Search results for: treatment recommender system

Authors: D. Hephzibah, P. Kumaran, N. M. Saifuddin

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Anaerobic digestion is a well-known technique for sustainable energy recovery from sewage sludge. However, sewage sludge digestion is restricted due to certain factors. Pre-treatment methods have been established in various publications as a promising technique to improve the digestibility of the sewage sludge and to enhance the biogas generated which can be used for energy recovery. In this study, continuous flow microwave (MW) pre-treatment with different intensities were compared by using 5 L semi-continuous digesters at a hydraulic retention time of 27 days. We focused on the effects of MW at different intensities on the sludge solubilization, sludge digestibility, and biogas production of the untreated and MW pre-treated sludge. The MW pre-treatment demonstrated an increase in the ratio of soluble chemical oxygen demand to total chemical oxygen demand (sCOD/tCOD) and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration. Besides that, the total volatile solid (TVS) removal efficiency and tCOD removal efficiency also increased during the digestion of the MW pre-treated sewage sludge compared to the untreated sewage sludge. Furthermore, the biogas yield also subsequently increases due to the pre-treatment effect. A higher MW power level and irradiation time generally enhanced the biogas generation which has potential for sustainable energy recovery from sewage treatment plant. However, the net energy balance tabulation shows that the MW pre-treatment leads to negative net energy production.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, biogas, microwave pre-treatment, sewage sludge.

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Authors: Dennys Robson Girardi, Hugo Bulegon, Claudia Maria Moro Barra

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Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium Leprae, this disease, generally, compromises the neural fibers, leading to the development of disability. Disabilities are changes that limit daily activities or social life of a normal individual. When comes to leprosy, the study of disability considered the functional limitation (physical disabilities), the limitation of activity and social participation, which are measured respectively by the scales: EHF, SALSA and PARTICIPATION SCALE. The objective of this work is to propose an on-line monitoring of leprosy patients, which is based on information scales EHF, SALSA and PARTICIPATION SCALE. It is expected that the proposed system is applied in monitoring the patient during treatment and after healing therapy of the disease. The correlations that the system is between the scales create a variety of information, presented the state of the patient and full of changes or reductions in disability. The system provides reports with information from each of the scales and the relationships that exist between them. This way, health professionals, with access to patient information, can intervene with techniques for the Prevention of Disability. Through the automated scale, the system shows the level of the patient and allows the patient, or the responsible, to take a preventive measure. With an online system, it is possible take the assessments and monitor patients from anywhere.

Keywords: Leprosy, Medical Informatics, Decision SupportSystem, Disability.

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Authors: Pisut Painmanakul, Kotchakorn Kongkangwarn, Nattawin Chawaloesphonsiya

Abstract:

The coalescer process is one of the methods for oily water treatment by increasing the oil droplet size in order to enhance the separating velocity and thus effective separation. However, the presence of surfactants in an oily emulsion can limit the obtained mechanisms due to the small oil size related with stabilized emulsion. In this regard, the purpose of this research is to improve the efficiency of the coalescer process for treating the stabilized emulsion. The effects of bed types, bed height, liquid flow rate and stage coalescer (step-bed) on the treatment efficiencies in term of COD values were studied. Note that the treatment efficiency obtained experimentally was estimated by using the COD values and oil droplet size distribution. The study has shown that the plastic media has more effective to attach with oil particles than the stainless one due to their hydrophobic properties. Furthermore, the suitable bed height (3.5 cm) and step bed (3.5 cm with 2 steps) were necessary in order to well obtain the coalescer performance. The application of step bed coalescer process in reactor has provided the higher treatment efficiencies in term of COD removal than those obtained with classical process. The proposed model for predicting the area under curve and thus treatment efficiency, based on the single collector efficiency (ηT) and the attachment efficiency (α), provides relatively a good coincidence between the experimental and predicted values of treatment efficiencies in this study.

Keywords: Stage coalescer, stabilized emulsions, treatment efficiency, model prediction.

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Authors: N.H. Abdurahman, Y. M. Rosli, N. H. Azhari, S. F. Tam

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The direct discharge of palm oil mill effluent (POME) wastewater causes serious environmental pollution due to its high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Traditional ways for POME treatment have both economical and environmental disadvantages. In this study, a membrane anaerobic system (MAS) was used as an alternative, cost effective method for treating POME. Six steady states were attained as a part of a kinetic study that considered concentration ranges of 8,220 to 15,400 mg/l for mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) and 6,329 to 13,244 mg/l for mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS). Kinetic equations from Monod, Contois and Chen & Hashimoto were employed to describe the kinetics of POME treatment at organic loading rates ranging from 2 to 13 kg COD/m3/d. throughout the experiment, the removal efficiency of COD was from 94.8 to 96.5% with hydraulic retention time, HRT from 400.6 to 5.7 days. The growth yield coefficient, Y was found to be 0.62gVSS/g COD the specific microorganism decay rate was 0.21 d-1 and the methane gas yield production rate was between 0.25 l/g COD/d and 0.58 l/g COD/d. Steady state influent COD concentrations increased from 18,302 mg/l in the first steady state to 43,500 mg/l in the sixth steady state. The minimum solids retention time, which was obtained from the three kinetic models ranged from 5 to 12.3 days. The k values were in the range of 0.35 – 0.519 g COD/ g VSS • d and values were between 0.26 and 0.379 d-1. The solids retention time (SRT) decreased from 800 days to 11.6 days. The complete treatment reduced the COD content to 2279 mg/l equivalent to a reduction of 94.8% reduction from the original.

Keywords: COD reduction, POME, kinetics, membrane, anaerobic, monod, contois equation.

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Authors: A. Hossain, A. S. W. Kurny

Abstract:

The factors necessary to obtain an optimal heat treatment that influence the hardness and resistivity of Al-6Si-0.5Mg casting alloys with Cu or/and Ni additions were investigated. The alloys were homogenised (24hr at 500^oC), solutionized (2hr at 540^oC) and artificially ageing at various times and temperatures. The alloys were aged isochronally for 60 minutes at temperatures up to 400^oC and isothermally at 150, 175, 200, 225, 250 & 300^oC for different periods in the range 15 to 360 minutes. The hardness and electrical resistivity of the alloys were measured for various artificial ageing times and temperatures. From the isochronal ageing treatment, hardness found maximum ageing at 225^oC. And from the isothermal ageing treatment, hardness found maximum for 60 minutes at 225^oC. So the optimal heat treatment consists of 60 minutes ageing at 225^oC.

Keywords: Ageing, Al-Si-Mg alloy, hardness, resistivity.

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Authors: Bernard J.H. Ng, Apostolos Giannis, Victor Chang, Rainer Stegmann, Jing-Yuan Wang

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Decentralized eco-sanitation system is a promising and sustainable mode comparing to the century-old centralized conventional sanitation system. The decentralized concept relies on an environmentally and economically sound management of water, nutrient and energy fluxes. Source-separation systems for urban waste management collect different solid waste and wastewater streams separately to facilitate the recovery of valuable resources from wastewater (energy, nutrients). A resource recovery centre constituted for 20,000 people will act as the functional unit for the treatment of urban waste of a high-density population community, like Singapore. The decentralized system includes urine treatment, faeces and food waste co-digestion, and horticultural waste and organic fraction of municipal solid waste treatment in composting plants. A design model is developed to estimate the input and output in terms of materials and energy. The inputs of urine (yellow water, YW) and faeces (brown water, BW) are calculated by considering the daily mean production of urine and faeces by humans and the water consumption of no-mix vacuum toilet (0.2 and 1 L flushing water for urine and faeces, respectively). The food waste (FW) production is estimated to be 150 g wet weight/person/day. The YW is collected and discharged by gravity into tank. It was found that two days are required for urine hydrolysis and struvite precipitation. The maximum nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) recovery are 150-266 kg/day and 20-70 kg/day, respectively. In contrast, BW and FW are mixed for co-digestion in a thermophilic acidification tank and later a decentralized/centralized methanogenic reactor is used for biogas production. It is determined that 6.16-15.67 m3/h methane is produced which is equivalent to 0.07-0.19 kWh/ca/day. The digestion residues are treated with horticultural waste and organic fraction of municipal waste in co-composting plants.

Keywords: Decentralization, ecological sanitation, material flow analysis, source-separation

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Authors: A. Mohammed, A. Babatunde

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This study investigated the integrated removal of heavy metals, organic matter and nitrogen from landfill leachate using a novel laboratory scale constructed wetland system. The main objectives of this study were: (i) to assess the overall effectiveness of the constructed wetland system for treating landfill leachate; (ii) to examine the interactions and impact of key leachate constituents (heavy metals, organic matter and nitrogen) on the overall removal dynamics and efficiency. The constructed wetland system consisted of four stages operated in tidal flow and anoxic conditions. Results obtained from 215 days of operation have demonstrated extraordinary heavy metals removal up to 100%. Analysis of the physico- chemical data reveal that the controlling factors for metals removal were the anoxic condition and the use of the novel media (dewatered ferric sludge which is a by-product of drinking water treatment process) as the main substrate in the constructed wetland system. Results show that the use of the ferric sludge enhanced heavy metals removal and brought more flexibility to simultaneous nitrification and denitrification which occurs within the microbial flocs. Furthermore, COD and NH₄-N were effectively removed in the system and this coincided with enhanced aeration in the 2nd and 3rd stages of the constructed wetland system. Overall, the results demonstrated that the ferric dewatered sludge constructed wetland system would be an effective solution for integrated removal of pollutants from landfill leachates.

Keywords: Constructed wetlands, ferric dewatered sludge, heavy metal, landfill leachate.

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Authors: Sh. Hosseini, M. B. Limooei, M. Hossein Zade, E. Askarnia, Z. Asadi

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Manganese steel (Hadfield) is one of the important alloys in industry due to its special properties. High work hardening ability with appropriate toughness and ductility are the properties that caused this alloy to be used in wear resistance parts and in high strength condition. Heat treatment is the main process through which the desired mechanical properties and microstructures are obtained in Hadfield steel. In this study various heat treatment cycles, differing in austenising temperature, time and quenching solution are applied. For this purpose, the same samples of manganese steel was heat treated in 9 different cycles, and then the mechanical properties and microstructures were investigated. Based on the results of the study, the optimum heat treatment cycle was obtained.

Keywords: Manganese steel (Hadfield), heat treatment, austenising temperature, austenising time, quenching solution, mechanical properties.

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Authors: Shirin Shafaei, James R. Bolton, Mohamed Gamal El Din

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Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection causes damage to the DNA or RNA of microorganisms, but many microorganisms can repair this damage after exposure to near-UV or visible wavelengths (310–480 nm) by a mechanism called photoreactivation. Photoreactivation is gaining more attention because it can reduce the efficiency of UV disinfection of wastewater several hours after treatment. The focus of many photoreactivation research activities on the single species has caused a considerable lack in knowledge about complex natural communities of microorganisms and their response to UV treatment. In this research, photoreactivation experiments were carried out on the influent of the UV disinfection unit at a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Edmonton, Alberta after exposure to a Medium-Pressure (MP) UV lamp system to evaluate the effect of environmental factors on photoreactivation of microorganisms in the actual municipal wastewater. The effect of reactivation fluence, temperature, and river water on photoreactivation of total coliforms was examined under indoor conditions. The results showed that higher effective reactivation fluence values (up to 20 J/cm²) and higher temperatures (up to 25 °C) increased the photoreactivation of total coliforms. However, increasing the percentage of river in the mixtures of the effluent and river water decreased the photoreactivation of the mixtures. The results of this research can help the municipal wastewater treatment industry to examine the environmental effects of discharging their effluents into receiving waters.

Keywords: Photoreactivation, reactivation fluence, river water, temperature, ultraviolet disinfection, wastewater effluent.

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Authors: Seok Hong Min, Tae Kwon Ha

Abstract:

Phase equilibria of AZ91D Mg alloys for nonflammable use, containing Ca and Y, were carried out by using FactSage® and FTLite database, which revealed that solid solution treatment could be performed at temperatures from 400 to 450oC. Solid solution treatment of AZ91D Mg alloy without Ca and Y was successfully conducted at 420oC and supersaturated microstructure with all beta phase resolved into matrix was obtained. In the case of AZ91D Mg alloy with some Ca and Y; however, a little amount of intermetallic particles were observed after solid solution treatment. After solid solution treatment, each alloy was annealed at temperatures of 180 and 200oC for time intervals from 1 min to 48 hrs and hardness of each condition was measured by micro-Vickers method. Peak aging conditions were deduced as at the temperature of 200oC for 10 hrs.

Keywords: Mg alloy, AZ91D, nonflammable alloy, phase equilibrium, peak aging.

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Authors: Zheng Zhang, Xin Chen, Guoqing Ding

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Electronic apex locators (EAL) has been widely used clinically for measuring root canal working length with high accuracy, which is crucial for successful endodontic treatment. In order to maintain high accuracy in different measurement environments, this study presented a system for root canal length measurement based on multifrequency impedance method. This measuring system can generate a sweep current with frequencies from 100 Hz to 1 MHz through a direct digital synthesizer. Multiple impedance ratios with different combinations of frequencies were obtained and transmitted by an analog-to-digital converter and several of them with representatives will be selected after data process. The system analyzed the functional relationship between these impedance ratios and the distance between the file and the apex with statistics by measuring plenty of teeth. The position of the apical foramen can be determined by the statistical model using these impedance ratios. The experimental results revealed that the accuracy of the system based on multifrequency impedance ratios method to determine the position of the apical foramen was higher than the dual-frequency impedance ratio method. Besides that, for more complex measurement environments, the performance of the system was more stable.

Keywords: Root canal length, apex locator, multifrequency impedance, sweep frequency.

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Authors: Onder Yakut, Serdar Solak, Emine Dogru Bolat

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Measuring the Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is an essential process for the diagnosis of the heart diseases. The ECG signal has the information of the degree of how much the heart performs its functions. In medical diagnosis and treatment systems, Decision Support Systems processing the ECG signal are being developed for the use of clinicians while medical examination. In this study, a modular wireless ECG (WECG) measuring and recording system using a single board computer and e-Health sensor platform is developed. In this designed modular system, after the ECG signal is taken from the body surface by the electrodes first, it is filtered and converted to digital form. Then, it is recorded to the health database using Wi-Fi communication technology. The real time access of the ECG data is provided through the internet utilizing the developed web interface.

Keywords: ECG, e-health sensor shield, raspberry Pi, wifi technology.

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Authors: Gurmeet Singh Cheema, Navjotinder Singh, Gurjinder Singh, Amardeep Singh Kang

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Aluminium and its alloys have excellent corrosion resistant properties, ease of fabrication and high specific strength to weight ratio. In this investigation an attempt has been made to study the effect of different post weld heat treatment methods on the mechanical and metallurgical properties of TIG welded joints of the commercial aluminium alloy. Three different methods of post weld heat treatments are solution heat treatment, artificial ageing and combination of solution heat treatment and artificial aging are given to TIG welded aluminium joints. Mechanical and metallurgical properties of As welded joints of the aluminium alloys and post weld heat treated joints of the aluminium alloys were examined.

Keywords: Aluminium Alloys, Post weld Heat Treatment, TIG welding.

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Authors: A. R. Abdul Syukor, A. W. Zularisam, Z. Ideris, M. S. Mohd Ismid, H. M. Nakmal, S. Sulaiman, A. H. Hasmanie, M. R. Siti Norsita, M. Nasrullah

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In this study, the effectiveness of an integrated aquatic plants in phytogreen zone was studied and statistical analysis for the promotional integrated phytogreen system approached was discussed. It was found that's the effectiveness of using aquatic plant such as Typha angustifolia sp., Lepironia articulata sp., Limnocharis flava sp., Monochoria vaginalis sp., Pistia stratiotes sp., and Eichhornia crassipes sp., in the conventional oxidation pond process in order to comply the standard A according to Malaysia Environmental Quality Act 1974 (Act 127); Environmental Quality (Sewage) Regulation 2009 for effluent discharge into inland water near the residential area was successfully shown. It was concluded that the integrated phtogreen system developed in this study has great potential for refurbishment wastewater in conventional oxidation pond.

Keywords: Phytoremediation, integrated phytogreen system, sewage treatment plant, oxidation pond, aquatic plants.

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Authors: Seni Karnchanawong, Wachara Phajee

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The effects of upflow liquid velocity (ULV) on performance of expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) system were investigated. The EGSB reactor, made from galvanized steel pipe 0.10 m diameter and 5 m height, had been used to treat piggery wastewater, after passing through acidification tank. It consisted of 39.3 l working volume in reaction zone and 122 l working volume in sedimentation zone, at the upper part. The reactor was seeded with anaerobically digested sludge and operated at the ULVs of 4, 8, 12 and 16 m/h, consecutively, corresponding to organic loading rates of 9.6 – 13.0 kg COD/ (m3.d). The average COD concentrations in the influent were 9,601 – 13,050 mg/l. The COD removal was not significantly different, i.e. 93.0% - 94.0%, except at ULV 12 m/h where SS in the influent was exceptionally high so that VSS washout had occurred, leading to low COD removal. The FCOD and VFA concentrations in the effluent of all experiments were not much different, indicating the same range of treatment performance. The biogas production decreased at higher ULV and ULV of 4 m/h is suggested as design criterion for EGSB system.

Keywords: Expanded granular sludge bed system, piggery wastewater, upflow liquid velocity

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Authors: Enas M. F. El Houby, Marwa S. Hassan

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Combined therapy using Interferon and Ribavirin is the standard treatment in patients with chronic hepatitis C. However, the number of responders to this treatment is low, whereas its cost and side effects are high. Therefore, there is a clear need to predict patient’s response to the treatment based on clinical information to protect the patients from the bad drawbacks, Intolerable side effects and waste of money. Different machine learning techniques have been developed to fulfill this purpose. From these techniques are Associative Classification (AC) and Decision Tree (DT). The aim of this research is to compare the performance of these two techniques in the prediction of virological response to the standard treatment of HCV from clinical information. 200 patients treated with Interferon and Ribavirin; were analyzed using AC and DT. 150 cases had been used to train the classifiers and 50 cases had been used to test the classifiers. The experiment results showed that the two techniques had given acceptable results however the best accuracy for the AC reached 92% whereas for DT reached 80%.

Keywords: Associative Classification, Data mining, Decision tree, HCV, interferon.

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Authors: Paulo Rocha

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Once in touch with the Criminal Justice System, offenders with mental disorder tend to return to custody more often than nondisordered individuals, which suggests they have not been receiving appropriate treatment in prison. In this scenario, diverting individuals into care as early as possible in their trajectory seems to be the appropriate approach to rehabilitate mentally unwell offenders and alleviate overcrowded prisons. This paper builds on an ethnographic research investigating the challenges encountered by practitioners working to divert offenders into care while attempting to establish cross-boundary interactions with professionals in the Criminal Justice System and Mental Health Services in the UK. Drawing upon the findings of the study, this paper suggests the development of adequate tools to enable liaison between agencies which ultimately results in successful interventions.

Keywords: Criminogenic needs, interagency collaboration, liaison and diversion, recidivism.

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Authors: Marcin Ciura, Damian Grund, S

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This paper describes a system, in which various methods of text summarizing can be adapted to Polish. A structure of the system is presented. A modular construction of the system and access to the system via the Internet are signaled.

Keywords: Automatic summary generation, linguistic analysis, text generation.

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Authors: Nasri M., Soleimani A.

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Since water resources of desert Naein City are very limited, a approach which saves water resources and meanwhile meets the needs of the greenspace for water is to use city-s sewage wastewater. Proper treatment of Naein-s sewage up to the standards required for green space uses may solve some of the problems of green space development of the city. The present paper closely examines available statistics and information associated with city-s sewage system, and determines complementary stages of sewage treatment facilities of the city. In the present paper, population, per capita water use, and required discharge for various greenspace pieces including different plants are calculated. Moreover, in order to facilitate the application of water resources, a Crude water distribution network apart from drinking water distribution network is designed, and a plan for mixing municipal wells- water with sewage wastewater in proposed mixing tanks is suggested. Hence, following greenspace irrigation reform and complementary plan, per capita greenspace of the city will be increased from current amount of 13.2 square meters to 32 square meters.

Keywords: Sewage Treatment Facility, Wastewater, Greenspace, Distribution Network, Naein City

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Authors: A. Won-Yong Chae, B. Hyung-Nam Kim, C. Kyoung-Jun Lee, D. Hee-Je Kim

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The renewable energy has been attracting attention as a new alternative energy due to the problem of environmental pollution and resource depletion. In particular, daylighting and PV system are regarded as the solutions. In this paper, the hybrid dimming control system supplied by solar cell and daylighting system was designed. Daylighting system is main source and PV system is spare source. PV system operates the LED lamp which supports daylighting system because daylighting system is unstable due to the variation of irradiance. In addition, PV system has a role charging batteries. Battery charging has a benefit that PV system operate LED lamp in the bad weather. However, LED lamp always can`t turn on that-s why dimming control system was designed. In particular, the solar charging robot was designed to check the interior irradiance intensity. These systems and the application of the solar charging robot are expected to contribute developing alternative energy in the near future.

Keywords: Daylighting system, PV system, LED lamp, Suntracking robot.

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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: Haodong Wu, Ping Huang, Junsan Wang

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In China, with the rapid urbanization and industrialization, and highly accelerated economic development have resulted in degradation of water resource. The water quality deterioration usual result from eutrophication in most cases, so how to dispose this type pollution water higher efficiently is an urgent task. Hower, different with traditional technology, constructed wetlands are effective treatment systems that can be very useful because they are simple technology and low operational cost. A pilot-scale treatment including constructed wetlands was constructed at XingYun Lake, Yuxi, China, and operated as primary treatment measure before eutrophic-lake water draining to riverine landscape. Water quality indices were determined during the experiment, the results indicated that treatment removal efficiencies were high for Nitrate nitrogen, Chlorophyll–a and Algae, the final removal efficiency reached to 95.20%, 93.33% and 99.87% respectively, but the removal efficiency of Total phosphorous and Total nitrogen only reach to 68.83% and 50.00% respectively.

Keywords: Constructed wetland, Eutrophic-lake water, Nutrientremoval, Removal efficiency

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Authors: C. Lanzerstorfer

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The off-gas from the basic oxygen furnace (BOF), where pig iron is converted into steel, is treated in the primary ventilation system. This system is in full operation only during oxygen-blowing when the BOF converter vessel is in a vertical position. When pig iron and scrap are charged into the BOF and when slag or steel are tapped, the vessel is tilted. The generated emissions during charging and tapping cannot be captured by the primary off-gas system. To capture these emissions, a secondary ventilation system is usually installed. The emissions are captured by a canopy hood installed just above the converter mouth in tilted position. The aim of this study was to investigate the dependence of Zn and other components on the particle size of BOF secondary ventilation dust. Because of the high temperature of the BOF process it can be expected that Zn will be enriched in the fine dust fractions. If Zn is enriched in the fine fractions, classification could be applied to split the dust into two size fractions with a different content of Zn. For this air classification experiments with dust from the secondary ventilation system of a BOF were performed. The results show that Zn and Pb are highly enriched in the finest dust fraction. For Cd, Cu and Sb the enrichment is less. In contrast, the non-volatile metals Al, Fe, Mn and Ti were depleted in the fine fractions. Thus, air classification could be considered for the treatment of dust from secondary BOF off-gas cleaning.

Keywords: Air classification, converter dust, recycling, zinc.

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Authors: Ahmed Mostafa, Mohamed Mahmoud, Nesreen H. Hafez, Mohamed Fahim

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This retrospective study includes 60 patients with pre-invasive breast cancer. Aim of the study: Evaluation of premalignant lesions of the breast (DCIS), different treatment methods and outcome. Patients and methods: 60 patients with DCIS were studied from the period between 2005 to 2012, for 38 patients the primary surgical method was wide local resection (WLE) (63.3%) and the other cases (22 patients, 36.7%) had mastectomy, fourteen cases from those who underwent local excision received radiotherapy, while no adjuvant radiotherapy was given for those who underwent mastectomy. In case of hormonal receptor positive DCIS lesions hormonal treatment (Tamoxifen) was given after local control. Results: No difference in overall survival between mastectomy & breast conserving therapy (wide local excision and adjuvant radiotherapy), however local recurrence rate is higher in case of breast conserving therapy, also no role of Axillary evacuation in case of DCIS. The use of hormonal therapy decreases the incidence of local recurrence by about 98%. Conclusion: The main management of DCIS is local treatment (wide local excision and radiotherapy) with hormonal treatment in case of hormone receptor positive lesions.

Keywords: Ductal carcinoma in situ, surgical treatment, radiotherapy, breast conserving therapy, hormonal treatment.

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Authors: Algirdas Jasinskas, Egidijus Šarauskis, Raimondas Šarauskis, Antanas Sakalauskas

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This paper presents the new results of energy plant – rye and triticale at yellow ripeness and ripe, pre-treatment in high pressure steam reactor and monosaccharide extraction. There were investigated the influence of steam pressure (20 to 22 bar), retention duration (180 to 240 s) and catalytic sulphuric acid concentration strength (0 to 0.5 %) on the pre-treatment process, contents of monosaccharides (glucose, arabinose, xylose, mannose) and undesirable by-compounds (furfural and HMF) in the reactor. The study has determined that the largest amount of monosaccharides (37.2 % of glucose, 2.7 % of arabinose, 8.4 % of xylose, and 1.3 % of mannose) was received in the rye at ripe, the samples of which were mixed with 0.5 % concentration of catalytic sulphuric acid, and hydrolysed in the reactor, where the pressure was 20 bar, whereas the reaction time – 240 s.

Keywords: Bioethanol, Pre-treatment, Rye, Triticale.

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Authors: Chryssa Thermolia, Ekaterini S. Bei, Stelios Sotiriadis, Kostas Stravoskoufos, Euripides G.M. Petrakis

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Moving into a new era of healthcare, new tools and devices are developed to extend and improve health services, such as remote patient monitoring and risk prevention. In this concept, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud Computing present great advantages by providing remote and efficient services, as well as cooperation between patients, clinicians, researchers and other health professionals. This paper focuses on patients suffering from bipolar disorder, a brain disorder that belongs to a group of conditions called affective disorders, which is characterized by great mood swings. We exploit the advantages of Semantic Web and Cloud Technologies to develop a patient monitoring system to support clinicians. Based on intelligently filtering of evidence-knowledge and individual-specific information we aim to provide treatment notifications and recommended function tests at appropriate times or concluding into alerts for serious mood changes and patient’s nonresponse to treatment. We propose an architecture as the back-end part of a cloud platform for IoT, intertwining intelligence devices with patients’ daily routine and clinicians’ support.

Keywords: Bipolar disorder, intelligent systems patient monitoring, semantic web technologies, IoT.

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Authors: Somayeh Timarchi, Keivan Navi

Abstract:

Efficient modulo 2n+1 adders are important for several applications including residue number system, digital signal processors and cryptography algorithms. In this paper we present a novel modulo 2n+1 addition algorithm for a recently represented number system. The proposed approach is introduced for the reduction of the power dissipated. In a conventional modulo 2n+1 adder, all operands have (n+1)-bit length. To avoid using (n+1)-bit circuits, the diminished-1 and carry save diminished-1 number systems can be effectively used in applications. In the paper, we also derive two new architectures for designing modulo 2n+1 adder, based on n-bit ripple-carry adder. The first architecture is a faster design whereas the second one uses less hardware. In the proposed method, the special treatment required for zero operands in Diminished-1 number system is removed. In the fastest modulo 2n+1 adders in normal binary system, there are 3-operand adders. This problem is also resolved in this paper. The proposed architectures are compared with some efficient adders based on ripple-carry adder and highspeed adder. It is shown that the hardware overhead and power consumption will be reduced. As well as power reduction, in some cases, power-delay product will be also reduced.

Keywords: Modulo 2n+1 arithmetic, residue number system, low power, ripple-carry adders.

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Authors: Anwar Sadat

Abstract:

Today, the Internet based communication has widen the opportunity of event monitoring system in the medical field. There is always a need of analyzing and designing secure and reliable mobile communication between the hospital and biomedical engineers mobile units. This study has been carried out to find possible solution using SIP-based event notification for alerting the technical staff about the Biomedical Device (BMD) status and Patients treatment session. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can be used to create a medical event notification system. SIP can work on a variety of devices. Its adoption as the protocol of choice for third generation wireless networks allows for a robust and scalable environment. One of the advantages of SIP is that it supports personal mobility through the separation of user addressing and device addressing. The solution for Telemed alert notification system is based on SIP - Specific Event Notification. The aim of this project is to extend mobility service to the hospital technicians who are using Telemedicine system.

Keywords: Biomedical, Mobility Service, Notify, Proxy Server, SIP, Subscribe, Telemedicine.

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Authors: Viktorie Janečková, Petr Šnapka, Marie Mikušová

Abstract:

This paper aims to initiate an analytical account of the issues of compliance with economy condition for incentive pay system application in an enterprise. Economy is considered one of the conditions for effective incentive pay system application another condition being the achievement of desired efficiency level of the incentive pay system application. Bonus pay system is discussed as an example.

Keywords: Cost analysis, economy, incentive pay system.

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Authors: Nevila Alliu, Saimir Heta, Ilma Robo, Vera Ostreni

Abstract:

Periodontitis as an oral pathology caused by specific bacterial flora functions as a focal infection for the onset and aggravation of arteriosclerosis. These two distant pathologies, since they affect organs at a distance from each other, communicate with each other with correlation at the level of markers of inflammation in the blood. Fluctuations in the level of fibrinogen in the blood, depending on the active or passive phase of the existing periodontitis, affect the promotion of arteriosclerosis. The study is of the brief communication article type with the aim to analyze the effect of non-surgical periodontal treatment on fluctuations in the level of fibrinogen in the blood. The reduction of fibrinogen's level in blood after non-surgical periodontal treatment of periodontitis in the patient's oral cavity, is a common consequence supported by literature sources. Also, the influence of a high amount of fibrinogen in blood on the occurrence of arteriosclerosis at the same patient, is also another important data that again rely on many sources of literature. Thromboembolism and arteriosclerosis, as risk factors expressed in clinical data, have temporary bacteremia in the blood, which can occur significantly and often between phases of non-surgical periodontal treatment of periodontitis, treatments performed with treatment phases and protocols of predetermined treatment. Arterial thromboembolism has a significant factor, such as high levels of fibrinogen in the blood, which are significantly reduced during the period of non-surgical periodontal treatment.

Keywords: Fibrinogen, refractory periodontitis, atherosclerosis, non-surgical, periodontal treatment.

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