Abstract: The adoption of Blockchain technology introduces the possibility to decentralize cold chain systems. This adaptation enhances them to be more efficient, accessible, verifiable, and data security. Additionally, the Internet of Things (IoT) concept is considered as an added-value to various application domains. Cargo tracking and cold chain are a few to name. However, the security of the IoT transactions and integrated devices remains one of the key challenges to the IoT application’s success. Consequently, Blockchain technology and its consensus protocols have been used to solve many information security problems. In this paper, we discuss the advantages of integrating Blockchain technology into IoT platform to improve security and provide an overview of existing literature on integrating Blockchain and IoT platforms. Then, we present the immunization cold chain solution as a use-case that could be applied to any critical goods based on integrating Hyperledger fabric platform and IoT platform.
Abstract: Ground deformations in deep excavations are affected by wall stiffness and pile embedment ratio. This paper presents the findings of a parametric study of a 64-ft deep excavation in mixed stiff soil conditions supported by cantilever pile wall. A series of finite element analysis has been carried out in Plaxis 2D by varying the pile embedment ratio and wall stiffness. It has been observed that maximum wall deflections decrease by increasing the embedment ratio up to 1.50; however, any further increase in pile length does not improve the performance of the wall. Similarly, increasing wall stiffness reduces the wall deformations and affects the deflection patterns of the wall. The finite element analysis results are compared with the field data of 25 case studies of cantilever walls. Analysis results fall within the range of normalized wall deflections of the 25 case studies. It has been concluded that deep excavations can be supported by cantilever walls provided the system stiffness is increased significantly.
Abstract: Many methods are used to collect data like questionnaires, surveys, focus group interviews. Or the collection of poor-quality data resulting, for example, from poorly designed questionnaires, the absence of good translators or interpreters, and the incorrect recording of data allow conclusions to be drawn that are not supported by the data or to focus only on the average effect of the program or policy. There are several solutions to avoid or minimize the most frequent errors, including obtaining expert advice on the design or adaptation of data collection instruments; or use technologies allowing better "anonymity" in the responses. In this context, and to overcome the aforementioned problems, we suggest in this paper an approach to achieve the collection of relevant data, by carrying out a large-scale questionnaire-based survey. We have been able to collect good quality, consistent and practical data on hospital emergencies to improve emergency services in hospitals, especially in the case of epidemics or pandemics.
Abstract: Mycotoxins are secondary metabolic products of fungi. These are poisonous, carcinogens and mutagens in nature and pose a serious health threat to both humans and animals, causing severe illnesses and even deaths. The rapid, simple and cheap detection methods of mycotoxins are of immense importance and in great demand in the food and beverage industry as well as in agriculture and environmental monitoring. Lateral flow immunochromatographic strips (ICSTs) have been widely used in food safety, environment monitoring. 46 papers were identified and reviewed on Google Scholar and Scopus for their limit of detection and nanomaterial on Lateral flow ICSTs on different types of mycotoxins. The papers were dated 2001-2021. 25 papers were compared to identify the lowest limit of detection of among different mycotoxins (Aflatoxin B1: 10, Zearalenone: 5, Fumonisin B1: 5, Trichothecene-A: 5). Most of these highly sensitive strips are competitive. Sandwich structures are usually used in large scale detection. In conclusion, the limit of detection of Aflatoxin B1 is the lowest among these mycotoxins. Gold-nanoparticle based immunochromatographic test strips have the lowest limit of detection. Five papers involve smartphone detection and they all detect aflatoxin B1 with gold nanoparticles.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to develop a policy and associated regulatory actions together with legislations that could help in sustainable energy development in Africa and Nigeria in particular. As a result of depletion of fossil fuels in most African countries, renewable energy options such as solar, wind and hydropower biomass are considered to be alternative sources in sustaining the energy security in the continent and particularly Nigeria. Corruption level is another factor that hinders economic growth and development in Nigeria. A review of the past literature on sustainable energy policy from Europe has been carried out. The countries investigated include: The United Kingdom, Germany, Norway and Finland. Their policies have been examined, and this helps suggest new policies on sustainable energy for Nigeria and Africa as a continent. The policies analyzed focused on incentives such as Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). Renewable energy sources potential and renewable have been investigated in Nigeria and that could help in formulating new sustainable energy policy for the country. Some of the proposed policies includes: Renewable Obligation (RO), Cogeneration, FiT, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Renewable Integration, and Heat Entrepreneurship. These are some the new policies that could help sustain the energy security, reduce the level of poverty and corruption in Nigeria as well as Africa in general. If these policies are well designed and properly implemented as observed in this research, Nigeria can achieve sustainable energy and economic growth and development in the near future. Each proposed policy was assigned a timeframe for it to be achieved.
Abstract: Music is ubiquitous in human lives. Ever since the foetus hears the sound inside the mother’s womb and later upon birth the baby experiences alluring sounds, the curiosity of learning emanates and evokes exploration. Music is an education than a mere entertainment. The intricate balance between music, education and entertainment has well been recognized by the scientific community and is being explored as a viable tool to understand and improve the human cognition. There are seven basic swaras (notes) Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da and Ni in the Carnatic music system that are analogous to C, D, E, F, G, A and B of the western system. The Carnatic music builds on the conscious use of microtones, gamakams (oscillation) and rendering styles that evolved over centuries and established its stance. The complex but erudite raga system has been designed with elaborate experiments on srutis (musical sounds) and human perception abilities. In parallel, ‘rasa’- the emotions evoked by certain srutis and hence the ragas been solidified along with the power of language in combination with the musical sounds. The Carnatic music branches out as Kalpita sangeetam (pre-composed music) and Manodharma sangeetam (improvised music). This article explores the Manodharma sangeetam and its subdivisions such as raga alapana, swara kalpana, neraval and ragam-tanam-pallavi (RTP). The intrinsic mathematical strategies in its practice methods toward improvising the music have been discussed in detail with concert examples. The techniques on swara weaving for swara kalpana rendering and methods on the alapana development are also discussed at length with an emphasis on the impact on the human cognitive abilities. The articulation of the outlined conscious practice methods not only helps to leave a long-lasting melodic impression on the listeners but also onsets cognitive developments.
Abstract: Injuries in professional sports occur on a regular basis. Some may be minor while others can cause huge impact on a player’s career and earning potential. In soccer, there is a high risk of players picking up injuries during game time. This research work seeks to help soccer players reduce the risk of getting injured by predicting the likelihood of injury while playing in the near future and then providing recommendations for intervention. The injury prediction tool will use a soccer player’s number of minutes played on the field, number of appearances, distance covered and performance data for the current and previous seasons as variables to conduct statistical analysis and provide injury predictive results using a machine learning linear regression model.
Abstract: In this study OpenFOAM 4.4.2 was used to investigate flow inside the coronary artery of the heart. This step is the first step of our future project, which is to include conjugate heat transfer of the heart with three main coronary arteries. Three different velocities were used as inlet boundary conditions to see the effect of velocity increase on velocity, pressure, and wall shear of the coronary artery. Also, three different fluids, namely the University of Wisconsin solution, gelatin, and blood was used to investigate the effect of different fluids on flow inside the coronary artery. A code based on Reynolds Stress Navier Stokes (RANS) equations was written and implemented with the real boundary condition that was calculated based on MRI images. In order to improve the accuracy of the current numerical scheme, hex dominant mesh is utilized. When the inlet velocity increases to 0.5 m/s, velocity, wall shear stress, and pressure increase at the narrower parts.
Abstract: Designing buildings which are sustainable and can control and reduce the solar radiation penetrated from the building facades is such an architectural turn. One of the most important methods of saving energy in a building is carefully designing its facade. Building’s facade is one of the most significant contributors to the energy budget as well as the comfort parameters of a building. Responsive architecture adapts to the surrounding environment causing alteration in the envelope configuration to perform in a more effectively way. One of the objectives of the responsive facades is to protect the building’s users from the external environment and achieving comfortable indoor environment. Solar radiation is one of the aspects that affects the comfortable indoor environment, as well as affects the energy consumption consumed by the HVAC systems for maintaining the indoor comfortable conditions. The aim of the paper is introducing and comparing between four different proposed responsive façade designs in terms of solar radiation reduction on the west façade of a building located in the hot arid region. In addition, the paper highlights the reducing amount of the solar radiation for each proposed responsive facades on the west façade. At the end of the paper, a proposal is introduced which combines the four different axis of movements which reduces the solar radiation the most. Moreover, the paper highlights the definition and aim of the responsive architecture, as well as the focusing on the solar radiation aspect in the hot arid zones. Besides, the paper analyzes an international responsive façade building in Essen, Germany, focusing on the type of responsive facades, angle of rotation, mechanism of movement and the effect of the responsive facades on the building’s performance.
Abstract: This study focuses on the problem of collapsed buildings within the city of Douala over the past ten years, and more precisely within the period from 2011 to 2020. It was carried out in a bid to ascertain the real causes of this phenomenon, which has become recurrent in the leading economic city of Cameroon. To achieve this, it was first necessary to review some works dealing with construction materials and technology as well as some case histories of structural collapse within the city. Thereafter, a statistical study was carried out on the results obtained. It was found that the causes of building collapses in the city of Douala are: Neglect of administrative procedures, use of poor quality materials, poor composition and confectioning of concrete, lack of Geotechnical study, lack of structural analysis and design, corrosion of the reinforcement bars, poor maintenance in buildings, and other causes. Out of the 46 cases of failure and collapse of buildings within the city of Douala, 7 of these were identified to have had no geotechnical study carried out, giving a percentage of 15.22%. It was also observed that out of the 46 cases of structural failure, 6 were as a result of lack of proper structural analysis and design giving a percentage of 13.04%. Subsequently, recommendations and suggestions are made in a bid to placing particular emphasis on the choice of materials, the manufacture and casting of concrete as well as the placement of the required reinforcements. All this guarantees the stability of a building.
Abstract: Depth estimation using stereo images is a challenging problem in computer vision. Many different studies have been carried out to solve this problem. With advancing machine learning, tackling this problem is often done with neural network-based solutions. The images used in these studies are mostly in the visible spectrum. However, the need to use the Infrared (IR) spectrum for depth estimation has emerged because it gives better results than visible spectra in some conditions. At this point, we recommend using thermal-thermal (IR) image pairs for depth estimation. In this study, we used two well-known networks (PSMNet, FADNet) with minor modifications to demonstrate the viability of this idea.
Abstract: Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, and other social media and significant e-commerce sites generate a massive amount of online texts, which can be used to analyse people’s opinions or sentiments for better decision-making. So, sentiment analysis, especially the fine-grained sentiment analysis, is a very active research topic. In this paper, we survey various methods for fine-grained sentiment analysis, including traditional sentiment lexicon-based methods, ma-chine learning-based methods, and deep learning-based methods in aspect/target/attribute-based sentiment analysis tasks. Besides, we discuss their advantages and problems worthy of careful studies in the future.
Abstract: Technological innovation plays a crucial role in virtual healthcare services. A growing number of telehealth platforms are concentrating on using digital tools to improve the quality and availability of care. As a result, telehealth represents an opportunity to redesign the way health services are delivered. The research objective is to discover a new business model for digital health services and related industries to participate with telehealth solutions. The business opportunity is valuable for healthcare investors as a startup company to further investigations or implement the telehealth platform. The paper presents a digital healthcare business model and business opportunities to related industries. These include digital healthcare services extending from a traditional business model and use cases of business opportunities to related industries. Although there are enormous business opportunities, telehealth is still challenging due to the patient adaption and digital transformation process within a healthcare organization.
Abstract: The application of carbon materials in the branches of the electrochemical industry shows an increasing tendency each year due to the many interesting properties they possess. These are, among others, a well-developed specific surface, porosity, high sorption capacity, good adsorption properties, low bulk density, electrical conductivity and chemical resistance. All these properties allow for their effective use, among others in supercapacitors, which can store electric charges of the order of 100 F due to carbon electrodes constituting the capacitor plates. Coals (including expanded graphite, carbon black, graphite carbon fibers, activated carbon) are commonly used in electrochemical methods of removing oil derivatives from water after tanker disasters, e.g., phenols and their derivatives by their electrochemical anodic oxidation. Phenol can occupy practically the entire surface of carbon material and leave the water clean of hydrophobic impurities. Regeneration of such electrodes is also not complicated, it is carried out by electrochemical methods consisting in unblocking the pores and reducing resistances, and thus their reactivation for subsequent adsorption processes. Graphite is commonly used as an anode material in lithium-ion cells, while due to the limited capacity it offers (372 mAh g-1), new solutions are sought that meet both capacitive, efficiency and economic criteria. Increasingly, biodegradable materials, green materials, biomass, waste (including agricultural waste) are used in order to reuse them and reduce greenhouse effects and, above all, to meet the biodegradability criterion necessary for the production of lithium-ion cells as chemical power sources. The most common of these materials are cellulose, starch, wheat, rice, and corn waste, e.g., from agricultural, paper and pharmaceutical production. Such products are subjected to appropriate treatments depending on the desired application (including chemical, thermal, electrochemical). Starch is a biodegradable polysaccharide that consists of polymeric units such as amylose and amylopectin that build an ordered (linear) and amorphous (branched) structure of the polymer. Carbon is also used as a catalyst. Elemental carbon has become available in many nano-structured forms representing the hybridization combinations found in the primary carbon allotropes, and the materials can be enriched with a large number of surface functional groups. There are many examples of catalytic applications of coal in the literature, but the development of this field has been hampered by the lack of a conceptual approach combining structure and function and a lack of understanding of material synthesis. In the context of catalytic applications, the integrity of carbon environmental management properties and parameters such as metal conductivity range and bond sequence management should be characterized. Such data, along with surface and textured information, can form the basis for the provision of network support services.
Abstract: Reducing sloshing is one of the major challenges in industries where transporting of liquid is involved. The present study investigates the sloshing effect for different liquid levels of 50% of the tank capacity. CFD simulation for two different baffle configurations has been carried out using a time-based multiphase Volume of fluid (VOF) scheme. Baffles were introduced to examine the sloshing effect inside the tank. Results were compared against the baseline case to assess the effectiveness of baffles; maximum liquid height over the period of the simulation was considered as the parameter for measuring the sloshing effect inside the tank. It was found that the addition of baffles reduced the sloshing effect inside the tank as compared to the baseline model.
Abstract: Mobility, for many people, is an important factor in the satisfaction of daily needs and many people are dependent on public transport. In rural areas with a low population density, it is difficult to provide public transportation with sufficient coverage and frequency. Therefore, the available public transport is unattractive. As a result, people use their own car, which is not desirable from a sustainable point of view and not possible for children and elderly people. Sometimes people organize themselves and volunteer transport services are created. These services are similar to demand-oriented taxis. However, these transport services are usually independent from each other and from the available line-based public transport, limiting both their usability and sustainability. We have developed a platform to improve usability and sustainability by connecting the different demand-oriented transport offerings with the line-based public transport. The system was implemented and tested in a rural area in Germany, but the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic limited real live operation.
Abstract: In recent years, a nondestructive elemental analysis method based on muonic X-ray measurements has been developed and applied for various samples. Muonic X-rays are emitted after the formation of a muonic atom, which occurs when a negatively charged muon is captured in a muon atomic orbit around the nucleus. Because muonic X-rays have a higher energy than electronic X-rays due to the muon mass, they can be measured without being absorbed by a material. Thus, estimating the two-dimensional (2D) elemental distribution of a sample became possible using an X-ray imaging detector. In this work, we report a non-destructive imaging experiment using muonic X-rays at Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. The irradiated target consisted of a polypropylene material, and a double-sided silicon strip detector, which was developed as an imaging detector for astronomical obervation, was employed. A peak corresponding to muonic X-rays from the carbon atoms in the target was clearly observed in the energy spectrum at an energy of 14 keV, and 2D visualizations were successfully reconstructed to reveal the projection image from the target. This result demonstrates the potential of the nondestructive elemental imaging method that is based on muonic X-ray measurement. To obtain a higher position resolution for imaging a smaller target, a new detector system will be developed to improve the statistical analysis in further research.
Abstract: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had unprecedented effects on the healthcare system in the UK. The pandemic has impacted every service within secondary care, including urology. Our objective is to determine how COVID-19 has influenced acute urology admissions in a busy district general hospital in the UK. To conduct the study, retrospective data of patients presenting acutely to the urology department were collected between January 13 to March 22, 2020 (pre-lockdown period) and March 23 to May 31, 2020 (lockdown period). The nature of referrals, types of admission encountered, and management required in accordance with the new set of protocols established during the lockdown period were analysed and compared to the same data prior to UK lockdown. Included in the study were 1092 patients. The results show that an overall reduction of 32.5% was seen in the total number of admissions. A marked decrease was seen in non-urological pathology as compared to other categories. Urolithiasis showed the highest proportional increase. Treatment varied proportionately to the diagnosis, with conservative management accounting for the most likely treatment during lockdown. However, the proportion of patients requiring interventions during the lockdown period increased overall. No comparative differences were observed during the two periods in terms of source of referral, length of stay and patient age. The results of the study concluded that the admission rate showed a decrease, with no significant difference in the nature and timing of presentation. Our department was able to continue providing effective management to patients presenting acutely during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Abstract: The world is gradually entering the fourth industrial revolution. E-Government services are scaling government operations across the globe. However, as promising as an e-Government system would be, it is also susceptible to malicious attacks if not properly secured. In our study, we found that in Saudi Arabia, the e-Government website, Yesser, is vulnerable to external attacks. Obviously, this can lead to a breach of data integrity and privacy. In this paper, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to explore possible ways the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can take necessary measures to strengthen its e-Government system using blockchain. Blockchain is one of the emerging technologies shaping the world through its applications in finance, elections, healthcare, etc. It secures systems and brings more transparency. A total of 28 papers were selected for this SLR, and 19 of the papers significantly showed that blockchain could enhance the security and privacy of Saudi’s e-Government system. Other papers also concluded that blockchain is effective, albeit with the integration of other technologies like IoT, AI and big data. These papers have been analyzed to sieve out the findings and set the stage for future research into the subject.
Abstract: Nowadays it is common to resort to aerial photography to carry out the prospection and/or exploration of archaeological sites. In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been applied as the vehicles that carry the sensor. This implies certain advantages, such as the possibility of including low-cost sensors, given that these vehicles can carry the sensor at relatively low altitudes. Due to this, low-cost dual sensors have recently begun to be used. This new equipment can collaborate with classic Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) in the exploration of archaeological sites, but this entails the need for a methodological setting to optimize the acquisition, processing and exploitation of the information provided by low-cost dual sensors. This research focuses on the design of an appropriate workflow to obtain 3D models with low-cost sensors carried on UAVs, both in the RGB and thermal domains. All the foregoing has been applied to the archaeological site of Juliobriga, located in Cantabria (Spain). To this end, a flight with this type of sensors has been planned, developed and analyzed. It has been applied to the archaeological site of Juliobriga (Cantabria, Spain). A strong dependence of the thermal sensor on the GSD, and the capability of this technique to interpret underground materials. This research allows to state that the thermal nature of the site does not provide main information about the site itself, but with combination with other types of information, such as the DEM, the typology of materials, etc., can produce very positive results with respect to the exploration and knowledge of the site.