Abstract: Toxicity of copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and iron (Fe) to
Tilapia guinensis was carried out for 4 days with a view to
determining their effects on the liver and muscle tissues. Tilapia
guinensis samples of about 10 - 14cm length and 0.2 – 0.4kg weight
each were obtained from University of Calabar fish ponds and
acclimated for three (3) days before the experimental set up.
Survivors after the 96-hr LC50 test period were selected from test
solutions of the heavy metals for the histopathological studies.
Histological preparations of liver and muscle tissues were randomly
examined for histopathological lesions. Results of the histological
examinations showed gross abnormalities in the liver tissues due to
pathological and degenerative changes compared to liver and muscle
tissues from control samples (tilapia fishes from aquaria without
heavy metals). Extensive hepatocyte necrosis with chronic
inflammatory changes was observed in the liver of fishes exposed to
Cu solution. Similar but less damaging effects were observed in the
liver of fishes exposed to Pb and Fe. The extent of lesion observed
was therefore heavy metal-related. However, no pathologic changes
occurred in the muscle tissues.
Abstract: Current research is targeting new molecular
mechanisms that underlie non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
and associated metabolic disorders like non-alcoholic steatohepatitis
(NASH). Forty New Zealand White rabbits have been used and fed a
high protein (HP) and energy diet based on grains and containing
11.76 MJ/kg. Boron added to 3 experimental groups’ drinking waters
(30 mg boron/L) as boron compounds. Biochemical analysis
including boron levels, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) based
metabolomics evaluation, and mRNA expression of peroxisome
proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) family was performed. LDLcholesterol
concentrations alone were decreased in all the
experimental groups. Boron levels in serum and feces were increased.
Content of acetate was in about 2x higher for anhydrous borax group,
at least 3x higher for boric acid group. PPARα mRNA expression
was significantly decreased in boric acid group. Anhydrous borax
attenuated mRNA levels of PPARγ, which was further suppressed by
boric acid. Boron supplementation decreased the degenerative
alterations in hepatocytes. Except borax group other boron groups did
not have a pronounced change in tubular epithels of kidney. In
conclusion, high protein and energy diet leads hepatocytes’
degenerative changes which can be prevented by boron
supplementation. Boric acid seems to be more effective in this
situation.
Abstract: Cerebellar ataxia is a steadily progressive
neurodegenerative disease associated with loss of motor control,
leaving patients unable to walk, talk, or perform activities of daily
living. Direct motor instruction in cerebella ataxia patients has limited
effectiveness, presumably because an inappropriate closed-loop
cerebellar response to the inevitable observed error confounds motor
learning mechanisms. Could the use of EEG based BCI provide
advanced biofeedback to improve motor imagery and provide a
“backdoor” to improving motor performance in ataxia patients? In
order to determine the feasibility of using EEG-based BCI control in
this population, we compare the ability to modulate mu-band power
(8-12 Hz) by performing a cued motor imagery task in an ataxia
patient and healthy control.
Abstract: Multi-Level Inverter technology has been developed in the area of high-power medium-voltage energy scheme, because of their advantages such as devices of lower rating can be used thereby enabling the schemes to be used for high voltage applications. Reduced Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).Since the dv/dt is low; the Electromagnetic Interference from the scheme is low. To avoid the switching losses Lower switching frequencies can be used. In this paper present a survey of various topologies, control strategy and modulation techniques used by these inverters. Here the regenerative and superior topologies are also discussed.
Abstract: Diminished antioxidant defense or increased
production of reactive oxygen species in the biological system can
result in oxidative stress which may lead to various
neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Microglial activation also contributes to the progression of AD by
producing several proinflammatory cytokines, nitric oxide (NO) and
prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). Oxidative stress and inflammation have
been reported to be possible pathophysiological mechanisms
underlying AD. In addition, the cholinergic hypothesis postulates that
memory impairment in patient with AD is also associated with the
deficit of cholinergic function in the brain. Although a number of
drugs have been approved for the treatment of AD, most of these
synthetic drugs have diverse side effects and yield relatively modest
benefits. Marine algae have great potential in pharmaceutical and
biomedical applications as they are valuable sources of bioactive
properties such as anticoagulation, antimicrobial, antioxidative,
anticancer and anti-inflammatory. Hence, this study aimed to provide
an overview of the properties of Malaysian seaweeds (Padina
australis, Sargassum polycystum and Caulerpa racemosa) in
inhibiting oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and cholinesterase
enzymes. These seaweeds significantly exhibited potent DPPH and
moderate superoxide anion radical scavenging ability (P
Abstract: The thyroid gland is the largest classic endocrine
organ that effects many organs of the body and plays a significant
role in the process of Metabolism in animals. The aim of this study
was to investigate the prevalence of thyroid disorders diagnosed by
ultrasound and microscopic Lesions of the thyroid during the
slaughter of apparently healthy One Humped Camels (Camelus
dromedarius) in Iran. Randomly, 520 male camels (With an age
range of 4 to 8 years), were studied in 2012 to 2013. The Camels’
thyroid glands were evaluated by sonographic examination. In both
longitudinal and transverse view and then tissue sections were
provide and stained with H & E and finally examined by light
microscopy. The results obtained indicated the following:
hyperplastic goiter (21%), degenerative changes (12%), follicular
cysts (8%), follicular atrophy (4%), nodular hyperplasia (3%),
adenoma (1%), carcinoma (1%) and simple goiter colloid (1%).
Ultrasound evaluation of thyroid gland in adenoma and carcinoma
showed enlargement and irregular of the gland, decreased
echogenicity, and the heterogeneous thyroid parenchyma. Also, in
follicular cysts were observed in the enlarged gland with no echo
structures of different sizes and decreased echogenicity as a local or
general. In nodular hyperplasia, increase echogenicity and
heterogeneous parenchymal were seen. These findings suggest the
use of sonography and pathology as a screening test in the diagnosis
of complications of thyroid disorders.
Abstract: A group of 10 dogs (group A) with Periodontal Disease in the third stage, were subjected to regenerative therapy of periodontal tissues, by use of nano hydroxy apatite (NHA). These animals induced by general anesthesia, where treated by ultrasonic scaling, root planning, and at the end by a mucogingival flap in which it was applied NHA. The flap was closed and sutured with simple steps. Another group of 10 dogs (group B), control group, was treated only by scaling and root planning. No patient was subjected to antibiotic therapy. After three months, a check was made by inspection of the oral cavity, radiography and bone biopsy at the alveolar level. Group A showed a total restitutio ad integrum of the periodontal structures, and in group B still mild gingivitis in 70% of cases and 30% of the state remains unchanged. Numerous experimental studies both in animals and humans have documented that the grafts of porous hydroxyapatite are rapidly invaded by fibrovascular tissue which is subsequently converted into mature lamellar bone tissue by activating osteoblast. Since we acted on the removal of necrotic cementum and rehabilitating the root tissue by polishing without intervention in the ligament but only on anatomical functional interface of cement-blasts, we can connect the positive evolution of the clinical-only component of the cement that could represent this perspective, the only reason that Periodontal Disease become a Cement Disease, while all other clinical elements as nothing more than a clinical pathological accompanying.
Abstract: Eyes are an essential and conspicuous organ of the human body. Human eyes are outward and inward portals of the body that allows to see the outside world and provides glimpses into ones inner thoughts and feelings. Inevitable blindness and visual impairments may results from eye-related disease, trauma, or congenital or degenerative conditions that cannot be corrected by conventional means. The study emphasizes innovative tools that will serve as an aid to the blind and visually impaired (VI) individuals. The researchers fabricated a prototype that utilizes the Microsoft Kinect for Windows and Arduino microcontroller board. The prototype facilitates advanced gesture recognition, voice recognition, obstacle detection and indoor environment navigation. Open Computer Vision (OpenCV) performs image analysis, and gesture tracking to transform Kinect data to the desired output. A computer vision technology device provides greater accessibility for those with vision impairments.
Abstract: Many approaches to pattern recognition are founded on probability theory, and can be broadly characterized as either generative
or discriminative according to whether or not the distribution of the image features. Generative and discriminative models have
very different characteristics, as well as complementary strengths and weaknesses. In this paper, we study these models to recognize the patterns of alphabet characters (A-Z) and numbers (0-9). To handle isolated pattern, generative model as Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and discriminative models like Conditional Random Field (CRF), Hidden Conditional Random Field (HCRF) and Latent-Dynamic Conditional Random Field (LDCRF) with different number of window size are applied on extracted pattern features. The gesture recognition rate is improved initially as the window size increase, but degrades as window size increase further. Experimental results show that the LDCRF is the best in terms of results than CRF, HCRF and HMM at window size equal 4. Additionally, our results show that; an overall recognition rates are 91.52%, 95.28%, 96.94% and 98.05% for CRF,
HCRF, HMM and LDCRF respectively.
Abstract: This study explores the clinical features of neurodegenerative disease patients with tremor. We study the motor impairments in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET). Since uncertainty exists on whether Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) patients have similar degree of impairment during motor tasks, this study based on the self-developed computerized handwriting movement analysis to characterize motor functions of these two impairments. The recruited subjects were diagnosed and confirmed one of neurodegenerative diseases. They were undergone general clinical evaluations by physicians in the first year. We recruited 8 participants with PD and 10 with ET. Additional 12 participants without any neuromuscular dysfunction were recruited as control group. This study used fine motor control of penmanship on digital tablet for sensorimotor function tests. The movement speed in PD/ET group is found significant slower than subjects in normal control group. In movement intensity and speed, the result found subject with ET has similar clinical feature with PD subjects. The ET group shows smaller and slower movements than control group but not to the same extent as PD group. The results of this study contribute to the early screening and detection of diseases and the evaluation of disease progression.
Abstract: Using electrical machine in conventional vehicles, also called hybrid vehicles, has become a promising control scheme that enables some manners for fuel economy and driver assist for better stability. In this paper, vehicle stability control, fuel economy and Driving/Regeneration braking for a 4WD hybrid vehicle is investigated by using an electrical machine on each non-driven wheels. In front wheels driven vehicles, fuel economy and regenerative braking can be obtained by summing torques applied on rear wheels. On the other hand, unequal torques applied to rear wheels provides enhanced safety and path correction in steering. In this paper, a model with fourteen degrees of freedom is considered for vehicle body, tires and, suspension systems. Thereafter, powertrain subsystems are modeled. Considering an electrical machine on each rear wheel, a fuzzy controller is designed for each driving, braking, and stability conditions. Another fuzzy controller recognizes the vehicle requirements between the driving/regeneration and stability modes. Intelligent vehicle control to multi objective operation and forward simulation are the paper advantages. For reaching to these aims, power management control and yaw moment control will be done by three fuzzy controllers. Also, the above mentioned goals are weighted by another fuzzy sub-controller base on vehicle dynamic. Finally, Simulations performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment show that the proposed structure can enhance the vehicle performance in different modes effectively.
Abstract: Mitochondria are dynamic organelles, capable to
interact with each other. While the number of mitochondria in a cell
varies, their quality and functionality depends on the operation of
fusion, fission, motility and mitophagy. Nowadays, several
researches declare as an important factor in neurogenerative diseases
the disruptions in the regulation of mitochondrial dynamics. In this
paper a stochastic model in BioAmbients calculus is presented,
concerning mitochondrial fusion and its distribution in the renewal of
mitochondrial population in a cell. This model describes the
successive and dependent stages of protein synthesis, protein-s
activation and merging of two independent mitochondria.
Abstract: The cycles of the steam-injection gas-turbine systems are studied. The analyses of the parametric effects and the optimal operating conditions for the steam-injection gas-turbine (STIG) system and the regenerative steam-injection gas-turbine (RSTIG) system are investigated to ensure the maximum performance. Using the analytic model, the performance parameters of the system such as thermal efficiency, fuel consumption and specific power, and also the optimal operating conditions are evaluated in terms of pressure ratio, steam injection ratio, ambient temperature and turbine inlet temperature (TIT). It is shown that the computational results are presented to have a notable enhancement of thermal efficiency and specific power.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel approach that combines statistical models and support vector machines. A hybrid scheme which appropriately incorporates the advantages of both the generative and discriminant model paradigms is described and evaluated. Support vector machines (SVMs) are trained to divide the whole speakers' space into small subsets of speakers within a hierarchical tree structure. During testing a speech token is assigned to its corresponding group and evaluation using gaussian mixture models (GMMs) is then processed. Experimental results show that the proposed method can significantly improve the performance of text independent speaker identification task. We report improvements of up to 50% reduction in identification error rate compared to the baseline statistical model.
Abstract: This paper presents a rule-based text- to- speech
(TTS) Synthesis System for Standard Malay, namely SMaTTS. The
proposed system using sinusoidal method and some pre- recorded
wave files in generating speech for the system. The use of phone
database significantly decreases the amount of computer memory
space used, thus making the system very light and embeddable. The
overall system was comprised of two phases the Natural Language
Processing (NLP) that consisted of the high-level processing of text
analysis, phonetic analysis, text normalization and morphophonemic
module. The module was designed specially for SM to overcome
few problems in defining the rules for SM orthography system before
it can be passed to the DSP module. The second phase is the Digital
Signal Processing (DSP) which operated on the low-level process of
the speech waveform generation. A developed an intelligible and
adequately natural sounding formant-based speech synthesis system
with a light and user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) is
introduced. A Standard Malay Language (SM) phoneme set and an
inclusive set of phone database have been constructed carefully for
this phone-based speech synthesizer. By applying the generative
phonology, a comprehensive letter-to-sound (LTS) rules and a
pronunciation lexicon have been invented for SMaTTS. As for the
evaluation tests, a set of Diagnostic Rhyme Test (DRT) word list was
compiled and several experiments have been performed to evaluate
the quality of the synthesized speech by analyzing the Mean Opinion
Score (MOS) obtained. The overall performance of the system as
well as the room for improvements was thoroughly discussed.
Abstract: Regenerative gas turbine engine cycle is presented that yields higher cycle efficiencies than simple cycle operating under the same conditions. The power output, efficiency and specific fuel consumption are simulated with respect to operating conditions. The analytical formulae about the relation to determine the thermal efficiency are derived taking into account the effected operation conditions (ambient temperature, compression ratio, regenerator effectiveness, compressor efficiency, turbine efficiency and turbine inlet temperature). Model calculations for a wide range of parameters are presented, as are comparisons with simple gas turbine cycle. The power output and thermal efficiency are found to be increasing with the regenerative effectiveness, and the compressor and turbine efficiencies. The efficiency increased with increase the compression ratio to 5, then efficiency decreased with increased compression ratio, but in simple cycle the thermal efficiency always increase with increased in compression ratio. The increased in ambient temperature caused decreased thermal efficiency, but the increased in turbine inlet temperature increase thermal efficiency.
Abstract: Structural representation and technology mapping of
a Boolean function is an important problem in the design of nonregenerative
digital logic circuits (also called combinational logic
circuits). Library aware function manipulation offers a solution to
this problem. Compact multi-level representation of binary networks,
based on simple circuit structures, such as AND-Inverter Graphs
(AIG) [1] [5], NAND Graphs, OR-Inverter Graphs (OIG), AND-OR
Graphs (AOG), AND-OR-Inverter Graphs (AOIG), AND-XORInverter
Graphs, Reduced Boolean Circuits [8] does exist in
literature. In this work, we discuss a novel and efficient graph
realization for combinational logic circuits, represented using a
NAND-NOR-Inverter Graph (NNIG), which is composed of only
two-input NAND (NAND2), NOR (NOR2) and inverter (INV) cells.
The networks are constructed on the basis of irredundant disjunctive
and conjunctive normal forms, after factoring, comprising terms with
minimum support. Construction of a NNIG for a non-regenerative
function in normal form would be straightforward, whereas for the
complementary phase, it would be developed by considering a virtual
instance of the function. However, the choice of best NNIG for a
given function would be based upon literal count, cell count and
DAG node count of the implementation at the technology
independent stage. In case of a tie, the final decision would be made
after extracting the physical design parameters.
We have considered AIG representation for reduced disjunctive
normal form and the best of OIG/AOG/AOIG for the minimized
conjunctive normal forms. This is necessitated due to the nature of
certain functions, such as Achilles- heel functions. NNIGs are found
to exhibit 3.97% lesser node count compared to AIGs and
OIG/AOG/AOIGs; consume 23.74% and 10.79% lesser library cells
than AIGs and OIG/AOG/AOIGs for the various samples considered.
We compare the power efficiency and delay improvement achieved
by optimal NNIGs over minimal AIGs and OIG/AOG/AOIGs for
various case studies. In comparison with functionally equivalent,
irredundant and compact AIGs, NNIGs report mean savings in power
and delay of 43.71% and 25.85% respectively, after technology
mapping with a 0.35 micron TSMC CMOS process. For a
comparison with OIG/AOG/AOIGs, NNIGs demonstrate average
savings in power and delay by 47.51% and 24.83%. With respect to
device count needed for implementation with static CMOS logic
style, NNIGs utilize 37.85% and 33.95% lesser transistors than their
AIG and OIG/AOG/AOIG counterparts.
Abstract: Transpedicular screw fixation in spinal fractures,
degenerative changes, or deformities is a well-established procedure.
However, important rate of fixation failure due to screw bending,
loosening, or pullout are still reported particularly in weak bone stock
in osteoporosis. To overcome the problem, mechanism of failure has
to be fully investigated in vitro. Post-mortem human subjects are less
accessible and animal cadavers comprise limitations due to different
geometry and mechanical properties. Therefore, the development of a
synthetic model mimicking the realistic human vertebra is highly
demanded. A bone surrogate, composed of Polyurethane (PU) foam
analogous to cancellous bone porous structure, was tested for 3
different densities in this study. The mechanical properties were
investigated under uniaxial compression test by minimizing the end
artifacts on specimens. The results indicated that PU foam of 0.32
g.cm-3 density has comparable mechanical properties to human
cancellous bone in terms of young-s modulus and yield strength.
Therefore, the obtained information can be considered as primary
step for developing a realistic cancellous bone of human vertebral
body. Further evaluations are also recommended for other density
groups.
Abstract: This paper investigates the occurrence of regenerative
chatter vibrations in facing and turning processes. Orthogonal turning
(facing) and normal turning experiments are carried out under stable
as well as in the presence of controlled chatter vibrations. The effects
of chatter vibrations on various sensor signals are captured and
analyzed using frequency domain methods, which successfully
detected the chatter vibrations close to the dominant mode of the
machine tool system.
Abstract: Public housing is a vital factor in community
development. Successful city, housing and eco system regeneration
design is essential in providing positive community development.
This concerns work places, nice dwellings, providing premises for
child care, care of the elderly, providing qualitative premises for
different kinds of commercial service, providing a nice built
environment and housing areas and not the least activating tenants.
The public housing companies give value to society by stimulating
people, renovating socially and economically sustainable as well as
being partners to local business and authorities. By their activities the
housing companies contribute to sustainable local and regional
growth and the identity and reputation of cities. A Social, Economic
and Ecological Reputation Effect (SEERE) model for actions to
promote housing and community reputation is presented. The model
emphasizes regenerative actions to restore natural eco systems as part
of housing renewal strategies and to strengthen municipality
reputation.