On the prevention of accidents and injuries : A comparative analysis of conceptual frameworks

The meaning of prevention has changed as new applications of the concept have appeared. Ideas presented in eleven different conceptual frameworks are compared. Identification of the frameworks took place through searches in databases and relevant literature. Five are general by nature, while six relate to injuries and accidents. All are supported by just a few parameters, the time dimension being the most prominent. Compatibility was established on three additional dimensions: level (individual, organizational or societal); direction (“bottom-up” or “top-down”); and in relation to the trichotomy “host-agent-environment”. An attempt to synthesize all these dimensions into one general model of accident and injury prevention is presented.     

Segmentation of regions of interest and post-segmentation edge location improvement in computer-aided bone age assessment

Segmentation of anatomical structures in radiological images is one of the important steps in the computerized approach to the bone age assessment. In this paper a method dealing with correct location of the borders in the epi-metaphyseal regions of interest is described. The well segmented bone structures are obtained utilizing the Gibbs random fields as the first segmentation step; however this method does not prove to be adequate in the correct outline of other tissues in the epi-metaphyseal area. In order to correct delineation of cartilage in this region, the second segmentation step utilizing the active contours serving as a post-segmentation edge location technique is applied. Controlling of tension and bending of the active contour requires a set of weights in the energy functional to be set. To adjust the weights and to initially test the methodology a model of region of interest containing three different anatomical structures corrupted with Gaussian noise has been designed. Combined methodology of Gibbs random fields and active contours with the final set of weights was applied to 200 regions of interest randomly selected from 1100 left hand radiographs. A meaningful improvement in terms of ultimate contour location and smoothing has been observed in regions with cartilage or bone convexity developed near the bottom region of the epiphysis.

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Factors Influencing The Success Of E-Government

This research focuses on the critical success factors (CSFs) of e-government. Its main purposes are to (1) explain the development of the methodology of CSFs for e-government, (2) present the practical implementation of this methodology in Polish public administration, and (3) to assess the preliminary results of the practical implementation. The article continues as follows. First, the article clarifies the concept of e-government and the CSFs for e-government. Second, the methodology of CSFs for e-government is explained in detail. Third, the article presents the preliminary results of the practical implementation of this methodology in Poland, at the local and state level of government. The article concludes with a discussion on research findings, implications, and avenues for further research. This work contributes to extant research by showing a holistic approach to the CSFs for e-government.     

Phosphonated cross-linked polyethylenimine for selective removal of uranium ions from aqueous solutions

Among many remediation techniques for metal ion removal, polymeric adsorbents are efficient and widely applied. This has made them comparable with other remediation techniques in terms of technical and economic efficiency, feasibility as well as green technology. This study was dedicated to the development of an insoluble modified chelating polymer for use as an adsorbent for abstraction of uranium from wastewaters. Cross-linked polyethylenimine (CPEI) was phosphonated by phosphorous acid for selective removal of uranium ions. The binding affinity of the phosphonated cross-linked polyethylenimine (PCPEI) to uranium ions was assessed as well as its ability to be regenerated for reuse. It exhibited high removal percentage for uranium ions up to 99% with high selectivity even in the presence of competing ions (Mn, Ni, As). The Freundlich isotherm was found to be the best fit describing the adsorption process of uranyl ions onto the PCPEI. The pseudo-second-order equation was found to better explain the adsorption kinetics, implying chemisorption. The thermodynamic study of the adsorption revealed high activation energies which confirmed the chemisorption as the mechanism of adsorption.     

Classification of parameter changes in a dynamic system with the use of wavelet analysis and neural networks

In this paper a neural detector of internal parameter changes in a stationary, non-linear SISO dynamic system is considered. A dynamic system is usually described by an input-output relation or by a set of state equations. Each change of parameter values creates a new non-nominal model of a dynamic system (sometimes with different values of parameters, sometimes with different structure and different values of parameters). Thus the detection of parameter changes can be formulated as a multi-model classification. The LVQ (Learning Vector Quantisation) neural network has been proposed as a classifier. Selected aggregated properties of discrete wavelet decomposition coefficients of the system output have been chosen as the inputs of the LVQ classifier. The output of the classifier points out the current model. The proposed approach to classification can be adopted as a fault detection method where faults are represented by changes of values of internal parameters of a system. The algorithm has been evaluated on the example of a non-linear fluid system with a non-ideal pipe which internal state is characterised by one value of a parameter, chosen from the known set.     

Biosurfactant production by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bacillus coagulans</Emphasis>

A new biosurfactant producer, Bacillus coagulans, was isolated from soil. Its 24-h-old culture broth had a low surface tension (27–29 mN/m). Optimization of cell growth of this bacterium led to maximal biosurfactant production with glucose or starch as the organic carbon source, a pH in the range 4.0–7.5, and incubation temperatures from 20 to 45°C. The crude biosurfactants obtained after neutralization and lyophilization of the acid precipitate yielded a minimal aqueous solution surface tension value of 29 mN/m and an interfacial tension value of 4.5 mN/m against hexadecane. The critical micelle concentration of the crude biosurfactants was 17 mg/L. Addition of NaCl to the aqueous solution of the crude product caused lowering of surface tension at both the aqueous solution-air and aqueous solution-n-hexadecane interfaces. These results indicate that the biosurfactants obtained have potential environmental and industrial applications and may have uses in microbially enhanced oil recovery.     

Multi-agent system to support decision-making process in design for recycling

In this paper, the application of multi-agent system to support decision-making process in design for recycling is presented. The design for recycling term is highlighted either as the design problem or from the point of view of regulations. The structure of agent system supporting the designer during the design process is showed. The basis of special kind of product model, that is the extension of standard 3D product model, called recycling-oriented product model, is described. The example results of analysis, based on real household appliance model, are presented.     

Experimental Evaluation of Agent-based Approaches to Solving Multi-mode Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a rank-based nonparametric statistical test for measuring the effect of cooperation between optimization agents solving the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem is presented. To solve this NP-hard optimization problem, different methods are applied including population- and agent-based approaches. One of them is a team of asynchronous agents composed of multiple optimization agents, management agents, and common memories, which through interactions produce solutions of hard optimization problems. Optimization agents represent different methods including local search, path relinking, or tabu search. Interactions are managed through various cooperation strategies based on applying heuristics, reinforcement learning, or population learning.     

A necessary condition of viability for fractional differential equations with initialization

In this paper, viability results for nonlinear fractional differential equations with the Riemann-Liouville derivative are proved. We give a necessary condition for fractional viability of a locally closed set with respect to a nonlinear function.