Extra Equipment Research Articles

Tracing Trajectories: Qualitative Visualizations of Migrant Death in South Texas, 1993–2020

Executive Summary This paper explores how qualitative information may be used to enhance understanding and inform recommendations for improved accounting of migrant deaths along the Texas-Mexico border. While border crossing related deaths affect jurisdictions throughout the US’s Southwestern border states and Northern Mexican states, Texas has unique challenges that merit specific examination. In short, the management and investigation of unidentified migrant decedents in Texas is severely fragmented and often noncompliant with Texas Criminal Code Procedure. I explore a way to improve accounting of migrant deaths leveraging qualitative information, local newspaper articles from South Texas and Northern Mexico, by using descriptive summaries coupled with Sankey Diagrams and a programmatic technique, qualitative spatial representation (QSR). QSR enabled me to identify under-recognized stakeholders (South Texas locals, Mexican consulates) and under-supported counties (i.e., those with migrant deaths that do not share a border directly with Mexico). I found that local English-language newspapers obscured the prevalence of migrant deaths and that their narrative tone of “business as usual” normalized the occurrence of such deaths. The Spanish-language articles better represented the diversity of agencies and individuals that were involved in the various aspects of migrant remains management and forensic investigation, most notably residents of South Texas themselves (or situational participants who first found the remains) and Mexican consulates. Finally, I noted that the collaborations among Texas counties and between Texan and Mexican jurisdictions, when they were described in the newspapers, highlighted that the phenomenon of migrant deaths penetrates beyond the dividing line of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo River. Migrant deaths must be accounted for in a way that reflects a regional experience in which people may perish as far as ~100 miles into Texas’ interior. Considering these observations, I have two policy recommendations. First, the Office of the Texas Governor should establish funds distinct from the Operation Lone Star program for the management of unidentified human remains. Currently, grants through the Operation Lone Star Program are the only funds available in Texas to support identification of migrant decedents. However, this program is explicitly designed to further border security operations in the state of Texas, which can contradict efforts around recovery and identification. The documentation and forensic investigation of the unidentified deceased can be eclipsed or neglected under the larger deterrence aims of Operation Lone Star. Second, to improve accounting and increase documentation of migrant deaths, a Regional Identification Center should be established in South Texas. Not every county in Texas has or has access to a Medical Examiner’s office, including the means to transport and pay for autopsy or other forensic services. The Center would provide training, store extra equipment such as mobile refrigerated morgues, and hire personnel to inventory cases, and report information to the state (e.g., vital statistics) and to foreign consulates. A Regional Identification Center would counteract the challenges highlighted in the local newspaper summaries and QSR by decreasing the isolation of counties experiencing migrant deaths and serve as a documentary and communication hub for stakeholders in Texas and Mexico.

Paramedic administration of blood products to improve outcomes for trauma patients

Early blood transfusion for a trauma patient experiencing a major haemorrhage significantly improves their chance of survival before they reach hospital. While providing out-of-hospital blood transfusions can delay the arrival of the patient to hospital, starting the transfusion earlier outweighs this risks in most cases. There is therefore an argument that paramedics should be able to administer blood products to severely injured patients as this would improve outcomes and survival. While minimal extra equipment would be needed, the cost, storage and waste of blood need to be considered. Through the findings of a review, this paper discusses the feasibility and practicalities of paramedics providing out-of-hospital blood transfusion and the implications for training and policies to mitigate cost and blood waste.

Pemasangan Proteksi Kebocoran Arus Listrik pada Gedung Taman Kanak-Kanak (TK) Aisyah di Desa Muarajalai, Kecamatan Kampar Utara, Kabupaten Kampar

Electricity is the main requirement for every activity held at the Asiyah Kindergarten school. The Aisyah Kindergarten School building, located in Muarajalai Village, has good electrical installations, but maintenance is rarely carried out. Maintenance of electrical installations is very necessary, because over time the condition of the feasibility of electrical installations really needs to be paid attention to. One effort that can be made to maintain electricity is to install extra security equipment to overcome electric current leaks. In general, homes or schools usually only use MCBs, MCBs only function for protection in the event of an overload or short circuit. However, electric current leakage cannot be protected by MCB. It is necessary to additionally install an ELCB to detect electric current leaks, so that if someone is electrocuted, the ELCB will be able to work in less than 0.1 second to cut off the electric current. Apart from protecting humans, ELCB can also protect equipment that uses electricity from electric current leaks.

The realization of the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer with the laser energy transform

Laser Charging means high energy laser beam to irradiate the solar cell to gain electricity power through photovoltaic generation. This kind of wireless energy transform way fits the IoT and other low energy satiation with the benefit of long-distance transmission. In this paper, we present a new way of information transferring while energy is gained which is called Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer. The main idea is to switch the laser device output power to generate the different PV current values, the dual level of laser power decides two ranges of the value. We imitate the On-Off Keying (OOK) named Low-High Keying(LHK) which turns the information into the energy code with a high or low current value. The issue of information coding is also presented with an example. And the application also provided the realization presented. The new method provides a brand way to Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power transfer without any extra equipment by contrast with others. It's suited for the long-distance, low power and limited information-connected occasions.

Endoscopic treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

The endoscopic treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has evolved significantly in the past 20 years. Current practices include devices specifically designed for GERD. Newer techniques aim to use less extra equipment, to be less costly, and to use accessories readily available in endoscopy units, as well as using standard endoscopes to apply such techniques. It is of utmost importance to properly select the patients for endoscopic therapy, and it should be done in a multidisciplinary approach.

HANDVIBE: HAND GESTURE VOLUME AND BRIGHTNESS CONTROL

Gesture Recognition has become increasingly relevant in the field of human-computer interaction, as it is a natural way to convey information. We aim to create a system that can identify specific human gestures and utilize them to transmit information for device control. This enables users to operate a computer by performing a specific gesture in front of the camera. The below approach can detect multiple hands simultaneously, that is left and right, each having its own purpose. It is detected by a standard webcam, and requires no extra equipment. The left hand is responsible in controlling the brightness and the right hand will be responsible for controlling the volume. Here we have used different computer vision techniques which includes border detection, and convex-hull detection. The system was able to detect the distance between two points present in the hand, namely fingertip of thumb as well as index finger. Then it calculates the distance between them which is used to apply for volume and brightness, i.e. If the fingers are pinched, the distance between them becomes “zero”, thereby setting the volume or brightness to zero. If it has the maximum distance ,then the volume or brightness is set to maximum that is “100”.The Volume or brightness is decided based upon the hand. The primary aim here is to enable users to adjust the volume as well as the brightness of their system with ease, either by increasing or decreasing it. This offers a promising alternative to touch-based controls as well as voice-based controls. Key Words: Hand Gesture, Volume Control , Brightness Control, Human Control Interaction, Edge Detection, OpenCV, Computer Vision

Monitoring Energy Flows for Efficient Electricity Control in Low-Voltage Smart Grids

Modern low-voltage distribution lines, especially those linked with renewable energy sources, face technical hurdles like unaccounted and illegal electricity use, increased power losses, voltage control issues, and overheating. Tackling these challenges effectively requires continuously monitoring power flows and identifying problematic network spots. This study introduces a method involving ongoing energy flow monitoring from distribution transformers and other sources to end-users through auxiliary facilities. The algorithm seamlessly integrates with consumers’ existing smart power meters and supporting infrastructure, eliminating the need for extra equipment or data. Deployed in several distribution networks totaling about 40 GWh/year over two years, this diagnostic system showed promising results. It notably cut total power consumption by around 6% by detecting and mitigating illegal energy waste and addressing technical issues. Additionally, it reduced technical personnel involvement in operational tasks by approximately twentyfold, significantly enhancing network profitability overall.

Feasibility of coupling hydrogen and methane production in WWTP: Simulation of sludge and food wastes co-digestion

Wastewater treatment plants are essential in improving life quality by degrading organic matter, reducing contamination, and therefore greatly impacting human activities. The role of these critical treatment units can be further promoted by integrating new biological processes that currently are still under experimental scale. The co-digestion of sewage sludge and food waste has been proposed as an efficient way to increase plant treatment capacity and energy recovery. The assessment of hydrogen production along with food waste co-digestion is carried out in the present manuscript. Assessing several parameters is necessary to implement a new biological process in an operating plant, and quantifying its effects on the plant's overall performance is crucial. The implications associated with the extra equipment needed to handle additional waste material were evaluated. Results indicated that a conventional unit may treat a 10 % addition of food waste (expressed as VS) without experiencing severe modifications in process parameters, thus obtaining 16 % extra energy. However, the increase in food waste by over 10 % translates into substantial plant modifications requiring the installation of digesters with higher volumes and handling an additional amount of sludge. Another relevant factor is the lower energetic content of biogas when mixed with hydrogen. The increase in food waste until 50 % VS in the mixture reduced the biogas lower heating value to 15.5 MJ/m3. Future research will deal with an economic analysis of the approach and the effect on engine performance when dealing with a fuel mixture with different combustion properties.

A simple technical innovation to prevent needle stick injuries among dental professionals.

Dental healthcare personnel face the potential danger of being exposed to infectious patients while administering local anesthesia injections during dental operations. This could lead to unintentional transfer of infectious diseases from patients to physicians. Although safety measures such as the One-hand-scoop technique and the use of safety syringes, plastic needle cap holders, and needles with safety caps are in place, there have been instances of needle stick injuries reported in clinics. This might be due to the lack of adherence to conventional safety measures or the impracticality of safety techniques and safety syringes. This article aims to demonstrate the utilization of dental tweezers, specifically London College tweezers or dental forceps, for the secure recapping of needles, eliminating the requirement for extra equipment or devices. After obtaining ethical approval (Approval No.: 024-01-2024) from the College of Dentistry, Dar Al Uloom University, 67 dental professionals, with consent for participation in the study, were included. They were requested to use dental tweezers/London College tweezers and dental extraction forceps such as maxillary anterior, mandibular anterior, and maxillary bayonet root forceps individually to recap the local anesthetic needles. The efficacy of these techniques was evaluated against the one-hand scoop technique for its ease, convenience, and reliability in preventing needle stick injuries. The evaluation of dental professionals regarding the ease of using dental tweezers to recap needles, compared to the one-hand scoop technique (p=0.592), maxillary bayonet root forceps (p=0.746), mandibular anterior forceps (p=0.380), and maxillary anterior forceps (p=0.808), did not yield statistically significant results. The assessment of the procedural simplicity of the one-hand scoop technique showed a satisfaction rate of over 40%, whereas the application of dental tweezers resulted in a satisfaction rate of 30%. However, the use of dental tweezers for needle recapping resulted in a satisfaction rate of over 50%, compared to a satisfaction rate of 30% for the one-handed scoop technique. There is no statistically significant difference in the assessment of the efficacy of dental tweezers and the one-hand scoop technique, bayonet root forceps, mandibular anterior forceps, maxillary anterior forceps, and dental tweezers for the needle capping technique. Therefore, dental forceps can be used instead of the one-handed scoop approach. The needle recapping procedure outlined in our study, aimed at preventing needle stick injuries, is simple to implement, and all dental specialties have convenient access to the required instruments.

Meetor: A Human-Centered Automatic Video Editing System for Meeting Recordings

Widely adopted digital cameras and smartphones have generated a large number of videos, which have brought a tremendous workload to video editors. Recently, a variety of automatic/semi-automatic video editing methods have been proposed to tackle these issues in some specific areas. However, for the production of meeting recordings, the existing studies highly depend on extra equipment in the conference venues, such as the infrared camera or special microphone, which are not practical. In this paper, we design and implement Meetor, a human-centered automatic video editing system for meeting recordings. The Meetor mainly contains three parts: an audio-based video synchronization algorithm, human-centered video content flaw detection algorithms, and an automatic video editing algorithm. Two main experiments are conducted from both objective and subjective aspects to evaluate the performance of the Meetor. The experimental results on a testbed illustrate that the proposed algorithms could achieve state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance in video content flaw detection. On the other hand, the conducted user study demonstrates that Meetor could generate meeting recordings with a satisfactory quality compared with professional video editors. Moreover, we also present a practical application of the Meetor in a university campus prototype, in which the Meetor is applied in the automatic editing of lecture recordings. All in all, the proposed Meetor can be utilized in practical applications to release the workload of professional video editors.

Utilization of an Endobronchial Blocker Through a Double-Lumen Tube as Rescue for Inadequate One-Lung Ventilation.

Failure to provide one-lung ventilation can prohibit minimally invasive thoracic surgeries. Strategies for one-lung ventilation include double-lumen endotracheal tubes or endobronchial blockers, but rarely both. Inability to provide lung isolation after double-lumen endotracheal tube placement requires troubleshooting and sometimes the use of extra equipment. This case describes using a unique Y-shaped endobronchial blocker placed through a left-sided double-lumen endotracheal tube after failure to achieve lung isolation with a double-lumen endotracheal tube alone.

A microfluidics-free centrifugally-driven nano-liquid pipetting system (CNPS) for single-cell whole genome amplification

We developed a microfluidics-free centrifugally-driven nano-liquid pipetting system (CNPS) for single-cell whole genome amplification. The capillary tube and the collection vessel (PCR tube or 96-well PCR plate), both of which are easily accessible, make up the basic components of the system. Unlike microfluidic chips that need a clean room and special skills to fabricate, the CNPS can be assembled in the typical biology laboratory without any special training. Centrifugation is used to directly pipette the nanoliter-volume liquid into the collection tube, which eliminates the requirement for extra equipment. The CNPS, which is compatible with the standard handheld pipette, allows for a smooth transition between the micro and macro worlds, thereby overcoming the problem of retrieving nanoliter-volume products. We further demonstrated the feasibility of the CNPS for nanoliter-volume single-cell multiple displacement amplification. Based on the sequencing results, the mapped reads cover on average 95.23%, 95.15%, and 80.94% for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus epidermidis, respectively. In sum, the CNPS has the potential to become an alternative powerful platform for single-cell genome sequencing with the ability to manipulate ultra-small volumes, as well as to enhance precision and sophistication by significantly minimizing sample losses and reducing amplification bias.

A temperature-independent model of dual calibration standards for onsite and point-of-care quantification analyses via electrophoresis titration chip

Electrophoresis titration chip (ETC) is a versatile tool for onsite and point-of-care quantification analyses because it affords naked-eye detection and a straightforward quantification format. However, it is vulnerable to changes in environmental temperature, which regulates the electrophoretic migration by affecting the ion mobility and the target recognition by influencing the enzyme activity. Therefore, the quantification accuracy of the ETC tests was severely compromised.Rather than using the dry bath or heating/cooling units, we proposed a facile model of dual calibration standards (DCS) to mathematically eliminate the effects of temperature on quantification accuracy. To verify our model, we deployed the ETC device at different temperatures ranging from 5 to 40 °C. We further utilized the DCS-ETC to determine the protein content and uric acid concentration in real samples outside the laboratory. All the experimental results showed that our model significantly stabilized the quantification recovery from 35.31-153.44 % to 99.38–103.44 % for protein titration; the recovery of uric acid titration is also stable at 96.25–106.42 %, suggesting the enhanced robustness of the ETC tests.Therefore, DCS-ETC is a field-deployable test that can offer reliable quantification performance without extra equipment for temperature control. We envision that it is promising to be used for onsite applications, including food safety control and disease diagnostics.

Comparison of two different respiratory monitoring systems with 4D-CT images for target volume definition in patients undergoing para-aortic nodal irradiation.

Today, respiratory movement can be monitored and recorded with different methods during a simulation on a four-dimensional (4D) computed tomography (CT) device to be used in radiotherapy planning. A synchronized respiratory monitoring system (RPM) with an externally equipped device is one of these methods. Another method is to create 4D images of the patient's breathing phases without the need for extra equipment, with an anatomy-based software program integrated into the CT device. Our aim is to compare the RPM system and the software system (Deviceless) which are two different respiratory monitoring methods used in tracking moving targets during 4D-CT imaging and to assess their clinical usability. Ten patients who underwent paraaortic nodal irradiation were enrolled. The simulation was performed using intravenous contrast material on a 4D-CT device with both respiratory monitoring methods. The right/left kidneys and renal arteries were chosen as references to evaluate abdominal organ movement. It was then manually contoured one by one on both sets of images. The images were compared volumetrically and geometrically after rigid reconstruction. The similarity between the contours was determined by the Dice index. Wilcoxon test was used for statistical comparisons. The motion of the kidneys in all three directions was found to be 0.0 cm in both methods. The shifts in the right/left renal arteries were submillimetric. The Dice index showed a high similarity in both kidney and renal artery contours. In our study, no difference was found between RPM and Deviceless systems used for tracking and detection of moving targets during simulation in 4D-CT. Both methods can be used safely for radiotherapy planning according to the available possibilities in the clinic.

Challenges and proposed solutions for optical reading on point-of-need testing systems

A broad spectrum of application fields, including human and animal health, food safety and environmental monitoring, require performing real time, on-field chemical determinations, a concept known as point-of-need testing (PONT). In the case of infectious diseases, it allows for early diagnosis, which usually enables better treatment options for the patient, and permits early outbreak detection and intervention with proper control measures. PONT solutions are usually developed on microfluidic chips, preferably with no extra equipment, as to lower their cost, ease their delivery and portability. However, equipment-free PONT is not always feasible, since off-chip operations (e.g., pumping or heating) might be required and provided by the so-called analyzers. A typical example is the hardware for optical reading, which is the subject of this perspective article. Firstly, the state-of-the-art is briefly analyzed considering the solutions provided by both academy and industry. Special emphasis is made on the smartphone-based approaches that use no additional hardware (add-ons) for optical reading. Smartphones are the straightforward option, since they can replace a number of operations typically done by analyzers. The issues arising from using smartphones without add-ons are classified into variability sources and technical challenges. Finally, a set of methods for dealing with these challenges is proposed and briefly discussed. Simpler systems will be more easily adopted by more users, for a broader range of application cases, and will let PONT be a more powerful tool for improving disease diagnosis and outbreak management.

An investigation into the impact of volumetric rescanning and fractionation treatment on dose homogeneity in liver cancer proton therapy.

The Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS) technique in modern particle therapy offers a highly conformal dose distribution but poses challenges due to the interplay effect, an interaction between respiration-induced organ movement and PBS. This study evaluates the effectiveness of different volumetric rescanning strategies in mitigating this effect in liver cancer proton therapy. We used a Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation toolkit, 'TOPAS,' and an image registration toolbox, 'Elastix,' to calculate 4D dose distributions from 5 patients' four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT). We analyzed the homogeneity index (HI) value of the Clinical Tumor Volume (CTV) at different rescan numbers and treatment times. Our results indicate that dose homogeneity stabilizes at a low point after a week of treatment, implying that both rescanning and fractionation treatments help mitigate the interplay effect. Notably, an increase in the number of rescans doesn't significantly reduce the mean dose to normal tissue but effectively prevents high localized doses to tissue adjacent to the CTV. Rescanning techniques, based on statistical averaging, require no extra equipment or patient cooperation, making them widely accessible. However, the number of rescans, tumor location, diaphragm movement, and treatment fractionation significantly influence their effectiveness. Therefore, deciding the number of rescans should involve considering the number of beams, treatment fraction size, and total delivery time to avoid unnecessary treatment extension without significant clinical benefits. The results showed that 2-3 rescans are more clinically suitable for liver cancer patients undergoing proton therapy.

Dynamic WiFi indoor positioning based on the multi-scale metric learning

At present, most of the fingerprint-based positioning methods require the target to stay static in the process of data collection, which are not applicable to the target positioning in a moving state. Common dynamic localization and tracking algorithms such as Kalman Filter (KF) and Particle Filter (PF) need to estimate the position at the current time according to the estimated position at the previous time. If there is a positioning error at a certain time, the following positioning performance will be affected by the cumulative errors. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a dynamic indoor positioning method based on the multi-scale metric learning of the channel state information (CSI), named as CSI-MML. This method can realize dynamic positioning using CSI signals without carrying extra equipment. The proposed model of CSI-MML is trained and tested by constructing few-shot learning tasks, which is mainly composed of two parts: feature extraction and similarity metric. In order to fully extract the effective features of the samples, the attention mechanism is added to the feature extraction module of the network to enhance the model’s ability of extracting significant features. The similarity metric module measures the global similarity and local similarity between samples and fuses the two similarities by a similarity fusion layer. Through the multi-scale metric, we can improve the metric ability of CSI-MML, so as to improve the positioning accuracy of dynamic positioning. The experimental results show that compared with the commonly used dynamic location and tracking algorithms such as KF and PF, the positioning error of the proposed method will not accumulate and the average positioning error is smaller.

Gold nanoparticle dimer-based immunochromatography for in situ ultrasensitive detection of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

The low detection sensitivity of lateral-flow immunochromatography assay (LFIA) based on spherical gold nanoparticle (AuNP) limits its wide applications. In the present study, AuNP dimers with strong plasma scattering and robust signal output were synthesized via the Ag ion soldering (AIS) strategy and used as labeled probes in LFIA to boost the sensitivity without any extra operation process and equipment. The established LFIA exhibited high sensitivity with a limit of detection (LOD) of 2.0 × 102 TCID50/mL for PEDV, which provides50 times highersensitivity than commercial LFIA based on spherical colloidal gold. In addition, the AuNP dimer-based LFIA showed strong specificity, good reproducibility, high stability, and good accordance to reverse transcription polymer chain reaction (RT-PCR) when detecting 109 clinical samples. Thus, the AuNP dimers is a promising probe for LFIA and the developed AuNP dimer-based LFIA is suitable for the rapid detection of PEDV in the field.

Tomography analysis of Al–Mg alloys manufactured by wire-arc directed energy deposition with different metal transfer modes

The interest in aluminum-magnesium alloy additive manufacturing through Wire-arc Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technology has substantially grown in recent years. The main challenge in additive manufactured aluminum-magnesium alloys is the occurrence of porosity. In this context, Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) based additive technology is suitable for aluminum printing as it allows high deposition rates and reduces porosity levels through alternative metal transfer modes without adding any extra equipment. Therefore, this research explores the effects of these alternative metal transfer modes, which determine the current signal shape and polarity, on the distribution and morphology of micropores using X-ray computed tomography in both single-bead and double-bead walls. The novelty of this paper lies in the comparison of the porosity obtained using alternative transfer modes, which, unlike CMT (Cold Metal Transfer) modes, have not been exhaustively analyzed. Additionally, to date, there has been no comprehensive comparison of the porosity results obtained in single walls and overlapped walls. The results demonstrate that pulsed-AC transfer mode with a current signal featuring variable polarity yields acceptable porosity fraction values of less than 0.04% in single-bead walls and less than 0.01% in double-bead walls, achieving high productivity.

Feasibility analysis of low-dose CT with asynchronous quantitative computed tomography to assess vBMD

BackgroundTo explore the feasibility of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) with asynchronous quantitative computed tomography (asynchronous QCT) for assessing the volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD).Methods416 women patients, categorized into 4 groups, were included and underwent chest CT examinations combined with asynchronous QCT, and CT scanning dose protocols (LDCT or CDCT) were self-determined by the participants. Radiation dose estimations were retrieved from patient protocols, including volume CT dose index (CTDIvol) and dose-length-product (DLP), and then calculated effective dose (ED). Delimiting ED by 1.0 mSv, chest CT examinations were categorized into 2 groups, LDCT group and CDCT group. vBMD of T12-L2 was obtained by transferring the LDCT and CDCT images to the QCT workstation, without extra radiation.ResultsThere was no difference of vBMD among 4 age groups in LDCT group (P = 0.965), and no difference in CDCT group (P = 0.988). In LDCT group and CDCT group, vBMD was not correlated to mAs, CTDIvol and DLP (P > 0.05), respectively. Between LDCT group and CDCT group, there was no difference of vBMD (P ≥ 0.480), while differences of mAs, CTDIvol and DLP.ConclusionThere was no difference of vBMD between LDCT group and CDCT group and vBMD was not correlated to mAs. While screening for diseases such as lung cancer and mediastinal lesions, LDCT combined with asynchronous QCT can be also used to assess vBMD simultaneously with no extra imaging equipment, patient visit time, radiation dose and no additional economic cost.