Abstract: The early diagnostic decision making in industrial processes is absolutely necessary to produce high quality final products. It helps to provide early warning for a special event in a process, and finding its assignable cause can be obtained. This work presents a hybrid diagnostic schmes for batch processes. Nonlinear representation of raw process data is combined with classification tree techniques. The nonlinear kernel-based dimension reduction is executed for nonlinear classification decision boundaries for fault classes. In order to enhance diagnosis performance for batch processes, filtering of the data is performed to get rid of the irrelevant information of the process data. For the diagnosis performance of several representation, filtering, and future observation estimation methods, four diagnostic schemes are evaluated. In this work, the performance of the presented diagnosis schemes is demonstrated using batch process data.
Abstract: Object-oriented simulation is considered one of the most sophisticated techniques that has been widely used in planning, designing, executing and maintaining construction projects. This technique enables the modeler to focus on objects which is extremely important for thorough understanding of a system. Thus, identifying an object is an essential point of building a successful simulation model. In a maintenance process an object is a maintenance work order (MWO). This study demonstrates a maintenance simulation model for the building maintenance division of Saudi Consolidated Electric Company (SCECO) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The model focused on both types of maintenance processes namely: (1) preventive maintenance (PM) and (2) corrective maintenance (CM). It is apparent from the findings that object-oriented simulation is a good diagnostic and experimental tool. This is because problems, limitations, bottlenecks and so forth are easily identified. These features are very difficult to obtain when using other tools.
Abstract: In this study, a new procedure for inspecting damages on LNG storage tanks was proposed with the use of structural diagnostic techniques: i.e., nondestructive inspection techniques such as macrography, the hammer sounding test, the Schmidt hammer test, and the ultrasonic pulse velocity test, and destructive inspection techniques such as the compressive strength test, the chloride penetration test, and the carbonation test. From the analysis of all the test results, it was concluded that the LNG storage tank cover was in good condition. Such results were also compared with the Korean concrete standard specifications and design values. In addition, the remaining life of the LNG storage tank was estimated by using existing models. Based on the results, an LNG storage tank cover performance evaluation procedure was suggested.
Abstract: Mammographic images and data analysis to
facilitate modelling or computer aided diagnostic (CAD) software development should best be done using a common database that can handle various mammographic image file
formats and relate these to other patient information.
This would optimize the use of the data as both primary
reporting and enhanced information extraction of research data could be performed from the single dataset. One desired
improvement is the integration of DICOM file header information into the database, as an efficient and reliable source of supplementary patient information intrinsically
available in the images.
The purpose of this paper was to design a suitable database to link and integrate different types of image files and gather common information that can be further used for research
purposes. An interface was developed for accessing, adding,
updating, modifying and extracting data from the common
database, enhancing the future possible application of the data in CAD processing.
Technically, future developments envisaged include the creation of an advanced search function to selects image files
based on descriptor combinations. Results can be further used for specific CAD processing and other research. Design of a
user friendly configuration utility for importing of the required fields from the DICOM files must be done.
Abstract: Noise level has critical effects on the diagnostic
performance of signal-averaged electrocardiogram (SAECG), because
the true starting and end points of QRS complex would be masked by
the residual noise and sensitive to the noise level. Several studies and
commercial machines have used a fixed number of heart beats
(typically between 200 to 600 beats) or set a predefined noise level
(typically between 0.3 to 1.0 μV) in each X, Y and Z lead to perform
SAECG analysis. However different criteria or methods used to
perform SAECG would cause the discrepancies of the noise levels
among study subjects. According to the recommendations of 1991
ESC, AHA and ACC Task Force Consensus Document for the use of
SAECG, the determinations of onset and offset are related closely to
the mean and standard deviation of noise sample. Hence this study
would try to perform SAECG using consistent root-mean-square
(RMS) noise levels among study subjects and analyze the noise level
effects on SAECG. This study would also evaluate the differences
between normal subjects and chronic renal failure (CRF) patients in
the time-domain SAECG parameters.
The study subjects were composed of 50 normal Taiwanese and 20
CRF patients. During the signal-averaged processing, different RMS
noise levels were adjusted to evaluate their effects on three time
domain parameters (1) filtered total QRS duration (fQRSD), (2) RMS
voltage of the last QRS 40 ms (RMS40), and (3) duration of the low
amplitude signals below 40 μV (LAS40). The study results
demonstrated that the reduction of RMS noise level can increase
fQRSD and LAS40 and decrease the RMS40, and can further increase
the differences of fQRSD and RMS40 between normal subjects and
CRF patients. The SAECG may also become abnormal due to the
reduction of RMS noise level. In conclusion, it is essential to establish
diagnostic criteria of SAECG using consistent RMS noise levels for
the reduction of the noise level effects.
Abstract: The Brazilian legislation has only established
diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) in terms of Multiple Scan
Average Dose (MSAD) as a quality control parameter for computed
tomography (CT) scanners. Compliance with DRLs can be verified
by measuring the Computed Tomography Kerma Index (Ca,100) with
a pencil ionization chamber or by obtaining the kerma distribution in
CT scans with radiochromic films or rod shape lithium fluoride
termoluminescent dosimeters (TLD-100). TL dosimeters were used
to record kerma profiles and to determine MSAD values of a Bright
Speed model GE CT scanner. Measurements were done with
radiochromic films and TL dosimeters distributed in cylinders
positioned in the center and in four peripheral bores of a standard
polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) body CT dosimetry phantom.
Irradiations were done using a protocol for adult chest. The
maximum values were found at the midpoint of the longitudinal axis.
The MSAD values obtained with three dosimetric techniques were
compared.
Abstract: The technological concepts such as wireless hospital
and portable cardiac telemetry system require the development of
physiological signal acquisition devices to be easily integrated into
the hospital database. In this paper we present the low cost, portable
wireless ECG acquisition hardware that transmits ECG signals to a
dedicated computer.The front end of the system obtains and
processes incoming signals, which are then transmitted via a
microcontroller and wireless Bluetooth module. A monitoring
purpose Bluetooth based end user application integrated with patient
database management module is developed for the computers. The
system will act as a continuous event recorder, which can be used to
follow up patients who have been resuscitatedfrom cardiac arrest,
ventricular tachycardia but also for diagnostic purposes for patients
with arrhythmia symptoms. In addition, cardiac information can be
saved into the patient-s database of the hospital.
Abstract: The use of magnetic and magnetic/gold core/shell
nanoparticles in biotechnology or medicine has shown good promise
due to their hybrid nature which possesses superior magnetic and
optical properties. Some of these potential applications include
hyperthermia treatment, bio-separations, diagnostics, drug delivery
and toxin removal. Synthesis refinement to control geometric and
magnetic/optical properties, and finding functional surfactants for
biomolecular attachment, are requirements to meet application
specifics.
Various high-temperature preparative methods were used for the
synthesis of iron oxide and gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles.
Different surface functionalities, such as 11-aminoundecanoic and
11-mercaptoundecanoic acid, were introduced on the surface of the
particles to facilitate further attachment of biomolecular functionality
and drug-like molecules. Nanoparticle thermal stability, composition,
state of aggregation, size and morphology were investigated and the
results from techniques such as Fourier Transform-Infra Red
spectroscopy (FT-IR), Ultraviolet visible spectroscopy (UV-vis),
Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and thermal analysis are
discussed.
Abstract: Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a promising technique to
study the connectivity among brain regions and effects of stimuli
through modeling neuronal interactions from time-series
neuroimaging. The aim of this study is to study characteristics of a
mirror neuron system (MNS) in elderly group (age: 60-70 years old).
Twenty volunteers were MRI scanned with visual stimuli to study a
functional brain network. DCM was employed to determine the
mechanism of mirror neuron effects. The results revealed major
activated areas including precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule,
inferior occipital gyrus, and supplementary motor area. When visual
stimuli were presented, the feed-forward connectivity from visual
area to conjunction area was increased and forwarded to motor area.
Moreover, the connectivity from the conjunction areas to premotor
area was also increased. Such findings can be useful for future
diagnostic process for elderly with diseases such as Parkinson-s and
Alzheimer-s.
Abstract: carbonylation of methanol in homogenous phase is
one of the major routesfor production of acetic acid. Amongst group
VIII metal catalysts used in this process iridium has displayed the
best capabilities. To investigate effect of operating parameters like:
temperature, pressure, methyl iodide, methyl acetate, iridium,
ruthenium, and water concentrations on the reaction rate,
experimental design for this system based upon central composite
design (CCD) was utilized. Statistical rate equation developed by this
method contained individual, interactions and curvature effects of
parameters on the reaction rate. The model with p-value less than
0.0001 and R2 values greater than 0.9; confirmeda satisfactory fitness
of the experimental and theoretical studies. In other words, the
developed model and experimental data obtained passed all
diagnostic tests establishing this model as a statistically significant.
Abstract: The objective of our work is to develop a new approach for discovering knowledge from a large mass of data, the result of applying this approach will be an expert system that will serve as diagnostic tools of a phenomenon related to a huge information system. We first recall the general problem of learning Bayesian network structure from data and suggest a solution for optimizing the complexity by using organizational and optimization methods of data. Afterward we proposed a new heuristic of learning a Multi-Entities Bayesian Networks structures. We have applied our approach to biological facts concerning hereditary complex illnesses where the literatures in biology identify the responsible variables for those diseases. Finally we conclude on the limits arched by this work.
Abstract: This paper presents a several diagnostic methods designed to electrical machinesespecially for permanent magnets (PM) machines. Those machines are commonly used in small wind and water systems and vehicles drives.Thosemethodsare preferred by the author in periodic diagnostic of electrical machines. The special attentionshould be paid to diagnostic method of turn-to-turn insulation and vibrations. Both of those methodswere createdinInstitute of Electrical Drives and MachinesKomel. The vibration diagnostic method is the main thesis of author’s doctoral dissertation. This is method of determination the technical condition of PM electrical machine basing on its own signals is the subject of patent application No P.405669. Specific structural properties of machines excited by permanent magnets are used in this method - electromotive force (EMF) generated due to vibrations. There was analysed number of publications which describe vibration diagnostic methods and tests of electrical machines with permanent magnets and there was no method found to determine the technical condition of such machine basing on their own signals.
Abstract: According to the statistics, the prevalence of congenital hearing loss in Taiwan is approximately six thousandths; furthermore, one thousandths of infants have severe hearing impairment. Hearing ability during infancy has significant impact in the development of children-s oral expressions, language maturity, cognitive performance, education ability and social behaviors in the future. Although most children born with hearing impairment have sensorineural hearing loss, almost every child more or less still retains some residual hearing. If provided with a hearing aid or cochlear implant (a bionic ear) timely in addition to hearing speech training, even severely hearing-impaired children can still learn to talk. On the other hand, those who failed to be diagnosed and thus unable to begin hearing and speech rehabilitations on a timely manner might lose an important opportunity to live a complete and healthy life. Eventually, the lack of hearing and speaking ability will affect the development of both mental and physical functions, intelligence, and social adaptability. Not only will this problem result in an irreparable regret to the hearing-impaired child for the life time, but also create a heavy burden for the family and society. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a set of computer-assisted predictive model that can accurately detect and help diagnose newborn hearing loss so that early interventions can be provided timely to eliminate waste of medical resources. This study uses information from the neonatal database of the case hospital as the subjects, adopting two different analysis methods of using support vector machine (SVM) for model predictions and using logistic regression to conduct factor screening prior to model predictions in SVM to examine the results. The results indicate that prediction accuracy is as high as 96.43% when the factors are screened and selected through logistic regression. Hence, the model constructed in this study will have real help in clinical diagnosis for the physicians and actually beneficial to the early interventions of newborn hearing impairment.
Abstract: X-ray mammography is the most effective method for
the early detection of breast diseases. However, the typical diagnostic
signs such as microcalcifications and masses are difficult to detect
because mammograms are of low-contrast and noisy. In this paper, a
new algorithm for image denoising and enhancement in Orthogonal
Polynomials Transformation (OPT) is proposed for radiologists to
screen mammograms. In this method, a set of OPT edge coefficients
are scaled to a new set by a scale factor called OPT scale factor. The
new set of coefficients is then inverse transformed resulting in
contrast improved image. Applications of the proposed method to
mammograms with subtle lesions are shown. To validate the
effectiveness of the proposed method, we compare the results to
those obtained by the Histogram Equalization (HE) and the Unsharp
Masking (UM) methods. Our preliminary results strongly suggest
that the proposed method offers considerably improved enhancement
capability over the HE and UM methods.
Abstract: Speckle noise affects all coherent imaging systems
including medical ultrasound. In medical images, noise suppression
is a particularly delicate and difficult task. A tradeoff between noise
reduction and the preservation of actual image features has to be made
in a way that enhances the diagnostically relevant image content.
Even though wavelets have been extensively used for denoising
speckle images, we have found that denoising using contourlets gives
much better performance in terms of SNR, PSNR, MSE, variance and
correlation coefficient. The objective of the paper is to determine the
number of levels of Laplacian pyramidal decomposition, the number
of directional decompositions to perform on each pyramidal level and
thresholding schemes which yields optimal despeckling of medical
ultrasound images, in particular. The proposed method consists of the
log transformed original ultrasound image being subjected to contourlet
transform, to obtain contourlet coefficients. The transformed
image is denoised by applying thresholding techniques on individual
band pass sub bands using a Bayes shrinkage rule. We quantify the
achieved performance improvement.
Abstract: In this study, fuzzy rule-based classifier is used for the
diagnosis of congenital heart disease. Congenital heart diseases are
defined as structural or functional heart disease. Medical data sets
were obtained from Pediatric Cardiology Department at Selcuk
University, from years 2000 to 2003. Firstly, fuzzy rules were
generated by using medical data. Then the weights of fuzzy rules
were calculated. Two different reasoning methods as “weighted vote
method" and “singles winner method" were used in this study. The
results of fuzzy classifiers were compared.
Abstract: This paper proposes a method to vibration analysis in
order to on-line monitoring and predictive maintenance during the
milling process. Adapting envelope method to diagnostics and the
analysis for milling tool materials is an important contribution to the
qualitative and quantitative characterization of milling capacity and a
step by modeling the three-dimensional cutting process. An
experimental protocol was designed and developed for the
acquisition, processing and analyzing three-dimensional signal. The
vibration envelope analysis is proposed to detect the cutting capacity
of the tool with the optimization application of cutting parameters.
The research is focused on Hilbert transform optimization to evaluate
the dynamic behavior of the machine/ tool/workpiece.
Abstract: In this work a new platform for mobile-health systems is
presented. System target application is providing decision support to
rescue corps or military medical personnel in combat areas. Software
architecture relies on a distributed client-server system that manages a
wireless ad-hoc networks hierarchy in which several different types of
client operate. Each client is characterized for different hardware and
software requirements. Lower hierarchy levels rely in a network of
completely custom devices that store clinical information and patient
status and are designed to form an ad-hoc network operating in the
2.4 GHz ISM band and complying with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard
(ZigBee). Medical personnel may interact with such devices, that are
called MICs (Medical Information Carriers), by means of a PDA
(Personal Digital Assistant) or a MDA (Medical Digital Assistant),
and transmit the information stored in their local databases as well as
issue a service request to the upper hierarchy levels by using IEEE
802.11 a/b/g standard (WiFi). The server acts as a repository that
stores both medical evacuation forms and associated events (e.g., a
teleconsulting request). All the actors participating in the diagnostic
or evacuation process may access asynchronously to such repository
and update its content or generate new events. The designed system
pretends to optimise and improve information spreading and flow
among all the system components with the aim of improving both
diagnostic quality and evacuation process.
Abstract: Safety instrumented systems (SISs) are becoming
increasingly complex and the proportion of programmable electronic
parts is growing. The IEC 61508 global standard was established to
ensure the functional safety of SISs, but it was expressed in highly
macroscopic terms. This study introduces an evaluation process for
hardware safety integrity levels through failure modes, effects, and
diagnostic analysis (FMEDA).FMEDA is widely used to evaluate
safety levels, and it provides the information on failure rates and
failure mode distributions necessary to calculate a diagnostic coverage
factor for a given component. In our evaluation process, the
components of the SIS subsystem are first defined in terms of failure
modes and effects. Then, the failure rate and failure mechanism
distribution are assigned to each component. The safety mode and
detectability of each failure mode are determined for each component.
Finally, the hardware safety integrity level is evaluated based on the
calculated results.
Abstract: The enthusiasm for gluten avoidance in a growing
market is met by improvements in sensitive detection methods for
analysing gluten content. Paradoxically, manufacturers employ no
such systems in the production process but continue to market their
product as gluten free, a significant risk posed to an undetermined
coeliac population. This paper resonates with an immunological
response that causes gastrointestinal scarring and villous atrophy with
the conventional description of personal injury. This thesis divulges
into evaluating potential inadequacies of gluten labelling laws which
not only present a diagnostic challenge for general practitioners in the
UK but it also exposes a less than adequate form of available legal
protection to those who suffer adverse reactions as a result of gluten
digestion. Central to this discussion is whether a claim brought in
misrepresentation, negligence and/or under the Consumer Protection
Act 1987 could be sustained. An interesting comparison is then made
with the legal regimes of neighboring jurisdictions furthering the
theme of a legally un-catered for gluten kingdom.