and size. Interfacial friction between die and punch, between inter powder particles, between die face and powder particle depends on compaction pressure, powder particle size and shape, size and shape of component which decides size & shape of die & punch, material of die & punch and material of powder particles.

Keywords: Interfacial friction, porous bronze bearing, sintering temperature, wear rate.

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Authors: Nagalingam Arun Prasanth, Ahmed Syed Adnan, S. H. Yeo

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Surface topography plays a significant role in the functional performance of engineered parts. It is important to have a control on the surface geometry and understanding on the surface details to get the desired performance. Hence, in the current research contribution, a non-contact micro-texturing technique has been explored and developed. The technique involves ultrasonic excitation of a tool as a prime source of surface texturing for aluminum alloy workpieces. The specimen surface is polished first and is then immersed in a liquid bath containing 10% weight concentration of Ti6Al4V grade 5 spherical powders. A submerged slurry jet is used to recirculate the spherical powders under the ultrasonic horn which is excited at an ultrasonic frequency and amplitude of 40 kHz and 70 µm respectively. The distance between the horn and workpiece surface was remained fixed at 200 µm using a precision control stage. Texturing effects were investigated for different process timings of 1, 3 and 5 s. Thereafter, the specimens were cleaned in an ultrasonic bath for 5 mins to remove loose debris on the surface. The developed surfaces are characterized by optical and contact surface profiler. The optical microscopic images show a texture of circular spots on the workpiece surface indented by titanium spherical balls. Waviness patterns obtained from contact surface profiler supports the texturing effect produced from the proposed technique. Furthermore, water droplet tests were performed to show the efficacy of the proposed technique to develop hydrophilic surfaces and to quantify the texturing effect produced.

Keywords: Surface texturing, surface modification, topography, ultrasonic.

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Authors: Gabi N. Nehme

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Below-knee amputees commonly experience asymmetrical gait patterns. It is generally believed that ischemia is related to the formation of pressure sores due to uneven distribution of forces. Micro-vascular responses can reveal local malnutrition. Changes in local skin blood supply under various external loading conditions have been studied for a number of years. Radionuclide clearance, photo-plethysmography, trans-cutaneous oxygen tension along with other studies showed that the blood supply would be influenced by the epidermal forces, and the rate and the amount of blood supply would decrease with increased epidermal loads being shear forces or normal forces. Several cases of socket designs were investigated using Finite Element Model (FEM) and Design of Experiment (DOE) to increase flexibility and minimize the pressure at the limb/socket interface using ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and polyamide 6 (PA6) or Duraform. The pressure reliefs at designated areas where reducing thickness is involved are seen to be critical in determination of amputees’ comfort and are very important to clinical applications. Implementing a hole between the Patellar Tendon (PT) and Distal Tibia (DT) would decrease stiffness and increase prosthesis range of motion where flexibility is needed. In addition, displacement and prosthetic energy storage increased without compromising mechanical efficiency and prosthetic design integrity.

Keywords: Patellar tendon, distal tibia, prosthetic socket, relief areas, hole implementation.

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Authors: Hazem M. El-Bakry

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Neural processors have shown good results for detecting a certain character in a given input matrix. In this paper, a new idead to speed up the operation of neural processors for character detection is presented. Such processors are designed based on cross correlation in the frequency domain between the input matrix and the weights of neural networks. This approach is developed to reduce the computation steps required by these faster neural networks for the searching process. The principle of divide and conquer strategy is applied through image decomposition. Each image is divided into small in size sub-images and then each one is tested separately by using a single faster neural processor. Furthermore, faster character detection is obtained by using parallel processing techniques to test the resulting sub-images at the same time using the same number of faster neural networks. In contrast to using only faster neural processors, the speed up ratio is increased with the size of the input image when using faster neural processors and image decomposition. Moreover, the problem of local subimage normalization in the frequency domain is solved. The effect of image normalization on the speed up ratio of character detection is discussed. Simulation results show that local subimage normalization through weight normalization is faster than subimage normalization in the spatial domain. The overall speed up ratio of the detection process is increased as the normalization of weights is done off line.

Keywords: Fast Character Detection, Neural Processors, Cross Correlation, Image Normalization, Parallel Processing.

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Authors: Bremananth R., Veerabadran C. S., Andy W. H. Khong

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Automatic reading of handwritten cheque is a computationally complex process and it plays an important role in financial risk management. Machine vision and learning provide a viable solution to this problem. Research effort has mostly been focused on recognizing diverse pitches of cheques and demand drafts with an identical outline. However most of these methods employ templatematching to localize the pitches and such schemes could potentially fail when applied to different types of outline maintained by the bank. In this paper, the so-called outline problem is resolved by a cheque information tree (CIT), which generalizes the localizing method to extract active-region-of-entities. In addition, the weight based density plot (WBDP) is performed to isolate text entities and read complete pitches. Recognition is based on texture features using neural classifiers. Legal amount is subsequently recognized by both texture and perceptual features. A post-processing phase is invoked to detect the incorrect readings by Type-2 grammar using the Turing machine. The performance of the proposed system was evaluated using cheque and demand drafts of 22 different banks. The test data consists of a collection of 1540 leafs obtained from 10 different account holders from each bank. Results show that this approach can easily be deployed without significant design amendments.

Keywords: Cheque reading, Connectivity checking, Text localization, Texture analysis, Turing machine, Signature verification.

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Authors: O. Alidoust, I. Sadrinejad, M. A. Ahmadi

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High strength concrete has been used in situations where it may be exposed to elevated temperatures. Numerous authors have shown the significant contribution of polypropylene fiber to the spalling resistance of high strength concrete. When cement-based composite that reinforced by polypropylene fibers heated up to 170 °C, polypropylene fibers readily melt and volatilize, creating additional porosity and small channels in to the matrix that cause the poor structure and low strength. This investigation develops on the mechanical properties of mortar incorporating polypropylene fibers exposed to high temperature. Also effects of different pozzolans on strength behaviour of samples at elevated temperature have been studied. To reach this purpose, the specimens were produced by partial replacement of cement with finely ground glass, silica fume and rice husk ash as high reactive pozzolans. The amount of this replacement was 10% by weight of cement to find the effects of pozzolans as a partial replacement of cement on the mechanical properties of mortars. In this way, lots of mixtures with 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of polypropylene fibers were cast and tested for compressive and flexural strength, accordance to ASTM standard. After that specimens being heated to temperatures of 300, 600 °C, respectively, the mechanical properties of heated samples were tested. Mechanical tests showed significant reduction in compressive strength which could be due to polypropylene fiber melting. Also pozzolans improve the mechanical properties of sampels.

Keywords: Mechanical properties, compressive strength, Flexural strength, pozzolanic behavior.

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Authors: Se Kyung Oh, Young Hwan Yoon, Ary Bachtiar Krishna

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Nowadays, a passenger car suspension must has high performance criteria with light weight, low cost, and low energy consumption. Pilot controlled proportional valve is designed and analyzed to get small pressure change rate after blow-off, and to get a fast response of the damper, a reverse damping mechanism is adapted. The reverse continuous variable damper is designed as a HS-SH damper which offers good body control with reduced transferred input force from the tire, compared with any other type of suspension system. The damper structure is designed, so that rebound and compression damping forces can be tuned independently, of which the variable valve is placed externally. The rate of pressure change with respect to the flow rate after blow-off becomes smooth when the fixed orifice size increases, which means that the blow-off slope is controllable using the fixed orifice size. Damping forces are measured with the change of the solenoid current at the different piston velocities to confirm the maximum hysteresis of 20 N, linearity, and variance of damping force. The damping force variance is wide and continuous, and is controlled by the spool opening, of which scheme is usually adapted in proportional valves. The reverse continuous variable damper developed in this study is expected to be utilized in the semi-active suspension systems in passenger cars after its performance and simplicity of the design is confirmed through a real car test.

Keywords: Blow-off, damping force, pilot controlledproportional valve, reverse continuous damper.

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Authors: W. Loongyai, N. Saengsawang, W. Danvilai, C. Kridtayopas, P. Sopannarath, C. Bunchasak

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Betong chicken is a slow growing and a lean strain of chicken, while the rapid growth of broiler is accompanied by increased fat. We investigated the growth performance, fat accumulations, lipid serum biochemical levels and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) gene expression of female Betong (KU line) at the age of 4 and 6 weeks. A total of 80 female Betong chickens (KU line) and 80 female broiler chickens were reared under open system (each group had 4 replicates of 20 chicks per pen). The results showed that feed intake and average daily gain (ADG) of broiler chicken were significantly higher than Betong (KU line) (P < 0.01), while feed conversion ratio (FCR) of Betong (KU line) at week 6 were significantly lower than broiler chicken (P < 0.01) at 6 weeks. At 4 and 6 weeks, two birds per replicate were randomly selected and slaughtered. Carcass weight did not significantly differ between treatments; the percentage of abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat yield was higher in the broiler (P < 0.01) at 4 and 6 week. Total cholesterol and LDL level of broiler were higher than Betong (KU line) at 4 and 6 weeks (P < 0.05). Abdominal fat samples were collected for total RNA extraction. The cDNA was amplified using primers specific for LPL gene expression and analysed using real-time PCR. The results showed that the expression of LPL gene was not different when compared between Betong (KU line) and broiler chickens at the age of 4 and 6 weeks (P > 0.05). Our results indicated that broiler chickens had high growth rate and fat accumulation when compared with Betong (KU line) chickens, whereas LPL gene expression did not differ between breeds.

Keywords: Lipoprotein lipase gene, Betong (KU line), broiler, abdominal fat, gene expression.

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Authors: Mukesh Singh Boori, Venerando Eustáquio Amaro

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The objective of this study was to improve our understanding of vulnerability and environmental change; it's causes basically show the intensity, its distribution and human-environment effect on the ecosystem in the Apodi Valley Region, This paper is identify, assess and classify vulnerability and environmental change in the Apodi valley region using a combined approach of landscape pattern and ecosystem sensitivity. Models were developed using the following five thematic layers: Geology, geomorphology, soil, vegetation and land use/cover, by means of a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based on hydro-geophysical parameters. In spite of the data problems and shortcomings, using ESRI-s ArcGIS 9.3 program, the vulnerability score, to classify, weight and combine a number of 15 separate land cover classes to create a single indicator provides a reliable measure of differences (6 classes) among regions and communities that are exposed to similar ranges of hazards. Indeed, the ongoing and active development of vulnerability concepts and methods have already produced some tools to help overcome common issues, such as acting in a context of high uncertainties, taking into account the dynamics and spatial scale of asocial-ecological system, or gathering viewpoints from different sciences to combine human and impact-based approaches. Based on this assessment, this paper proposes concrete perspectives and possibilities to benefit from existing commonalities in the construction and application of assessment tools.

Keywords: Vulnerability, Land use/cover, Ecosystem, Remotesensing, GIS.

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Authors: Pawit Tangviroon, Apichit Svang-Ariyaskul

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As the limited availability of petroleum-based fuel has been a major concern, biodiesel is one of the most attractive alternative fuels because it is renewable and it also has advantages over the conventional petroleum-base diesel. At Present, productions of biodiesel generally perform by transesterification of vegetable oils with low molecular weight alcohol, mainly methanol, using chemical catalysts. Methanol is petrochemical product that makes biodiesel producing from methanol to be not pure renewable energy source. Therefore, ethanol as a product produced by fermentation processes. It appears as a potential feed stock that makes biodiesel to be pure renewable alternative fuel. The research is conducted based on two biodiesel production processes by reacting soybean oils with methanol and ethanol. Life cycle assessment was carried out in order to evaluate the environmental impacts and to identify the process alternative. Nine mid-point impact categories are investigated. The results indicate that better performance on abiotic depletion potential (ADP) and acidification potential (AP) are observed in biodiesel production from methanol when compared with biodiesel production from ethanol due to less energy consumption during the production processes. Except for ADP and AP, using methanol as feed stock does not show any advantages over biodiesel from ethanol. The single score method is also included in this study in order to identify the best option between two processes of biodiesel production. The global normalization and weighting factor based on ecotaxes are used and it shows that producing biodiesel form ethanol has less environmental load compare to biodiesel from methanol.

Keywords: Biodiesel, Ethanol, Life Cycle Assessment, Methanol, Soybean Oil.

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Authors: Ziad Abdeldayem, Jakub Markiewicz, Kunal Kansara, Laura Edwards

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Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) is one of the main technologies for generating high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs). DTMs are crucial to several applications, such as topographic mapping, flood zone delineation, geographic information systems (GIS), hydrological modelling, spatial analysis, etc. Laser scanning system generates irregularly spaced three-dimensional cloud of points. Raw ALS data are mainly ground points (that represent the bare earth) and non-ground points (that represent buildings, trees, cars, etc.). Removing all the non-ground points from the raw data is referred to as filtering. Filtering heavily forested areas is considered a difficult and challenging task as the canopy stops laser pulses from reaching the terrain surface. This research presents an approach for removing non-ground points from raw ALS data in densely forested areas. Smoothing splines are exploited to interpolate and fit the noisy ALS data. The presented filter utilizes a weight function to allocate weights for each point of the data. Furthermore, unlike most of the methods, the presented filtering algorithm is designed to be automatic. Three different forested areas in the United Kingdom are used to assess the performance of the algorithm. The results show that the generated DTMs from the filtered data are accurate (when compared against reference terrain data) and the performance of the method is stable for all the heavily forested data samples. The average root mean square error (RMSE) value is 0.35 m.

Keywords: Airborne laser scanning, digital terrain models, filtering, forested areas.

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Authors: M.Ghotbi, M.Ghotbi, Gh. Azari Takami

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In this study Vitaton (an organic supplement which contains fermentative β-carotene) and synthetic astaxanthin (CAROPHYLL® Pink) were evaluated as pro-growth factors in Rainbow trout diet. An 8 week feeding trial was conducted to determine the effects of Vitaton versus astaxanthin on rearing factors, survival rate and visual flesh color of Rainbow trout (Oncorhnchynchus mykiss) with initial weight of 196±5. Four practical diets were formulated to contain 50 and 80 (ppm) of β- carotene and astaxanthin and also a control diet was prepared without any pigment. Each diet was fed to triplicate groups of fish rearing in fresh water. Fish were fed twice daily. The water temperature fluctuated from 12 to 15 (C˚) and also dissolved oxygen content was between 7 to 7.5 (mg/lit) during the experimental period. At the end of the experiment, growth and food utilization parameters and survival rate were unaffected by dietary treatments (p>0.05). Also, there was no significant difference between carcass yield within treatments (p>0.05). No significant difference recognized between visual flesh color (SalmoFan score) of fish fed Vitaton-containing diets. On the contrary, feeding on diets containing 50 and 80 (ppm) of astaxanthin, increased SalmoFan score (flesh astaxanthin concentration) from <20 (<1 mg/kg) to 23.33 (2.03 mg/kg) and 27.67 (5.74 mg/kg), respectively. Ultimately, a significant difference was seen between flesh carotenoid concentrations of fish feeding on astaxanthin containing treatments and control treatment (P<0.05). It should be mentioned that just raw fillet color of fish belonged to 80 (ppm) of astaxanthin treatment was seen to be close to color targets (SalmoFan scores) adopted for harvest-size fish.

Keywords: Astaxanthin, Flesh color, Rainbow trout, Vitaton, β- carotene,

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Authors: Tomas Makaras, Gintaras Svecevičius

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Landfill waste is a common problem as it has an economic and environmental impact even if it is closed. Landfill waste contains a high density of various persistent compounds such as heavy metals, organic and inorganic materials. As persistent compounds are slowly-degradable or even non-degradable in the environment, they often produce sublethal or even lethal effects on aquatic organisms. The aims of the present study were to estimate sublethal effects of the Kairiai landfill (WGS: 55°55‘46.74“, 23°23‘28.4“) leachate on the locomotor activity of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss juveniles using the original system package developed in our laboratory for automated monitoring, recording and analysis of aquatic organisms’ activity, and to determine patterns of fish behavioral response to sublethal effects of leachate. Four different concentrations of leachate were chosen: 0.125; 0.25; 0.5 and 1.0 mL/L (0.0025; 0.005; 0.01 and 0.002 as part of 96-hour LC50, respectively). Locomotor activity was measured after 5, 10 and 30 minutes of exposure during 1-minute test-periods of each fish (7 fish per treatment). The threshold-effect-concentration amounted to 0.18 mL/L (0.0036 parts of 96-hour LC50). This concentration was found to be even 2.8-fold lower than the concentration generally assumed to be “safe” for fish. At higher concentrations, the landfill leachate solution elicited behavioral response of test fish to sublethal levels of pollutants. The ability of the rainbow trout to detect and avoid contaminants occurred after 5 minutes of exposure. The intensity of locomotor activity reached a peak within 10 minutes, evidently decreasing after 30 minutes. This could be explained by the physiological and biochemical adaptation of fish to altered environmental conditions. It has been established that the locomotor activity of juvenile trout depends on leachate concentration and exposure duration. Modeling of these parameters showed that the activity of juveniles increased at higher leachate concentrations, but slightly decreased with the increasing exposure duration. Experiment results confirm that the behavior of rainbow trout juveniles is a sensitive and rapid biomarker that can be used in combination with the system for fish behavior monitoring, registration and analysis to determine sublethal concentrations of pollutants in ambient water. Further research should be focused on software improvement aimed to include more parameters of aquatic organisms’ behavior and to investigate the most rapid and appropriate behavioral responses in different species. In practice, this study could be the basis for the development and creation of biological early-warning systems (BEWS).

Keywords: Fish behavior biomarker, landfill leachate, locomotor activity, rainbow trout juveniles, sublethal effects.

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Authors: Eman A. Embaby, Amira A. A. Abdallah

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Background: Occupational standing is associated with low back pain (LBP) development. Yet, trunk and gluteus-medius muscles’ fatigability has not been extensively studied during occupational standing. This study examined and correlated the rectus abdominus (RA), erector-spinae (ES), external oblique (EO), and gluteus-medius (GM) muscles’ fatigability on both sides while standing in a confined area for 30min Methods: Median frequency EMG data were collected from 15 female clinical instructors with chronic LBP (group A) and 15 asymptomatic controls (group B) (mean age 29.53±2.4 vs 29.07±2.4years, weight 63.6±7 vs 60±7.8kg, and height 162.73±4 vs 162.8±6cm respectively) using a spectrum analysis program. Data were collected in the first and last 5min of the standing task. Results: Using Mixed three-way ANOVA, group A showed significantly (p<0.05) lower frequencies for the right and left ES, and right GM in the last 5min and significantly higher frequencies for the left RA in the first and last 5min than group B. In addition, the left ES and right EO, ES and GM in group B showed significantly higher frequencies and the left ES in group A showed significantly lower frequencies in the last 5min compared with the first. Moreover, the right RA showed significantly higher frequencies than the left in the last 5min in group B. Finally, there were significant (p<0.05) correlations among the median frequencies of the tested four muscles on the same side and between both sides in both groups. Discussion/Conclusions: Clinical instructors with LBP are more liable to have higher trunk and gluteus-medius muscle fatigue than asymptomatic individuals. Thus, endurance training for these muscles should be included in the rehabilitation of such patients.

Keywords: EMG, Fatigability, Gluteus-medius, LBP, Standing, Trunk.

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Authors: T. H. Rodrigues, Maria J. Reis Lima, R. P. F. Guiné, E. Teixeira de Lemos

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Portuguese diet has been gradually diverging from the basic principles of healthy eating, leading to an unbalanced dietary pattern which, associated with increasing sedentary lifestyle, has a negative impact on public health. The main objective of this work was to characterize the dietary habits of university students in Viseu, Portugal. The study consisted of a sample of 80 university students, aged between 18 and 28 years. Anthropometric data (weight (kg) and height (m)) were collected and Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated. The dietary habits were assessed through a three-day food record and the software Medpoint was used to convert food into energy and nutrients. The results showed that students present a normal body mass index. Female university students made a higher number of daily meals than male students, and these last skipped breakfast more frequently. The values of average daily intake of energy, macronutrients and calcium were higher in males. The food pattern was characterized by a predominant consumption of meat, cereal, fats and sugar. Dietary intake of dairy products, fruits, vegetables and legumes does not meet the recommendations, revealing inadequate food habits such as hypoglycemic, hyperprotein and hyperlipidemic diet. Our findings suggest that preventive interventions should be focus in promoting healthy eating habits and physical activity in adulthood.

Keywords: Food habits, BMI, fortified foods, nutritional deficiencies, university students.

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Authors: Akinwumi F. Olusegun

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The efficacy of the separate mixing of four tropical spicy and medicinal plant products: Dennettia tripetala Baker (pepper fruit), Eugenia aromatica Hook (clove), Piper guineense (Schum and Thonn) (black pepper) and Monodora myristica (Dunal) (African nut-meg) with a household vegetable oil was evaluated under tropical storage conditions for the control and reproductive performance of Dermestes maculatus (De Geer) (hide beetle) and Necroba rufipes (De Geer) (copra beetle) on African catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell). Each of the plant materials was pulverized into powder and applied as a mix of 1ml of oil and plant powder at 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0g per 100g of dried fish, and allowed to dry for 6h. Each of the four oil-mixed powder treatments evoked significant (P < 05) mortalities of the two insects compared with the control (oil only) at 1, 3 and 7 days post treatment. The oil-powder mixture dosages did not prevent insect egg hatchability but while the emergent larvae on the treated samples died, the emergent larvae in the control survived into adults. The application of oil-mixed powders effectively suppressed the emergence of the larvae of the beetles. Similarly, each of the oil-powder mixtures significantly reduced weight loss in smoked fish that were exposed to D. maculatus and N. rufipes when compared to the control (P < 05). The results of this study suggest that the plant powders rather than the domestic oil demonstrated protective ability against the fish beetles and confirm the efficacy of the plant products as pest control agents.

Keywords: Catfish, Fish beetles, Fish preservation, Oil-powder mix, Plant products.

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Authors: Wirat Sonchan, Pratoom Moungmee, Anek Sootmongkol

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This study aimed to examine the effects of a circuit training program on muscle strength, agility, anaerobic performance and cardiovascular endurance. The study involved 24 freshmen (age 18.87+0.68 yr.) male students of the Faculty of Sport Science, Burapha University. They sample study were randomly divided into two groups: Circuit Training group (CT; n=12) and a Control group (C; n=12). Baseline data on height, weight, muscle strength (hand grip dynamometer and leg strength dynamometer), agility (agility T-Test), and anaerobic performance (Running-based Anaerobic Sprint Test) and cardiovascular endurance (20 m Endurance Shuttle Run Test) were collected. The circuit training program included one circuit of eight stations of 30/60 seconds of work/rest interval with two cycles in Week 1-4, and 60/90 seconds of work/rest interval with three cycles in Week 5-8, performed three times per week. Data were analyzed using paired t-tests and independent sample t-test. Statistically significance level was set at 0.05. The results show that after 8 weeks of a training program, muscle strength, agility, anaerobic capacity and cardiovascular endurance increased significantly in the CT Group (p < 0.05), while significant increase was not observed in the C Group (p < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that the circuit training program improved muscle strength, agility, anaerobic capacity and cardiovascular endurance of the study subjects. This program may be used as a guideline for selecting a set of exercise to improve physical fitness.

Keywords: Cardiovascular endurance, circuit training, physical fitness, anaerobic performance.

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Authors: Ş. Çiftcioğlu, E. Efe

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In recent years, cancer has been at the top of diseases that cause death in children. Adequate and balanced nutrition plays an important role in the treatment of cancer. Cancer and cancer treatment is affecting food intake, absorption and metabolism, causing nutritional disorders. Appropriate nutrition is very important for the cancerous child to feel well before, during and after the treatment. There are various difficulties in feeding children with cancer. These are the cancer-related factors. Other factors are environmental and behavioral. As health professionals who spend more time with children in the hospital, nurses should be able to support the children on nutrition and help them to have balanced nutrition. This study aimed to evaluate the importance of nursing approaches in the nutrition of children with cancer. This article is planned as a review article by searching the literature on this field. Anorexia may develop due to psychogenic causes or chemotherapeutic agents or accompanying infections and nutrient uptake may be reduced.  In addition, stomatitis, mucositis, taste and odor changes in the mouth, the feeling of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea can also reduce oral intake and result in significant losses in the energy deficit. In assessing the nutritional status of children with cancer, determining weight loss and good nutrition is essential anamnesis of a child.  Some anthropometric measurements and biochemical tests should be used to evaluate the nutrition of the child. The nutritional status of pediatric cancer patients has been studied for a long time and malnutrition, in particular under nutrition, in this population has long been recognized. Yet, its management remains variable with many malnourished children going unrecognized and consequently untreated. Nutritional support is important to pediatric cancer patients and should be integrated into the overall treatment of these children.

Keywords: Cancer treatment, children, complication, nutrition, nursing approaches.

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Authors: Filippo Ranalli, Forest Flager, Martin Fischer

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This paper presents a ground structure method to optimize the topology and discrete member sizing of steel frame structures in order to minimize total installed cost, including material, fabrication and erection components. The proposed method improves upon existing cost-based ground structure methods by incorporating constructability considerations well as satisfying both strength and serviceability constraints. The architecture for the method is a bi-level Multidisciplinary Feasible (MDF) architecture in which the discrete member sizing optimization is nested within the topology optimization process. For each structural topology generated, the sizing optimization process seek to find a set of discrete member sizes that result in the lowest total installed cost while satisfying strength (member utilization) and serviceability (node deflection and story drift) criteria. To accurately assess cost, the connection details for the structure are generated automatically using accurate site-specific cost information obtained directly from fabricators and erectors. Member continuity rules are also applied to each node in the structure to improve constructability. The proposed optimization method is benchmarked against conventional weight-based ground structure optimization methods resulting in an average cost savings of up to 30% with comparable computational efficiency.

Keywords: Cost-based structural optimization, cost-based topology and sizing optimization, steel frame ground structure optimization, multidisciplinary optimization of steel structures.

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Authors: Noor Zainab Habib, Ibrahim Kamaruddin, Madzalan Napiah, Isa Mohd Tan

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This paper presents a research conducted to investigate the effect of mixing process on polypropylene (PP) modified bitumen mixed with well graded aggregate to form modified bituminous concrete mix. Two mode of mixing, namely dry and wet with different concentration of polymer polypropylene was used with 80/100 pen bitumen, to evaluate the bituminous concrete mix properties. Three percentages of polymer varying from 1-3% by the weight of bitumen was used in this study. Three mixes namely control mix, wet mix and dry mix were prepared. Optimum binder content was calculated considering Marshall Stability, flow, air voids and Marshall Quotient at different bitumen content varying from 4% - 6.5% for control, dry and wet mix. Engineering properties thus obtained at the calculated optimum bitumen content revealed that wet mixing process is advantageous in comparison to dry mixing as it increases the stiffness of the mixture with the increase in polymer content in bitumen. Stiffness value for wet mix increases with the increase in polymer content which is beneficial in terms of rutting. 1% PP dry mix also shows enhanced stiffness, with the air void content limited to 4%.The flow behaviour of dry mix doesn't indicate any major difference with the increase in polymer content revealing that polymer acting as an aggregate only without affecting the viscosity of the binder in the mix. Polypropylene (PP) when interacted with 80 pen base bitumen enhances its performance characteristics which were brought about by altered rheological properties of the modified bitumen. The decrease in flow with the increase in binder content reflects the increase in viscosity of binder which induces the plastic flow in the mix. Workability index indicates that wet mix were easy to compact up to desired void ratio in comparison to dry mix samples.

Keywords: Marshall Flow, Marshall Stability, Polymer modified bitumen, Polypropylene, Stiffness.

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Authors: Lalita Saeaeh, Sirirat Jitkarnka

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Pyrolysis of waste tire is one of alternative technique to produce petrochemicals, such as light olefins, mixed C4, and monoaromatics. Noble metals supported on acid zeolite catalysts were reported as potential catalysts to produce the high valuable products from waste tire pyrolysis. Especially, Pd supported on HBeta gave a high yield of olefins, mixed C4, and mono-aromatics. Due to the high prices of noble metals, the objective of this work was to investigate whether or not a non-noble Ni metal can be used as a substitute of a noble metal, Pd, supported on HBeta as a catalyst for waste tire pyrolysis. Ni metal was selected in this work because Ni has high activity in cracking, isomerization, hydrogenation and the ring opening of hydrocarbons Moreover, Ni is an element in the same group as Pd noble metal, which is VIIIB group, aiming to produce high valuable products similarly obtained from Pd. The amount of Ni was varied as 5, 10, and 20% by weight, for comparison with a fixed 1 wt% Pd, using incipient wetness impregnation. The results showed that as a petrochemical-producing catalyst, 10%Ni/HBeta performed better than 1%Pd/HBeta because it did not only produce the highest yield of olefins and cooking gases, but the yields were also higher than 1%Pd/HBeta. 5%Ni/HBeta can be used as a substitute of 1%Pd/HBeta for similar crude production because its crude contains the similar amounts of naphtha and saturated HCs, although it gave no concentration of light mono-aromatics (C6-C11) in the oil. Additionally, 10%Ni/HBeta that gave high olefins and cooking gases was found to give a fairly high concentration of the light mono-aromatics in the oil.

Keywords: Catalytic pyrolysis; Waste tire; Pd; Ni; HBeta

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Authors: Ahmed Badawi, J. Michael Johnson, Mohamed Mahfouz

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This paper proposes new enhancement models to the methods of nonlinear anisotropic diffusion to greatly reduce speckle and preserve image features in medical ultrasound images. By incorporating local physical characteristics of the image, in this case scatterer density, in addition to the gradient, into existing tensorbased image diffusion methods, we were able to greatly improve the performance of the existing filtering methods, namely edge enhancing (EE) and coherence enhancing (CE) diffusion. The new enhancement methods were tested using various ultrasound images, including phantom and some clinical images, to determine the amount of speckle reduction, edge, and coherence enhancements. Scatterer density weighted nonlinear anisotropic diffusion (SDWNAD) for ultrasound images consistently outperformed its traditional tensor-based counterparts that use gradient only to weight the diffusivity function. SDWNAD is shown to greatly reduce speckle noise while preserving image features as edges, orientation coherence, and scatterer density. SDWNAD superior performances over nonlinear coherent diffusion (NCD), speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD), adaptive weighted median filter (AWMF), wavelet shrinkage (WS), and wavelet shrinkage with contrast enhancement (WSCE), make these methods ideal preprocessing steps for automatic segmentation in ultrasound imaging.

Keywords: Nonlinear anisotropic diffusion, ultrasound imaging, speckle reduction, scatterer density estimation, edge based enhancement, coherence enhancement.

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Authors: A. Benaiche

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In the current situation, the automobile has become the main means of locomotion. It allows traveling long distances, encouraging urban sprawl. To counteract this trend, the train is often proposed as an alternative to the car. Simultaneously, the favoring of urban development around public transport nodes such as railway stations is one of the main issues of the coordination between urban planning and transportation and the keystone of the sustainable urban development implementation. In this context, this paper focuses on the study of the spatial structuring dynamics around the railway. Specifically, it is a question of studying the demographic dynamics in rail corridors of Nantes, Angers and Le Mans (Western France) basing on the radiation of railway stations. Consequently, the methodology is concentrated on the knowledge of demographic weight and gains of these corridors, the index of urban intensity and the mobility behaviors (workers’ travels, scholars' travels, modal practices of travels). The perimeter considered to define the rail corridors includes the communes of urban area which have a railway station and communes with an access time to the railway station is less than fifteen minutes by car (time specified by the Regional Transport Scheme of Travelers). The main tools used are the statistical data from the census of population, the basis of detailed tables and databases on mobility flows. The study reveals that the population is not tightened along rail corridors and train use is minimal despite the presence of a nearby railway station. These results lead to propose guidelines to make the train, a real vector of mobility across the rail corridors.

Keywords: Coordination between urban planning and transportation, Rail corridors, Railway stations, Travels.

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Authors: C. Ardil

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This paper presents a software product quality evaluation model based on the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. The evaluation characteristics and sub characteristics were identified from the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. The multidimensional structure of the quality model is based on characteristics such as functional suitability, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability, and associated sub characteristics. Random numbers are generated to establish the decision maker’s importance weights for each sub characteristics. Also, random numbers are generated to establish the decision matrix of the decision maker’s final scores for each software product against each sub characteristics. Thus, objective criteria importance weights and index scores for datasets were obtained from the random numbers. In the proposed model, five different software product quality evaluation datasets under three different weight vectors were applied to multiple criteria decision analysis method, preference analysis for reference ideal solution (PARIS) for comparison, and sensitivity analysis procedure. This study contributes to provide a better understanding of the application of MCDMA methods and ISO/IEC 25010 quality model guidelines in software product quality evaluation process.

Keywords: ISO/IEC 25010 quality model, multiple criteria decisions making, multiple criteria decision making analysis, MCDMA, PARIS, Software Product Quality Evaluation Model, Software Product Quality Evaluation, Software Evaluation, Software Selection, Software

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Authors: M. G. Papoutsidakis, G. Chamilothoris, F. Dailami, N. Larsen, A Pipe

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Due to their high power-to-weight ratio and low cost, pneumatic actuators are attractive for robotics and automation applications; however, achieving fast and accurate control of their position have been known as a complex control problem. A methodology for obtaining high position accuracy with a linear pneumatic actuator is presented. During experimentation with a number of PID classical control approaches over many operations of the pneumatic system, the need for frequent manual re-tuning of the controller could not be eliminated. The reason for this problem is thermal and energy losses inside the cylinder body due to the complex friction forces developed by the piston displacements. Although PD controllers performed very well over short periods, it was necessary in our research project to introduce some form of automatic gain-scheduling to achieve good long-term performance. We chose a fuzzy logic system to do this, which proved to be an easily designed and robust approach. Since the PD approach showed very good behaviour in terms of position accuracy and settling time, it was incorporated into a modified form of the 1st order Tagaki- Sugeno fuzzy method to build an overall controller. This fuzzy gainscheduler uses an input variable which automatically changes the PD gain values of the controller according to the frequency of repeated system operations. Performance of the new controller was significantly improved and the need for manual re-tuning was eliminated without a decrease in performance. The performance of the controller operating with the above method is going to be tested through a high-speed web network (GRID) for research purposes.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, gain scheduling, leaky integrator, pneumatic actuator.

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