Conventional Blocks Research Articles

Counterpoint: Conventional Fluoroscopy-Guided Selective Cervical Nerve Root Block-A Safe, Effective, and Efficient Modality in the Hands of an Experienced Proceduralist.

The conventional fluoroscopy-guided (CF) selective cervical nerve root block (SCNRB) is being used commonly as a treatment for cervical radicular pain as well as a diagnostic tool. This study aimed to identify any major complications and determine the safety and clinical utility of CF-SCNRB performed in a university hospital and associated outpatient clinics. Two-hundred fifty-four conventional fluoroscopy-guided selective cervical nerve root blocks were retrospectively identified from 2011 to 2018 using a radiology report search tool. Each procedure was performed by an experienced neuroradiologist performing spinal injections on a full-time basis in clinical practice. A 10-point pain scale was used for pre- and postprocedural pain-level assessment. Successful conventional, fluoroscopy-guided, selective cervical nerve root block was defined as a patient-reported pain scale reduction of at least 50% and/or alleviation of numbness or paresthesia at ≥2 weeks postinjection. All clinically important immediate and delayed complications were also recorded. Two-hundred fifty-four conventional fluoroscopy-guided selective cervical nerve root blocks were performed via an anterolateral approach with an average fluoroscopy time of 24.3 seconds for all cases. There were no aborted procedures and no major or permanent complications. There were 14 minor complications; 12 of these were periprocedural and resolved by the 2-week follow-up visit. One-hundred eighty-five patients (75.2%) reported pain improvement of >50% from baseline at 15 minutes postinjection. Overall, 172 patients (67.7%) reported >50% pain scale reduction or alleviation from paresthesia at least 2 weeks postinjection. Conventional fluoroscopy-guided selective cervical nerve root block is an efficacious, efficient, and safe outpatient procedure when performed by a skilled and experienced proceduralist.

Controlled Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Catenated Cages.

Constructing hierarchical superstructures to achieve comparable complexity and functions to proteins with four-level hierarchy is challenging, which relies on the elaboration of novel building blocks with complex structures. We present a series of catenated cages with unique structural complexity and tailorability. The rational design was realized as such: A catenane of two symmetric cages (CSC), CSC-1, with all rigid imine panels was converted to a catenane of two dissymmetric cages (CDC), CDC-1, with two exterior flexible amine panels, and CDC-5 was tailored from CDC-1 by introducing an additional methyl group on each blade to increase lateral hindrance. CDC-1s with the most irregular and flexible configuration formed supramolecular dimers, which self-organized into 3D continuous wavelike plank with a three-level hierarchy, previously undiscovered by conventional building blocks. A drastically different 3D triclinic crystalline phase with a four-level hierarchy and trigonal phase with a three-level hierarchy were constructed of distorted CSC-1s and the most symmetric CDC-5s, respectively. The wavelike plank exhibited the lowest order, and the triclinic phase had a lower order than the trigonal phase which had the highest order. It correlates with the configuration of the primary structures, namely, the most disordered shape of CDC-1, the low-order configuration of CSC-1, and the most ordered geometry of CDC-5. The catenated cages with subtle structural differences therefore provide a promising platform for the search of emerging hierarchical superstructures that might be applied to proton conductivity, ferroelectricity, and catalysis.

Production of eco-friendly hybrid blocks

The production of the blocks is an essential aspect of the constructional industry. The production process is considerably energy exhausting, contamination emitter, un eco-friendly, and waste generator. The target of this research is to produce an innovative eco-friendly interlocking block made from locally available waste materials like palm oil clinker, palm oil fuel ash, and quarry dust by non-conventional procedure. The modern approach neither exhausts the virgin material of earth nor does it consume energy resources or emit contamination, with remarkable economic and ecological benefits. The properties of the blocks like the compressive strength of the blocks, compressive strength of the prism, and modulus of rupture, water absorption, ultra-sonic pulse velocity, thermal conductivity, and the efflorescence were investigated in this research. Based on the results out coming, the blocks developed in this research can be classified as light weight and thermally efficient. The hybrid interlocking blocks produced wholly from waste materials showed superior properties in comparison to the conventional interlocking blocks and satisfied the relevant thresholds. Thus, they can be used in the building sector as substitute to the conventional blocks.

Effect of insulation materials and cavity layout on heat transfer of concrete masonry hollow blocks

The aim of this research was to reduce the demand for air conditioning in buildings by minimizing the heat flow from outdoor environment to the interior of building envelopes (walls and roofs). Hence, a finite element model (FEM) was developed to find out the optimum geometry of cavities and their layout in masonry concrete blocks in order to reduce the thermal flow of heat and the results were compared with that of hollow blocks available in the market in terms of thermal insulation. Results of the simulation were promising and indicated that the new “optimum” designed geometry of hollow blocks was much better than the hollow blocks available in the market. Thereafter, some insulation materials were utilized in the concrete mixtures to produce hollow masonry concrete blocks to reduce the thermal conductivity through wall elements. Experimentally, the results of the new block with optimum geometry without the insulation materials showed improved thermal insulation by as much as 71% compared to other designs of hollow blocks including those available in the market. The thermal resistance of concrete and masonry blocks with the insulation materials (perlite, rubber and polyethylene) was enticing and significant. The newly developed optimum design of masonry concrete block with and without the insulation materials satisfied the ASTM C129 requirements for non-load bearing walls in terms of strength and absorption and was considered as medium weight (without insulation material) and as lightweight (with insulation materials) masonry hollow blocks. Results of this comprehensive investigation also indicated that the thermal conductivity could be reduced by up to 40% compared to that of the conventional blocks available in the market. Therefore, it is recommended that these optimum designed blocks be utilized by the construction industry in order to reduce the amount of energy used for the air conditioning as well as the carbon footprrint.

Calculation of an SPTA set using the Dialog computer simulation system (Part 1. General provisions for the calculation of an SPTA set)

The paper describes the design concept of the DIALOG simulation software suite (SSS) intended for calculating the dependability indicators of electronic systems (ES) of random configuration, as well as solving problems associated with assuring the functional dependability of such systems. The DIALOG SSS employs a specially designed DIALOG-SINTEZ technology that enables automatic synthesis of event simulation models in the form of programs in the selected programming language. In DIALOG SSS, the input data include: system composition in the form of a combination of conventional blocks; criteria of failure event occurrence and repairs; random value parameters (failures of system components in various modes of operation, SPTA requests, etc.); stages of system operation and types of repairs; list of calculated indicators. For the purpose of ensuring the required indicators, the simulation models undergo statistical testing under modified indicators of random values in each new test. Based on the accumulated results of all the performed tests the required indicators are calculated. The DIALOG SSS consists of four components: DIALOG-NRS is intended for the calculation of dependability indicators of non-repairable redundant systems; DIALOG-RRS is intended for the calculation of dependability indicators of repairable redundant systems, as well as the number of and cost of warranty repairs; DIALOG-ZIP-NS is intended for SPTA sets calculation for simple non-redundant systems; DIALOG-ZIP-RS is intended for SPTA sets calculation for any redundant systems. SPTA set calculation is normally done using standard procedures described in regulatory documents. In solving the direct problem of optimal SPTA set calculation, the input data includes the required value of one of the two SPTA sufficiency indicators (SI) and type of costs that are to be optimized (minimized) in order to achieve the target values of SI. In solving the inverse problem of optimal SPTA set calculation, it is required to ensure the specified costs of the initial SPTA supply. As the SPTA supply SI, the mean spare parts (SP) supply delay time out of SPTA Δtd.SPTA and SPTA availability coefficient Ca.SPTA are used. SPTA optimization using the DIALOG-ZIP SSS allows improving user options through the following additional characteristics: SPTA SP failure logging; optimization of SP count and accounting for the their characteristic features for the purpose of SP emergency delivery (ED); capability to use products with any type of redundancy; when using SPTA-G group set, capability to include differently-structured products into ESs. The paper sets forth the structure diagram of the DIALOG SSS programs interaction, that implies three modes of operation of the simulation model: SI calculation for specific SPTA contents; calculation of preliminary SPTA supply before the beginning of optimization; calculation of optimal SPTA set. The authors examine the matters related to the selection of the required number and duration of simulation model testing.

Characterization and recycling of the fine fraction of automotive shredder residue (ASR) for concrete paving blocks production

Shredder is the equipment used for ferrous scrap grinding that enables the recycling of steel in steel mills. The scrap is mostly originated from end-of-life vehicles (ELV).Therefore, this residue is known as automotive shredder residue (ASR). Throughout the world, is estimated that more than 25 million vehicles turn into an ELV every year, and most of their resources end up in landfill. Occasionally, hazardous substances may appear on the Shredder waste, which are very heterogeneous as a result of the variety of material fed into the equipment. Thus, Shredder waste has become a worldwide problem due to its environmental impact, heterogeneous composition and its recycling has been a challenge. Therefore, this manuscript addresses the characterization of the fine fraction of ASR generated in a plant located in Brazil. It is also proposed its recycling in concrete paving blocks to replace the natural fine aggregate through the Portland cement solidification/stabilization (S/S) technique. S/S prevents the release of hazardous chemicals from waste. As a result, with a 20% substitution content of the fine sand for the waste, 6 out 8 toxic elements presented in the residue were encapsulated by cement (total phenol, total iron, fluorettes, manganese, selenium, surfactants) and reached the required by the Brazilian standard. The two non-encapsulated elements were aluminum, whose concentration showed a 62.5% decrease, and cadmium, which is also found in conventional blocks. The concrete paving blocks showed good mechanical and physical performance. Therefore, the concrete paving block produced could be used as a potential solution for the mitigation of the environmental impact caused by the fine fraction of ASR waste.

Investigation on various construction material LECA, thermal insulated and conventional blocks

Among the various construction materials, LECA (light weight expanded clay aggregate) is a versatile material due to its unique properties and is utilized in many applications. LECA blocks are highly impermeable and have high performance properties. Thermal insulated blocks are well suited for high rise buildings to withstand high temperature. It requires less steel and concrete for structural members due to its lower density. The LECA is mixed with grade M30 with 50% and 100% of replacement. The molded concrete blocks were tested to determine the strength and workability of the blocks under various experimental conditions and different time periods such as 7 days and 28 days. The tests such as compression test and water absorption test were conducted. From the experimental investigation, we will be able to conclude the best among these blocks based on their strength.

Pattern of buccal and palatal bone density in the maxillary premolar region: an anatomical basis of anterior-middle superior alveolar (AMSA) anesthetic technique.

BackgroundThe anterior-middle superior alveolar (AMSA) anesthetic technique has been reported to be a less traumatic alternative to several conventional nerve blocks and local infiltration for anesthesia of the maxillary teeth, their periodontium, and the palate. However, its anatomic basis remains controversial. The present study aimed to determine if the pattern of cortical and cancellous bone density in the maxillary premolar region can provide a rationale for the success of the AMSA anesthetic technique.MethodsCone-beam computed tomography scans of 66 maxillary quadrants from 34 patients (16 men and 18 women) were evaluated using a volumetric imaging software for cortical and cancellous bone densities in three interdental regions between the canine and first molar. Bone density was measured in Hounsfield units (HU) separately for the buccal cortical, palatal cortical, buccal cancellous, and palatal cancellous bones. Mean HU values were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and one-way ANOVA with post-hoc analysis.ResultsCancellous bone density was significantly lower (P ≤ 0.001) in the palatal half than in the buccal half across all three interdental regions. However, there was no significant difference (P = 0.106) between the buccal and palatal cortical bone densities at the site of AMSA injection. No significant difference was observed between the two genders for any of the evaluated parameters.ConclusionsThe palatal half of the cancellous bone had a significantly lower density than the buccal half, which could be a reason for the effective diffusion of the anesthetic solution following a palatal injection during the AMSA anesthetic technique.

Loop Unrolling Implementation of an AES Algorithm using Xilinx System Generator

Cryptographic algorithm is a tool that is used to secure the transmitted data on the network. The current standard algorithm the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is used to maintain the security and reliability of the encrypted data whether these data are stored in computer or in transmit. AES can be implemented either in hardware or software, however hardware implementation is more sensible for high speed applications. In this paper, AES-128 algorithm is implemented in hardware in order to achieve a high-speed data processing. It is implemented on an FPGA platform using HLL language and Xilinx ISE software. The design is effectively optimized and Synthesizable with high accuracy using the conventional blocks of Xilinx System Generator. The results of implementation have enhanced the performance in terms of resource utilization, speed and power consumption as compared with other related works. The circuit operates at a maximum frequency of 800.000 MHz which offers a high throughput of 102.4 Gbps on virtex6 xc6vlx130t-3ff1156, in addition it occupies only 2,405 slices.

The role of different sliding resistances in limit analysis of hemispherical masonry domes

A limit analysis method for masonry domes composed of interlocking blocks with non-isotropic sliding resistance is under development. This paper reports the first two steps of that work. It first introduces a revision to an existing limit analysis approach using the membrane theory to find the minimum thickness of a hemispherical dome under its own weight and composed of conventional blocks with finite isotropic friction. The coordinates of an initial axisymmetric membrane surface are the optimization variables. During the optimization, the membrane satisfies the equilibrium conditions and meets the sliding constraints where intersects the block interfaces. The results of the revised procedure are compared to those obtained by other approaches finding the thinnest dome. A heuristic method using convex contact model is then introduced to find the sliding resistance of the corrugated interlocking interfaces. Sliding of such interfaces is constrained by the Coulomb’s friction law and by the shear resistance of the locks keeping the blocks together along two orthogonal directions. The role of these two different sliding resistances is discussed and the heuristic method is applied to the revised limit analysis method.

Comparison of Patient Comfort During the First Stage of Conventional Versus Modified Two-Stage Inferior Alveolar Nerve Blocks in Pediatric Patients.

Our aim was to compare the comfort of pediatric patients during the first stage of the conventional 2-stage inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) versus the modified 2-stage IANB. This was a parallel group, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Pediatric patients meeting the inclusion criteria were randomly allocated to 1 of the 2 groups receiving IANB, group 1 (31 subjects) utilized a conventional 2-stage technique, and group 2 (33 subjects) utilized a modified 2-stage approach. Patient comfort was assessed indirectly by 2 observers using the Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) scale during the first stage of the injections. FLACC score data between the 2 groups were analyzed using the chi-square test, and interobserver reliability was measured using kappa statistics. During the first stage of the injections, lower FLACC scores of 0 indicating a relaxed/comfortable patient experience were found in 57.6% of group 2 subjects compared with only 25.8% group 1 subjects, which was a statistically significant difference (p-value .013). Interobserver reliability assessed using kappa coefficients (κ = 0.812) indicated excellent agreement. FLACC scores for the pediatric patients during the first stage of the modified 2-stage IANB technique were significantly lower than during the first stage of the conventional 2-stage IANB technique.

Compressive and shear bond strengths of grooved AAC blocks and masonry

Autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is a light-weight cementitious product of sand, water, cement, lime and aluminium powder mix, used globally for brickwork. The AAC blocks in vogue have smooth surfaces, due to which they have less bond strength than that of traditional clay bricks. This work asserts that the shear bond strength of AAC masonry can be enhanced by using grooved AAC blocks. The compressive strength of the grooved AAC block as well as the shear bond and compressive strengths of the masonry have been investigated experimentally and compared with conventional AAC blocks and masonry. The study clearly demonstrated the superiority of grooved AAC blocks to conventional AAC blocks. Simple analytical models have been developed to estimate the masonry compressive and shear bond strengths. Analytical models are capable of obtaining lower, upper and most likely estimates of strengths. Significance tests have been carried out to support the findings.

STUDI UJI KUAT TEKAN DAN SERAPAN AIR PADA BATA BETON BERLUBANG DENGAN BAHAN IKAT KAPUR DAN FLY ASH

Along with population growth from year to year increase in positive correlation with housing needs. Various innovative building materials necessary to provide the public an opportunity to select materials according to their needs and abilities. One of the innovations that can be developed is the use of hollow concrete bricks as building material for walls using a different belt materials. In Indonesia, many local materials that can be used as building material for the mixed stacking hollow concrete blocks strapped him in particular materials. One of the alternative tie material can be used to reduce pamakaian Portland cement is fly ash. Innovations that can be done is making concrete hollow brick with limestone belt materials and fly ash, because the material can theoretically be bound material using the reaction mechanism pozolan-lime. Mixture composition variation between the fly ash, lime, and sand as the material collated hollow concrete blocks used in this study, respectively - are part (in weight units) 0:1:6; 0,5:1:6; 1:1:6 ; 1,3:1:6; 1,4:1:6; 1,5:1:6; 1,6:1:6; and 1,8:1:6. The parameters examined in this study include stacking the material characteristics of concrete hollow bricks, the sand gradation testing, the weight of sand, mud, sand content, conservation of sand grains, and the gradation of fly ash; strong press penyususun concrete brick mortar holes; strong press and the value of water absorption hollow concrete brick with limestone belt materials and fly ash. Hollow concrete brick testing performed three times, ie at the age of 14 days, 21 days, and 28 days. From the research results collated material characteristics of concrete hollow bricks show that gradations of sand used in Badean in zone 1, ie coarse sand, the average density - average 2.567 for Badean sand, mud content of the average - Badean sand flat 2.08% for <5% ,, conservation of grain using Na2SO4 for 5.03% <12% and conservation of grains using MgSO4 for 6.30% <10%. From the findings of conventional hollow concrete blocks with a mixture of composition 1 PC: 15 Ps for a strong test of hollow concrete brick press shows that a strong press for the optimum of 12.69 kg/cm2. And to strongly press the test hole with concrete blocks tied materials and lime fly ash showed that a strong press and the optimum occurs at the composition 1.4 Fa: 1 Kp: 6 Psr, which is 11.54 kg/cm2 at 14 days; 12.44 kg / cm2 at the age of 21 days, and 13.33 kg/cm2 at the age of 28 days. For the water absorption value of hollow concrete blocks shows that more and more pasta, then the value of water absorption decreased. Largest water absorption occurs in the variation of composition 0 Fa: 1 Kp: 6 Psr ie 5.13%, and the value of the smallest water absorption occurs at 1.8 composition variations Fa: 1 Kp: 6 Psr ie 0.05%.

Perimeter Blocks in Nordic Towns - How latitude affect daylighting

One of the design principles for future sustainable towns is compactness. The densification of cities is very much needed, but it usually compromises the access of daylight. Densification is especially challenging in the Nordic region characterized by low angled sunlight, something that also limits daylight distribution and restricts its intensity. The higher the latitude, the greater is the difficulty in the distribution. Perimeter blocks give shelter from wind and often create semi-public courtyards which have been seen to be attractive in many Nordic settlements during history. In the present study, alternative design to the conventional perimeter blocks are explored and geometric options such as chamfered corners, strategically varied building heights and differently positioned openings in a broken perimeter block are analyzed. The yearly simulations as well as simulations for May 1st have been carried out for the same perimeter blocks located at four different latitudes (decimal coordinates):1. 65.0 Oulu (similar to Mo i Rana 66.3, Jokkmokk 66.6 and Rovaniemi 66.5)2. 63.4 Trondheim (similar to Reykjavik 64.1, Östersund 63.2 and Vaasa 63.1)3. 59.3 Stockholm (similar to Oslo 59.9, Helsinki 60,2, Tallinn 59.4, Saint Petersburg 59.9 and Anchorage 61.2)4. 55.7 Copenhagen (similar to Malmö 55.6, Glasgow 55.9 and Moscow 55.8)The choice of evaluation criteria is based on scientific discourse in the field of daylighting. According to the new European standard, solar radiation is included. Computer-based daylighting simulations are performed for different designs of the perimeter blocks with equal density, FAR = 1.33. The further north a city is located, the lower the houses in a perimeter block must be to maintain a certain level of daylight. The study confirms that latitude affects daylighting and that geometrical change can improve the conditions for daylight in the perimeter blocks.

Method for evaluating the heat-island mitigation effect of porous/water-retentive blocks using a climatic chamber.

This paper presents a method and mock-up design for evaluating the heat-island mitigation effect of porous/water-retentive blocks in a climatic environmental chamber using ambient temperature measurements. To create the proposed method, the heat circulation mechanism of blocks was considered. From this, we specified the climatic chamber design requirements, determined the required components and equipment for the mock-up, and developed the proposed method for evaluating heat-island mitigation performance based on ambient temperature. Using the proposed mock-up design and method, we confirmed that both surface and air temperatures were lower when porous/water-retentive blocks were installed compared to conventional blocks. This method can be used to analyze the difference between surface and ambient temperatures under various conditions to quantify the heat-island mitigation performance of different materials according to ambient temperature.

A digital tool to design structurally feasible semi-circular masonry arches composed of interlocking blocks

This work deals with a digital tool to design stable semi-circular masonry arches composed of interlocking blocks which are kept together by interlocking connectors on their faces. These blocks, comparing to conventional blocks, increase the sliding resistance and reduce the workmanship. However, current digital tools were developed mostly to design arches with conventional blocks. The proposed tool tries to fill this gap by addressing the work in three stages.First, a heuristic method is developed to define the relationships between the geometry of an interlocking face and the sliding resistance. Then, a structural analysis procedure is developed based on limit analysis and a heuristic method to define the stability condition of the arch. Finally, optimization algorithms are developed to find the thinnest arch by means of two minimization strategies dealing with the relationship between the sliding resistance of the blocks and the geometry of the interlocking faces, differently. The algorithms consider some control points on a given thrust line and automatically adjust them to minimize the thickness, while the stability condition checks the structural feasibility during the geometry adjustment. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed heuristic method, the results obtained with FE analysis are used for comparison.

New symmetric and planar designs of reversible full-adders/subtractors in quantum-dot cellular automata

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is one of the emerging nanotechnologies, promising alternative to CMOS technology due to faster speed, smaller size, lower power consumption, higher scale integration and higher switching frequency. Also, power dissipation is the main limitation of all the nano electronics design techniques including the QCA. Researchers have proposed the various mechanisms to limit this problem. Among them, reversible computing is considered as the reliable solution to lower the power dissipation. On the other hand, adders are fundamental circuits for most digital systems. In this paper, Innovation is divided to three sections. In the first section, a method for converting irreversible functions to a reversible one is presented. This method has advantages such as: converting of irreversible functions to reversible one directly and as optimal. So, in this method, sub-optimal methods of using of conventional reversible blocks such as Toffoli and Fredkin are not used, having of minimum number of garbage outputs and so on. Then, Using the method, two new symmetric and planar designs of reversible full-adders are presented. In the second section, a new symmetric, planar and fault tolerant five-input majority gate is proposed. Based on the designed gate, a reversible full-adder are presented. Also, for this gate, a fault-tolerant analysis is proposed. And in the third section, three new 8-bit reversible full-adder/subtractors are designed based on full-adders/subtractors proposed in the second section. The results are indicative of the outperformance of the proposed designs in comparison to the best available ones in terms of area, complexity, delay, reversible/irreversible layout, and also in logic level in terms of garbage outputs, control inputs, number of majority and NOT gates.

Diagnostic Accuracy of Conventional Cell Blocks Along with p16INK4 and Ki67 Biomarkers as Triage Tests in Resource-poor Organized Cervical Cancer Screening Programs

Background:Liquid based cytology with dual biomarkers has improved sensitivity and specificity in detecting high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). In low resource settings, especially in organized camps, LBC is costly and immunohistochemistry on conventional pap smears is difficult to standardize with consumption of lots of reagents. In present study, to improve the accuracy of conventional pap smears and reduce the cost of biomarker testing, we evaluated conventional cell blocks (CCBs) preparations with biomarkers to detect high-grade CIN in resource-poor organized screening programs. We also studied feasibility of using CCB as primary screening test.Material and Methods:A total of 350 participants were included in the cross-sectional evaluation of the screening tests. A conventional Papanicolaou (Pap) smear was obtained, and another sample was then collected and placed in 10% neutral buffered formalin for CB preparation. All abnormal Pap tests and CBs were stained for the biomarkers p16INK4a and Ki67. Histopathology with p16INK4a expression was considered the gold standard. Diagnostic tests were compared using MacNemar’s test and receiver operating curves were plotted.Results:The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of CCB cytology, CB + p16 cytology and CB + p16Ki67 cytology for detecting CIN2+ lesions were 85.71%, 100%, 97.44%; 100%, 93.75%, 94.87%; and 85.71%, 100%, 97.44%, respectively. The Ki67 index could further categorize low grade lesions into lesions with low proliferative index and with high proliferative index (Pearson chi-square p value <0.001).Conclusion:If CB preparation is standardized, CCB cytology with biomarkers can have better diagnostic accuracy than conventional cytology, can classify low grade lesions likely to progress and can be used in field settings as primary screening test.

Color image splicing localization algorithm by quaternion fully convolutional networks and superpixel-enhanced pairwise conditional random field.

Recently, fully convolutional network (FCN) has been successfully used to locate spliced regions in synthesized images. However, all the existing FCN-based algorithms use real-valued FCN to process each channel separately. As a consequence, they fail to capture the inherent correlation between color channels and the integrity of three channels. So, in this paper, quaternion fully convolutional network (QFCN) is proposed to generalize FCN to quaternion domain by replacing real-valued conventional blocks in FCN with quaternion conventional blocks. In addition, a new color image splicing localization algorithm is proposed by combining QFCNs and superpixel (SP)-enhanced pairwise conditional random field (CRF). QFCNs consider three different versions (QFCN32, QFCN16, and QFCN8) with different up-sampling layers. The SP-enhanced pairwise CRF is used to refine the results of QFCNs. Experimental results on three publicly available datasets demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing algorithms including some conventional algorithms and some deep learning-based algorithms.

Experimental and numerical study of green concrete

This paper presents the development of a green concrete mortarless interlocking hollow block. As part of efforts to promote sustainability, achieve increased durability and affordability, fly ash as a geopolymer binder and palm oil fuel ash are used as partial replacement for ordinary Portland cement (OPC) while waste glass and recycled concrete aggregate are used as replacement for fine aggregate. The research adopts three mix designs (MD) using various proportions of materials and an unconventional mix ratio of 1 : 1.35 : 3.5. MD 3 has the highest compressive strength and thus is adopted for FEM static analysis where the Von Mises stress is 41.12 MPa which is 1% lower compared to the experimental result (41.65 MPa). In comparison with other interlocking and conventional masonry blocks, the newly developed green concrete block with higher compressive strength indicates enhanced durability while promoting sustainability and is therefore considered suitable for construction purposes.