Estimating sediment yield from a forest road network by using a sediment prediction model and GIS techniques

In forest lands, the stream channels receive the highest amount of sediment during road construction activities due to removal of vegetation cover from road surface, cut-slope, fill-slope, and ditch areas. Sediment delivered from a road section to streams causes serious damages on water resources and aquatic life. Performing revegetation in cut-slope and fill-slope reduce sediment yield from a road section; however, road surface and ditch continue to deliver considerable amount of sediment to the streams. Therefore, accurate prediction of sediment yield from existing road network can be very critical. In order to estimate average sediment yield, several sediment prediction models have been developed based on empirical relationships between various road erosion factors. In this study, average annual sediment yield from a road network to streams in a forest watershed was estimated by using the methodology of a GIS-based sediment prediction model, the SEDMODL model. GIS techniques were used to provide required data layers such as topography, streams, roads, geology, and average precipitation. The results indicated that the SEDMODL model integrated with GIS techniques can assist road managers to estimate total sediment yield quickly and effectively. Besides, critical road sections with high sediment yield potential can be identified and the efficiencies of various sediment control measures can be evaluated for these sections.     

SAPHIRE: intelligent healthcare monitoring based on semantic interoperability platform: pilot applications

As a response to the challenge of providing high-quality healthcare services with reasonable costs while the elderly population and the associated chronic diseases increase, SAPHIRE architecture provides an intelligent healthcare monitoring architecture. The monitoring of patients is achieved through a clinical decision support system based on clinical guidelines. SAPHIRE provides the necessary interoperability layers to access the patient's vital signs from wireless medical sensors and the electronic healthcare records of the patient in order to exploit them in the decision process seamlessly. This architecture is presented through two pilot applications: one for the bedside monitoring of cardiac patients at hospitals, and the other for homecare monitoring of the cardiac patients rehabilitated after a revascularisation therapy.     

Prunable Collision Free Random Interleaver Design

In this article we introduce a new collision free prunable random interleaver. The suggested interleaver is a joint structure involving rectangular and S-random interleaver. It comprises a general model for all kind of collision free prunable random interleavers. In addition, it can be designed for any number of parallel processors and any length of information sequence vector and can be considered also as a template for collision free prunable interleavers. The proposed interleaver can be used with all kind of turbo-like codes. The performance of the proposed interleaver is measured with parallel decodable serially concatenated convolutional codes (PDSCCCs) and compared to the PDSCCCs?? performance with collision full S-random interleaver.     

Quantification of Choline-containing Compounds in Malignant Breast Tumors by 1H MR Spectroscopy Using Water as an Internal Reference at 1.5 T

The quantification of choline-containing compounds (Cho) in breast tumors by proton MR spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) has been of great interest because such compounds have been linked to malignancy. In this study, an internal reference method for the absolute quantification of Cho metabolite in malignant breast tumors was presented using a clinical 1.5 T scanner. We performed in vitro measurements to examine the accuracy of absolute quantification using four phantoms of known choline chloride concentrations. There was a high correlation between the calculated concentrations by MRS and the known concentrations (r ² > 0.98). We applied the technique to in vivo breast study conducted on 45 patients with biopsy-confirmed breast cancer. After T ₁ and T ₂ relaxation times were corrected, the Cho levels in this work had a range of 0.76 – 21.20 mmol/kg from 34 MR spectra of 32 patients with malignant breast lesions. This result was rather consistent with the previously published value (i.e., 1.38 – 10 mmol/kg, Bolan et al. in Magn Reson Med 50:1134–1143, 2003). Therefore, we conclude that the internal method using the fully relaxed water as a reference could be used for quantifying Cho metabolite accurately in breast cancer patients using a clinical 1.5 T scanner.     

Depth sensing indentation analysis of electrochemically synthesized polythiophene

A depth sensing indentation (DSI) test with associated analyses was used to investigate some mechanical properties (reduced elastic modulus, hardness and creep) of electrochemically synthesized polythiophene (PT). Internal friction (IF) and energy absorption representing the degree of anelastic deformation of the material were also determined using cyclic and step-load/unload (SLU) test procedure, respectively. The indentation load–displacement (P–h) curves of the sample were obtained under different peak loads with two load holding time, 70 and 300 s. Elastic modulus values were determined by analyzing of these curves with Oliver–Pharr (O–P) and Feng–Ngan (F–N) procedures. The obtained results pointed out that both methods yielded comparable results for 300 s, while the corresponding values of 70 s were not well-matched with each other. These results were explained by the saturation of creep effects within 300 s holding period. Creep analysis exhibited that creep displacement increases at a declining rate with time and finally reaches a constant rate. Cyclic test results indicated that IF values approach saturation after several cycles and the saturation value of IF was found to be depending on loading rate. From SLU tests, an upper limit of the normalized dissipated energy was observed.     

On Adaptive Output Feedback Controf Robotic Manipulators with Online Disturbance Estimation

The problem of disturbance estimation and compensation for adaptive output feedback type controllers are investigated. Specifically two adaptive output feedback controllers designed for robotic manipulators are extended to compensate external disturbances which are common in robotic applications with repetitive task. The uncertain disturbance term in the robot dynamics is modeled as a fixed term plus a combination of sinusoidal signals. The overall stability and convergence of the tracking error for both controllers is ensured via Lyapunov based analysis. Extensive simulation studies are presented to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method.     

Development of polycaprolactone-based electrospun pH-sensitive sensors as instant colorimetric indicators for food packaging

In the present study, polycaprolactone/polyethylene glycol (PCL/PEG) electrospun nanofibres with different anthocyanin (1%, 2%, 3%, and 5%) were fabricated for the instant measurement of pH, especially for applications—such as food freshness detection—where quick response is required. The solution, surface, chemical, thermal, wettability, mechanical, and release properties of the samples were evaluated by viscosity measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), contact angle measurements, and tensile tests, respectively. The colorimetric analyses were also investigated against the solutions at different pH values and bacterial solutions. Finally, the on-site performance of the sensor was evaluated. Anthocyanin addition initially lowered the solution viscosity, resulting in thinner fibres with a diameter of 288 nm. The diameters were increased up to 395 nm with the increasing anthocyanin. Anthocyanin addition enhanced the wettability and the mechanical properties, and the contact angles decreased to 43°. The highest modulus was observed for 1% anthocyanin, with a value of 6.162. The release experiments revealed that the anthocyanin-loaded samples released a large amount of anthocyanin (between ~12% and 38%) in the first 15 s. The colorimetric analyses showed that PCL/PEG nanofibre mats with 2% and 3% anthocyanin concentrations were the most capable pH-sensitive sensors for detecting pH changes from 2 to 8. As a result, it can be concluded that 3% anthocyanin is the threshold value for the production of the anthocyanin-loaded nanofibre mats, and these structures are promising for the instant detection of pH proved by the on-site application.