This paper discusses the empirical modeling using system identification technique with a focus on an interacting series process. The study is carried out experimentally using a gaseous pilot plant as the process, in which the dynamic of such a plant exhibits the typical dynamic of an interacting series process. Three practical approaches are investigated and their performances are evaluated. The models developed are also examined in real-time implementation of a linear model predictive control. The selected model is able to reproduce the main dynamic characteristics of the plant in open-loop and produces zero steady-state errors in closed-loop control system. Several issues concerning the identification process and the construction of a MIMO state space model for a series interacting process are deliberated.
We have investigated the characteristics of Brillouin-Erbium fiber laser (BEFL) with variation of Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) locations in a ring cavity configuration. Three possible locations of the EDFA in the laser cavity have been studied. The experimental results show that the location of EDFA plays vital role in determining the output power and the tuning range. Besides the Erbium gain, Brillouin gain also contributes to the performance of the BEFL. By placing the EDFA next to the Brillouin gain medium (dispersion compensating fiber), the Brillouin pump signal is amplified thereby generating higher intensities of Brillouin Stokes line. This efficient process suppresses the free running self-lasing cavity modes from oscillating in cavity as a result of higher Stokes laser power and thus provide a wider tuning range. At the injected Brillouin pump power of 1.6 mW and the maximum 1480 nm pump power of 135 mW, the maximum Stokes laser power of 25.1 mW was measured and a tuning range of 50 nm without any self-lasing cavity modes was obtained.
Water scarcity and pollution rank equal to climate change as the most urgent environmental issue for the 21st century. To date, the percolation landfill leachate into the groundwater tables and aquifer systems which poses a potential risk and potential hazards towards the public health and ecosystems, remains an aesthetic concern and consideration abroad the nations. Arising from the steep enrichment of globalization and metropolitan growth, numerous mitigating approaches and imperative technologies have currently drastically been addressed and confronted. Confirming the assertion, this paper presents a state of art review of leachate treatment technologies, its fundamental background studies, and environmental implications. Moreover, the key advance of activated carbons adsorption, its major challenges together with the future expectation are summarized and discussed. Conclusively, the expanding of activated carbons adsorption represents a potentially viable and powerful tool, leading to the superior improvement of environmental conservation.
Accumulation of nitrite intermediate in autohydrogenotrophic denitrification process has been a challenging difficulty to tackle. This study showed that further growth of "true denitrifying" bacteria and adaptation to nitrite led to a faster reduction of nitrite than nitrate as a solution to circumvent nitrite accumulation. Moreover, two effective parameters namely pH and bicarbonate dose were optimized in order to achieve a better reduction rate. Sodium bicarbonate dose ranging from 20 to 2000 mg/L and pH in the range of 6.5-8.5 was selected to be examined employing 0.2 g MLVSS/L of reacclimatized denitrifying bacteria. Eleven runs of experiments were designed considering the interactive effect of these two operative parameters. A fairly close reduction time less than 4.5 h (>22.22 mg NO2(-)-N/g MLVSS/h) was gained for the pH range between 7 and 8. The highest specific nitrite reduction rate at 25 mg NO2(-)-N/g MLVSS/h was achieved applying 1000 mg NaHCO3/L at pH 7.5 and 8. The pH was found to be the leading parameter and bicarbonate as the less effective parameter on nitrite reduction removal. Central composite design (CCD) and response surface design (RSM) were employed to develop a model as well as define the optimum condition. Using the experimental data, the developed quadratic model predicted optimum condition at pH 7.8 and sodium bicarbonate dose 1070 mg/L upon which denitrifiers managed to accomplish reduction within 3.5 h and attained the specific degradation rate of 28.57 mg NO2(-)-N/g MLVSS/h.
The plant maintains a 24-h circadian cycle that controls the sequential activation of many physiological and developmental functions. There is empirical evidence suggesting that two types of circadian rhythms exist. Some plant rhythms appear to be set by the light transition at dawn, and are calibrated to circadian (zeitgeber) time, which is measured from sunrise. Other rhythms are set by both dawn and dusk, and are calibrated to solar time that is measured from mid-day. Rhythms on circadian timing shift seasonally in tandem with the timing of dawn that occurs earlier in summer and later in winter. On the other hand, rhythms set to solar time are maintained independently of the season, the timing of noon being constant year-round. Various rhythms that run in-phase and out-of-phase with one another seasonally may provide a means to time and induce seasonal events such as flowering.
Gender inequalities in health and gender bias in medicine are interrelated challenges facing health care providers and educators. Women and girls are disadvantaged in accessing health care because of their low social status and unequal treatment in medical care. Gender bias has long been inherent in clinical practice, medical research, and education. This can be traced to the medical curriculum that shapes the perceptions, attitudes, and behavior of the future doctor. The author advocates medical curricula change to address gender inequalities in health and gender bias in medicine. She analyses the reasons for integration of gender competencies in the medical curriculum, discusses what gender competencies are, and reviews ways to in-build gender competencies and their assessment. Efforts to change and gender sensitize medical curricula in developed and developing countries are also reviewed. The review hopes to contribute to strategic medical curriculum reform, which would lead to gender-sensitive health services and equity in health.
The mass attenuation coefficients (mu/rho) of Rhizophora spp. were determined for photons in the energy range of 15.77-25.27 keV. This was carried out by studying the attenuation of X-ray fluorescent photons from zirconium, molybdenum, palladium, silver, indium and tin targets. The results were compared with theoretical values for average breast tissues in young-age, middle-age and old-age groups calculated using photon cross section database (XCOM), the well-known code for calculating attenuation coefficients and interaction cross-sections. The measured mass attenuation coefficients were found to be very close to the calculated XCOM values in breasts of young-age group.
This article reviews progress in the application of electrophoretic techniques for the separation of nanoparticles. Numerous types of nanoparticles have recently been synthesised and integrated into different products and procedures. Consequently, analytical methods for the efficient characterisation of nanoparticles are now required. Several studies have revealed that gel electrophoresis can readily be used for separating nanoparticles according to their size or shape. However, many other studies focused on separation of nanoparticles by CE. In some cases nanoparticles could be separated by CZE, simply using pure buffer as the BGE. In other studies, buffer additives (most often SDS) were used, enabling fast separations of metallic nanoparticles by size. Other CE methods also allowed for separation of nanoparticle conjugates with biomolecules. Dielectrophoresis is yet another electrophoretic technique useful in separation and characterisation of nanoparticles; particularly nanotubes. Detection methods often used after electrophoretic separation include UV/Vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. Examples of recent and relevant older reports are presented here. The authors conclude that electrophoretic methods for nanoanalysis can provide inexpensive and efficient tools for quality assurance and safety control; and as a consequence, they can augment transfer of nanotechnologies from research to industry.
A brief review is conducted on the application of vegetable oils in the treatment of PAH-contaminated soils. Three main scopes of treatment strategies are discussed in this work including soil washing by oil, integrated oil-biological treatment and integrated oil-non-biological treatment. For each of these, the arguments supporting vegetable oil application, the applied treatment techniques and their efficiencies, associated factors, as well as the feasibility of the techniques are detailed. Additionally, oil regeneration, the environmental impacts of oil residues in soil and comparison with other commonly employed techniques are also discussed.
Matched MeSH terms: Environmental Restoration and Remediation/methods*
The continuity of the mind is suggested to mean the continuous spatiotemporal dynamics arising from the electrochemical signature of the neocortex: (i) globally through volume transmission in the gray matter as fields of neural activity, and (ii) locally through extrasynaptic signaling between fine distal dendrites of cortical neurons. If the continuity of dynamical systems across spatiotemporal scales defines a stream of consciousness then intentional metarepresentations as templates of dynamic continuity allow qualia to be semantically mapped during neuroimaging of specific cognitive tasks. When interfaced with a computer, such model-based neuroimaging requiring new mathematics of the brain will begin to decipher higher cognitive operations not possible with existing brain-machine interfaces.
An efficient method for the simultaneous enantioseparation of cyproconazole, bromuconazole, and diniconazole enantiomers was developed by CD-modified MEKC using a dual mixture of neutral CDs as chiral selector. Three neutral CDs namely hydroxypropyl-beta-CD, hydroxypropyl-gamma-CD, and gamma-CD were tested as chiral selectors at different concentrations ranging from 10, 20, 30 and 40 mM, but enantiomers of the studied fungicides were not completely separated. The best dual chiral recognition mode for the simultaneous separation of cyproconazole, bromuconazole, and diniconazole enantiomers was achieved with a mixture of 27 mM hydroxypropyl-beta-CD and 3 mM hydroxypropyl-gamma-CD in 25 mM phosphate buffer (pH 3.0) containing 40 mM SDS to which methanol-acetonitrile (10%:5% v/v) was added as organic modifiers. The best separation was based on the appearance of 10 peaks simultaneously, with good resolution (R(s) 1.1-15.9), and peak efficiency (N>200,000). Good repeatabilities in the migration time, peak area, and peak height were obtained in terms of RSD ranging from (0.72 to 1.06)%, (0.39 to 3.49)%, and (1.90 to 4.84)%, respectively.
Penile reconstructive surgeries are performed mainly as radical treatment for conditions associated with congenital abnormalities of the urethra or penis, after penile trauma, penile cancer, short penis, corporal fibrosis and in cases of gender reassignment. We present here a method of penile reconstruction with a pre fabricated radial forearm free flap incorporating the segment of the radius for structural support.
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is an indolent, slow-growing malignant skin tumour. Approximately 70% of the tumours occur in the head and neck region. The nose is a common site for malignant skin tumours, such as basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma because it is exposed to the sun. Excision of the BCC will leave the nose with a soft tissue defect which requires reconstruction. This report illustrates a case of BCC of nose whereby a wide excision and reconstruction was performed with a paramedian forehead flap.
In the present study, we investigated the physicochemical and functional properties of lotus seed flour exposed to low and high doses of gamma-radiation (0-30 kGy; the dose recommended for quarantine and hygienic purposes). The results indicated raw seed flour to be rich in nutrients with minimal quantities of antinutritional factors. Irradiation resulted in a dose-dependent increase in some of the proximal constituents. The raw and gamma-irradiated seeds meet the Food and Agricultural Organization-World Health Organization recommended pattern of essential amino acids. Some of the antinutritional factors (phytic acid, total phenolics, and tannins) were lowered with gamma-irradiation, while the seed flours were devoid of lectins, L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, and polonium-210. The functional properties of the seed flour were significantly improved with gamma-radiation. gamma-radiation selectively preserved or improved the desired nutritional and functional traits of lotus seeds, thus ensuring a safe production of appropriate nutraceutically valued products.
Psoriasis is a skin disorder which is caused by a genetic fault. Although there is no cure for psoriasis, there are many treatment modalities to help control the disease. To evaluate treatment efficacy, the current gold standard method, PASI (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index), is used to measure psoriasis severity by evaluating the area, erythema, scaliness and thickness of the plaques. However, the determination of PASI can be tedious and subjective. In this work, we develop a computer vision method that determines one of the PASI parameters, the lesion area. The method isolates healthy and healed skin areas from lesion areas by analysing the hue and chroma information in the CIE L*a*b* colour space. Centroids of healthy skin and psoriasis in the hue-chroma space are determined from selected sample. The Euclidean distance of all pixels from each centroid is calculated. Pixels are assigned to either healthy skin or psorasis lesion classes based on the minimum Euclidean distance. The study involves patients from different ethnic origins having three different skin tones. Results obtained show that the proposed method is able to determine lesion areas with accuracy higher than 90% for 28 out of 30 cases.
Study site: Dermatology Clinic, Hospital Kuala Lumpur
An electrogenerative flow-through reactor with an activated reticulated vitreous carbon cathode was developed. The influence of palladium-tin activation of the cathode towards gold deposition was studied by cyclic voltammetry. The reactor proved to be efficient in recovering more than 99% of gold within 4 h of operation. The performance of the reactor was evaluated with initial gold concentrations of 10, 100 and 500 mg L-1 and various electrolyte flow rates. Gold recovery was found to be strongly dependent on electrolyte flow rate and initial gold concentration in the cyanide solution under the experimental conditions used.
For about 50 years, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics have been taught in the medical schools via traditional lectures and practical classes. During this time, significant changes have occurred in our understanding of medicine and basic sciences. Also the needs for our community have changed dramatically. The explosion of scientific discoveries, the use of new technologies in disease diagnosis, the availability of a wide range of therapeutic options, and the availability of knowledge to everyone via the Internet have necessitated new approaches for teaching medical and other health professional students. Finding information related to a topic has not become a priority in teaching, what has become more important is to teach undergraduate students how to think in addition to what to think. Applying information learnt and assessing its significance in real life situations has become mandatory. The aims of this paper were: (i) to discuss the model we used in introducing clinical pharmacology and therapeutics teaching in the undergraduate course at the University of Melbourne and the educational principles behind the model, and (ii) to discuss the new tools of assessment used in a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum.