Significance of Soil Dilatancy in Slope Stability Analysis

A finite-element approach is used to analyze the slope stability problem and to examine the effect of soil dilatancy on the stability of slopes. It is found that soil dilatancy has a significant effect on the stability of slopes, and that higher values of dilation angle lead to larger stability numbers. Therefore, the stability numbers obtained from limit analyses (lower∕upper bound solutions) are not conservative for granular soils that exhibit a dilation angle smaller than a soil's friction angle.     

Mercury content in some marine fish from the Alexandria coast

The total Hg of 6 marine fish species, caught from the 3 main fishing grounds along the coast of Alexandria, was determined and the distribution among the different organs was studied. It was found that the total Hg levels in fish differed according to species, size, and organs of fish as well as fishing ground. The highest value was found in large size especially in the viscera of Mullus barbatus obtained from El-Mex fishing ground.     

Comparative study on breast milk of mothers delivering preterm and term infants--protein, fat and lactose

Milk samples were collected from 35 mothers delivering preterm infants and from 35 mothers delivering term infants at 3 time intervals over the first 3 weeks of lactation. The samples were collected by manual expression from both breasts into polyethylene containers and were frozen at -20 degrees C and stored for analysis. The protein content of preterm milks during the first and second weeks is higher than that of term milk (P less than 0.05). The fat and lactose contents during the first week are slightly more in term milk than in preterm milk. During the third week the fat content of preterm milk is higher but its lactose content was lower. All these differences are not significant. These results are discussed.     

Deep Transfer Learning-Enabled Activity Identification and Fall Detection for Disabled People

The human motion data collected using wearables like smartwatches can be used for activity recognition and emergency event detection. This is especially applicable in the case of elderly or disabled people who live self-reliantly in their homes. These sensors produce a huge volume of physical activity data that necessitates real-time recognition, especially during emergencies. Falling is one of the most important problems confronted by older people and people with movement disabilities. Numerous previous techniques were introduced and a few used webcam to monitor the activity of elderly or disabled people. But, the costs incurred upon installation and operation are high, whereas the technology is relevant only for indoor environments. Currently, commercial wearables use a wireless emergency transmitter that produces a number of false alarms and restricts a user’s movements. Against this background, the current study develops an Improved Whale Optimization with Deep Learning-Enabled Fall Detection for Disabled People (IWODL-FDDP) model. The presented IWODL-FDDP model aims to identify the fall events to assist disabled people. The presented IWODL-FDDP model applies an image filtering approach to pre-process the image. Besides, the EfficientNet-B0 model is utilized to generate valuable feature vector sets. Next, the Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BiLSTM) model is used for the recognition and classification of fall events. Finally, the IWO method is leveraged to fine-tune the hyperparameters related to the BiLSTM method, which shows the novelty of the work. The experimental analysis outcomes established the superior performance of the proposed IWODL-FDDP method with a maximum accuracy of 97.02%.     

Volatile flavour components of dalieb (Borassus aethiopum L.)

The volatile components of dalieb fruit have been investigated by capillary column gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The main components were C1 to C4 aliphatic alcohols and the corresponding acids together with esters derived from them. Acetic acid and ethanol were particularly abundant, the fruit pulp containing approximately 0.1% of each compound. Other volatiles present included the unsaturated ketone 6-methyl-5-heptene-2-one, the corresponding alcohol and the terpene, geranyl acetone.     

Direct use of solar energy for water desalination

Solar energy utilization in three different types of solar desalination systems is considered. The overall efficiency of a typical basin type solar desalination plant is 30 per cent or lower. The major design factors affecting energy utilization are basin temperature, condensing surface temperature and ambient air temperature. Basic reflection and thermal radiation from the evaporating surface and transparent cover are the major sources of heat energy loss in a solar still. The efficiency of a solar desalination plant can be improved by controlling radiation from the plant basin and by the reuse of the latent heat of condensation.     

Glial Cell-Mediated Neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder; it is the most common cause of dementia and has no treatment. It is characterized by two pathological hallmarks, the extracellular deposits of amyloid beta (Aβ) and the intraneuronal deposits of Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). Yet, those two hallmarks do not explain the full pathology seen with AD, suggesting the involvement of other mechanisms. Neuroinflammation could offer another explanation for the progression of the disease. This review provides an overview of recent advances on the role of the immune cells’ microglia and astrocytes in neuroinflammation. In AD, microglia and astrocytes become reactive by several mechanisms leading to the release of proinflammatory cytokines that cause further neuronal damage. We then provide updates on neuroinflammation diagnostic markers and investigational therapeutics currently in clinical trials to target neuroinflammation.