Future Development Steps Research Articles

Using Convolutional Neural Network to Determine Time Window for Analyzing Local Shear-Wave Splitting Measurements

Abstract The time window for analyzing local shear-wave splitting (SWS) phases significantly affects the quality of measurements, revealing a noteworthy domain influence. In this study, an approach using convolutional neural network (CNN) is applied to determine the end of time window (e), which has a similar idea of the phase-picking CNNs. The start of time window is 0.5 s before e. Our data set contains 803 human-labeled measurements, recorded from three stations located in Ridgecrest, California. These measurements are foreshocks and aftershocks of an M 7.1 earthquake on 6 July 2019. After 21 times shifting on each measurement, 90% of the data set is applied as the training data set, with the remaining 10% as the testing data set. The performance of CNN with the testing data set is compared with a nonmachine learning method, multiple filter automatic splitting technique (MFAST). The results reveal that the CNN yields more similar results with human-labeled outcomes than MFAST, as evidenced by lower absolute error and standard deviation for e, SWS time, the orientation of fast-wave polarization, and more consistent results on the map. The CNN also performs well when applied to data recorded by a station in Parkfield, California. This study shows the outstanding performance of CNN in picking the time window and the reliable automatic determination of this time window, and it is also a crucial step for future development of automatic ranking methodologies.

Random walk with Brownian motion: Theory and application

While physical models are classical, random walks are statistical models. Historically, Karl Pearson was the first to propose the random walk. This study will focus on the essential of the random walk, and additionally, this essay will offer some application guidelines and explain when the random walk is applicable. The random walk means that the performance of an event is based on the past, as people cannot predict the future development steps and directions. The random walk, which dates to the 16th century, is a significant area of probability with many applications. The random walk and Brownian motion are the main topics of this paper. The four applications of random walks that are highlighted in this paper are the following. They include the multi-particle random walk immune algorithm, the density peak clustering algorithm, a review of random walk-based community discovery techniques, and interactive image segmentation that combines random walk and random forest. This work paves the way to unravel the importance of random walk.

Development of a Genetic Algorithm-Based Control Strategy for Fuel Consumption Optimization in a Mild Hybrid Electrified Vehicle’s Electrified Propulsion System

Increasingly stringent pollutant emission regulations and a customer demand for a high-fuel economy drive the modern automotive industry to hurriedly solve the problem of decarbonization and powertrain efficiency, leading R&D towards alternative powertrain solutions and fuels. Electrification, today, plays the biggest role in the topic, with Mild Hybrid Electrified Vehicles (MHEVs) being the most cost-effective architectures, displaying dominance in smaller markets such as Brazil. One of the biggest challenges for HEVs’ development is the complexity of the hybrid control system, knowing when to actuate the electric machine, and the optimum power delivery, plus the gearshift schedule becomes a hard optimization problem that plays a key role in powertrain efficiency and cost savings for the customer. This paper proposes the implementation of a genetic algorithm (GA) as a machine learning-based control strategy to determine the torque split and the gear engaged for each driving condition of an MHEV operation, aiming to optimize fuel consumption. A quasi-static model of the vehicle was developed in Matlab/Simulink version 2022b, the virtual vehicle was then tested following the FTP75 and HWFET driving cycles. Simulation results indicate that the control decisions taken by the GA are qualitatively coherent for all operation conditions, and even quantitatively coherent in some cases, and that the software has the potential to be used as a control strategy outside the simulation environment, in future steps of development.

Methodology for microclimatic urban canyon design case study surrounding MUST university campus in Cairo

ABSTRACT Climate change is a major issue all over the world which has a great impact on global warming especially in countries with hot arid climates like Egypt. With rapid urbanization, streets in Greater Cairo and new cities are mostly car-oriented, which increases the Urban Heat Island(UHI) and, hence, affects the overall outdoor thermal comfort. Looking at the urban development in recent years, almost 10 new private universities are in operation in Cairo’s new cities together with a number of large recreational projects where they lack the appropriate vegetation surrounding their borders which in turn increases the UHI effect, decreasing the walkability’s thermal comfort and in turn contributes poorly to the surrounding climate. This paper focuses on the urban canyons in streets surrounding universities as they usually have high traffic rates in terms of both vehicular and pedestrian flows. This large flow of pedestrians necessitates taking into consideration the thermal comfort of the users. MUST University in the Al-Motamayez district on the 6th of October city was chosen as a case study. This case study is considered the basis for achieving an understanding and developing a methodology approach for such studies by using Envi-Met software for the simulation of different scenarios focusing on choosing trees appropriate to the climate zone of the city. Results for the simulation of suggested scenarios of intervention show a 30% improvement toward thermal comfort, which could be considered a first step for future guidelines development toward achieving thermal comfort and decreasing UHI.

Digital processing and BLMASIC control prototype for the Beam Loss Monitor system in the SPS at CERN

The Beam Loss Monitoring system plays a crucial role in the CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron beam monitoring and machine protection. With the upcoming renovation of the system, the acquisition electronics can be based on an innovative ASIC designed by CERN. This paper presents the development of the control and digital processing electronics for this BLMASIC, reviews the architecture and design choices, discusses implementation details, including the controls and redundancy schemes, and highlights some preliminary results. The conclusion outlines the future development steps, and emphasises the interest of this simple and robust architecture using LpGBT and VTRx for critical systems.

Towards developing an intervention to support periodic health checks for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Striving for health equity.

Although the Canadian Consensus Guidelines for Primary Care of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities recommends conducting periodic health checks in primary care, uptake is lacking. This study seeks to understand factors influencing the conduct of periodic health checks and identify what needs to change to increase them. Qualitative data from five stakeholder groups (adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, primary care providers, administrative staff, family, disability support workers) was guided by the Behaviour Change Wheel and the Theoretical Domains Framework to identify barriers and 'what needs to change' to support periodic health checks. Stakeholders (n = 41) voiced multiple barriers. A total of 31 common and 2 unique themes were identified plus 33 items 'needing to change'. Despite barriers, stakeholders saw merit in periodic health checks as a preventative and equitable healthcare offering for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Results will inform future intervention development steps.

A promising protocol for the endothelialization of vascular grafts in an instrumented rotating bioreactor towards clinical application

Pre-endothelialization of a tissue-engineered vascular graft before implantation aims to prevent thrombosis and immunoreactions. This work demonstrates a standardized cultivation process to build a confluent monolayer with human aortal endothelial cells on xenogenous scaffolds. Pre-tested dynamic cultivation conditions in flow slides with pulsatile flow (1 Hz) representing arterial wall conditions were transferred to a newly designed multi-featured rotational bioreactor system. The medium was thickened with 1% methyl cellulose simulating a non-Newtonian fluid comparable to blood. Computational fluid dynamics was used to estimate the optimal volume flow and medium distribution inside the bioreactor chamber for defined wall-near shear stress levels. Flow measurements were performed during cultivation for constant monitoring of the process. Three decellularized porcine arteries were seeded and cultivated in the bioreactor over six days. 1% MC turned out to be the optimal percentage to achieve shear stress values ranging up to 10 dyn/cm2. Vascular endothelial cells formed a continuous monolayer with significant cell alignment in the direction of flow. The presented cultivation protocol in the bioreactor system thus displays a promising template for graft endothelialization and cultivation. Therefore, establishing a key step for future tissue-engineered vascular graft development with a view towards clinical application.

NFDI4DS Gateway and Portal

©NFDI4DataScience (NFDI4DS) is a consortium to support researchers in all stages of the research data lifecycle to conduct their research in line with the FAIR principles. The developed infrastructure targets researchers from a wide range of disciplines in data science and AI. We present the ideas of the NFDI4DS gateway and the NFDI4DS portal. Two approaches to navigate digital objects (articles, data, machine learning models, workflows, scripts/code, etc.) from various NFDI4DS resources such as the ORKG, the DBLP database, and other research knowledge graphs (KGs). Transparency, reproducibility, and fairness will be fostered by a step-wise integration of existing and newly developed services into the overall system. With this paper, we want to engage with the community and understand the needs and challenges of researchers in various disciplines regarding data science and AI. Therefore, we will discuss the currently developed prototypes and outline our plans for future development steps.

Patients' perception towards chronic disease self-management and its program: A cross-sectional survey.

This study aimed to assess the perceptions towards chronic disease self-management and its program among patients with chronic diseases. A cross-sectional study using pre-validated questionnaire was conducted among patients with chronic diseases at outpatient pharmacy in a hospital in Penang, Malaysia from April to June 2021. Of 270 patients participated in this study, 87.8% were interested in chronic disease self-management. Nonetheless, they faced common barriers including time constraint (71.1%), no health monitoring devices (44.1%) and poor health knowledge (43.0%). More than half of the patients expressed that having a better knowledge of the disease and its treatment (64.1%), getting supportive guidance from healthcare providers (59.6%) and having monitoring devices (58.1%) were the top three facilitators to self-management. The patients preferred chronic disease self-management programs that (a) discuss the topic of motivation (b) are available both as mobile applications and hands-on training, (c) individual session, (d) range between 1 and 5 sessions with a duration of 1 to 2 h/session, (e) occurring on monthly basis, (f) conducted by doctor or healthcare professionals and (g) fully sponsored by government or at affordable fee. The findings serve as pre-requisite step in future design and development of chronic disease self-management program, targeting the patients' needs and preferences.

Fabrication of an Open Gate-4H-SiC Junction Field Effect Transistor for Bio-Related and Chemical Sensing Applications

In this paper, a suitable process technology is employed to fabricate a new open gate silicon carbide-based junction field-effect transistor (OG-4H-SiC-JFET) intended to be used for all types of biochemical sensing applications. The main focus is dedicated to the fabrication steps and specifically the plasma etching of the SiC as it is the key step to pattern the device components. All necessary I-V characteristics (IDS-VDS and IDS-VGS) have been derived and show acceptable electrical performance. Furthermore, the electrical characteristics of the OG-4H-SiC JFET were simulated using 3D Silvaco ATLAS and are in line with the experimental electrical characteristics. The efficacity and simplicity of the process described in this paper is the first step for future development of biochemical sensors based on SiC-FETs.

A robotic system for solo surgery in flexible ureteroscopy: development and evaluation with clinical users

PurposeThe robotic system CoFlex for kidney stone removal via flexible ureteroscopy (fURS) by a single surgeon (solo surgery, abbreviated SSU) is introduced. It combines a versatile robotic arm and a commercially available ureteroscope to enable gravity compensation and safety functions like virtual walls. The haptic feedback from the operation site is comparable to manual fURS, as the surgeon actuates all ureteroscope DoF manually.MethodsThe system hardware and software as well as the design of an exploratory user study on the simulator model with non-medical participants and urology surgeons are described. For each user study task both objective measurements (e.g., completion time) and subjective user ratings of workload (using the NASA-TLX) and usability (using the System Usability Scale SUS) were obtained.ResultsCoFlex enabled SSU in fURS. The implemented setup procedure resulted in an average added setup time of 341.7 ± 71.6 s, a NASA-TLX value of 25.2 ± 13.3 and a SUS value of 82.9 ± 14.4. The ratio of inspected kidney calyces remained similar for robotic (93.68 %) and manual endoscope guidance (94.74 %), but the NASA-TLX values were higher (58.1 ± 16.0 vs. 48.9 ± 20.1) and the SUS values lower (51.5 ± 19.9 vs. 63.6 ± 15.3) in the robotic scenario. SSU in the fURS procedure increased the overall operation time from 1173.5 ± 355.7 s to 2131.0 ± 338.0 s, but reduced the number of required surgeons from two to one.ConclusionsThe evaluation of CoFlex in a user study covering a complete fURS intervention confirmed the technical feasibility of the concept and its potential to reduce surgeon working time. Future development steps will enhance the system ergonomics, minimize the users’ physical load while interacting with the robot and exploit the logged data from the user study to optimize the current fURS workflow.

A Scoping Review on Determining Australian Nurse Engagement in Eye Care Settings.

As the Australian population grows and ages, the demand for eye care services, and nurses to provide the services, is expected to increase. This will impact nurses, who are Australia's largest health-care provider group. Understanding and mapping the current role and use of nurses in eye care is an essential first step for future health workforce planning and development. To map their engagement, we undertook a scoping review to gain an understanding of the current Australian nurse eye care workforce landscape, to help guide and support future workforce development activities. Secondly, we evaluated if publications in this field incorporated or mentioned the Australian Ophthalmic Nursing Association's National Standards (Practice standards) in their publication. This review also offers other nations and eye care providers the opportunity to evaluate their own health workforce plan and nurse utility. We conducted a review of academic and grey literature, via various search engines, and an inclusion and exclusion criteria. We uncovered 11 publications. Of those, five were academic papers examining extended and advanced nursing practice, one was a letter to the editor, two were industry feature reviews, two were industry reports and the final was the Practice Standards. Key themes throughout indicated the benefit of nurse training and nurse involvement in eye care. Overall, there was insufficient information or data to describe nurse deployment, practice and utility. Finally, the Practice Standards were not referenced in any publication. There is insufficient published information to calculate the level and involvement of nurses, or describe their existing role, advancement or future deployment in eye care in Australia. Without clear information, Australia is unable to develop effective health workforce strategies to attract, train, retain, and appropriately deploy nurses to meet future eye care needs.

The locus of control in higher education, a case study from performer training

This research examines the relationship between student, Higher Education (HE) institution and industry as future employer, proposing that the ethos of HE institutions must grow to reflect educational values that aspire to enable learners, teachers and leaders whilst connecting meaningfully with industry. Utilising the case study of a single vocational performer training provider at HE in the United Kingdom, the journey of establishing a common core of practices framed by Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) shared across all programmes is proposed here as a potential approach toward a forward thinking integrated curriculum that seeks to democratise the HE vocational learning environment, releasing traditionally held potentially oppressive and/or suppressive loci of control. The standpoint is offered that educators in partnership with industry must embody and model leadership that enables the practical and impactful examination and reimagining of vocational training that, whilst founded on tradition, truly reflects, and enables the possibilities and opportunities for current and future creative communities. This research reflects on a three-year institutional journey and identifies possible next steps for future development, action and change that holds relevance across the global HE sector.

Initial development of tandem wing UAV aerodynamic configuration

PurposeUnmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with remote and/or automated flight and mission controls have replaced airplanes with pilots in many important roles. This study aims to deal with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and development of the aerodynamic configuration of a multi-purpose UAV for low and medium altitudes. The main aerodynamic requirement was the application of the tandem wing (TW) concept, where both wings generate a positive lift and act as primary lifting devices.Design/methodology/approachInitial design analyses of the UAV’s aerodynamic configuration were performed using ANSYS Fluent. In previous work in Fluent, the authors established a calculation model that has been verified by experiments and, with minor adjustments, could be applied for subsonic, transonic and supersonic flow analyses.FindingsThe design evolved through eight development configurations, where the latest V8 satisfied all the posted longitudinal aerodynamic requirements. Both wings generate a substantial amount of positive lift, whereas the initial stall occurs first on the front wing, generating a natural nose-down stall recovery tendency. In the cruising flight regime, this configuration has the desired range of longitudinal static stability and its centre of pressure is in close proximity to the centre of gravity.Practical implicationsThe intermediate development version V8 with proper longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics presents a good starting point for future development steps that will involve the optimization of lateral-directional aerodynamics.Originality/valueUsing contemporary CFD tools, a novel and original TW aerodynamic configuration have evolved within eight development stages, not being based on or derived from any existing designs.

Occupational Heat Exposure as a Risk Factor for End-Stage Kidney Disease: A Case-Control Study.

More patients are reaching end-stage kidney disease without evident cause. This study aims to explore occupational risk factors associated with hemodialysis. A multicenter matched case-control study included dialysis patients and age, sex, and diabetes-matched controls (normal kidney function). Conditional logistic regression analysis assessed occupational factors associated with dialysis. Two hundred thirty eight hemodialysis patients and 238 controls were included. History of occupational heat exposure (odds ratio [OR] = 1.93; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.24 to 3.00), working as a cook (OR = 12; 95% CI: 1.56 to 92.29), as construction worker (OR = 10; 95% CI: 1.28 to 78.12) were associated with higher risk of dialysis. These results were significant in men and in those with kidney disease of unknown etiology. Occupational heat exposure was found to be associated with hemodialysis. This is an important step for future development of preventive strategies in high-risk professions.

Social life cycle assessment of the nanoscale zero-valent iron synthesis process for application in contaminated site remediation.

Nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) is the main nanomaterial used in environmental remediation processes. However, as with any remediation technique, the production and the use of nanomaterials can also cause environmental, economic, and social impacts. Thus, the present study investigated the social life cycle analysis (S-LCA) of nZVI production methods applied in environmental remediation. Three production methods of nZVI were selected for analysis: milling, reduction with sodium borohydride, and reduction with hydrogen gas. The social life cycle analysis was developed based on the ISO 14040 standard steps. Limits of the S-LCA system involve the stages of raw material extraction and manufacturing when not considering the use of nZVI postproduction. The analysis of social impact was conducted considering the involved stakeholders, through the application and improvement of an existing methodology and through the following procedures: characterization of social indicators according to a normalized scale, identification of the normalization factor for the indicators, employment of a social questionnaire, calculation of the total points in each impact subcategory (midpoint), calculation of the total points in the impact categories (endpoint), and calculation of the Social Index. The three production methods of nZVI result in significantly equal Social Indices. All methods were classified as socially sustainable according to the implemented methodology. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates the results dependent with the geographic location of the inventory data, while changes in the weighting can affect the Social Index results. Overall, this study significantly contributed to the state-of-the-art application of S-LCA in studies using nanomaterials; however, several limitations were also observed, and thus, steps for future development were suggested to future researches. In addition, this study improved the S-LCA methodology which can be used to assess the social impact of any product.

Evidence of altered interhemispheric communication after pediatric concussion

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVES: To investigate neurophysiological alterations within the typical symptomatic period after concussion (1-month) and throughout recovery (6-months) in adolescents; and (2) to examine relationships between neurophysiological and upper limb kinematic outcomes. METHODS: 18 adolescents with concussion were compared to 17 healthy controls. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to assess neurophysiological differences between groups including: short- and long-interval intracortical inhibition, intracortical facilitation, short- and long-latency afferent inhibition, afferent facilitation, and transcallosal inhibition (TCI). Behavioral measures of upper limb kinematics were assessed with a robotic device. RESULTS: Mixed model analysis of neurophysiological data identified two key findings. First, participants with concussion demonstrated delayed onset of interhemispheric inhibition, as indexed by TCI, compared to healthy controls. Second, our exploratory analysis indicated that the magnitude of TCI onset delay in adolescents with concussion was related to upper limb kinematics. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that concussion in adolescence alters interhemispheric communication. We note relationships between neurophysiological and kinematic data, suggesting an affinity for individuals with less concussion-related physiological change to improve their motor behavior over time. These data serve as an important step in future development of assessments (neurobiological and clinical) and interventions for concussion.

An assistive upper-limb exoskeleton controlled by multi-modal interfaces for severely impaired patients: development and experimental assessment

Active exoskeletons can help adults with muscular dystrophy regain independence and self-esteem, which have been limited due to their severe and progressive muscular weakness. A four degrees-of-freedom fully actuated upper limb exoskeleton, equipped with a spring-based anti-gravity system, has been designed, prototyped, and tested on end-users. While wearing the exoskeleton, the user directly controls the system by actively driving the end-effector position (i.e., the hand) using a joystick or vocal control. The exoskeleton’s kinematic model has been determined so that, given a desired user’s position in the task-space, a differential inverse kinematics algorithm computes the desired joint-space motion trajectories. The dynamic model was investigated in the vertical plane, demonstrating that gravity torques were considerably higher than velocity-induced and inertia torques, which have been therefore neglected. A pilot study on 14 Muscular Dystrophy patients was conducted. Outcome measures included: (i) externally-assessed functional benefit evaluated through the Performance of Upper Limbs module, (ii) self-perceived functional benefit assessed through the ABILHAND questionnaire, and (iii) usability of the system assessed through the System Usability Scale. All participants strongly increased their range of motion, and they were able to perform activities that were not possible without the exoskeleton, such as feeding. The externally-assessed and self-perceived functional improvements were statistically improved when wearing the exoskeleton (PUL p-value=0.001, ABILHAND p-value=0.005). System usability was evaluated to be excellent. Patients’ feedbacks were encouraging and outlined future development steps.

IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF GREEN BUILDING ASSESSMENT INDICATORS FOR MYANMAR

ABSTRACT To accommodate its increasing population, the Myanmar government has planned to implement smart city projects in Yangon and Mandalay by 2021 and to build 1 million homes by 2030. However, such projected growth does not coincide with Myanmar’s current level of preparedness for sustainable development. Myanmar presently has no standards and specifications for green buildings; it solely relies on the adoption of those from overseas, which may not always be compatible with the unique context of Myanmar. Hence, this study was aimed to identify appropriate green building assessment indicators for Myanmar as an important first step for future rating system development. Nine categories and forty-eight criteria were initially identified by reviewing the widely adopted seven rating systems and investigating existing certified green buildings. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) was used to determine and rank the importance levels of the identified assessment indicators. Results showed that “energy efficiency” and “water efficiency” are the most crucial categories with weights of 17.48% and 13.95%, respectively. Compared to other rating system standards, “waste and pollution” was distinctively found as an important category for Myanmar. Energy-efficient architectural design was ranked as the highest priority among all criteria. These findings serve as a building block for the future development of a Myanmar green building rating system by revealing assessment categories and criteria that are most relevant to Myanmar’s built environment.

Investigating media that support red wolf (Canis rufus) sperm viability and capacitation in vitro.

SummaryThe red wolf is a critically endangered canid, with ~250 and ~20 individuals in the ex situ and reintroduced wild populations, respectively. Assisted reproductive technologies such as sperm cryopreservation and in vitro fertilization therefore represent critically-needed tools to manage these populations. However, the motility of post-thaw red wolf sperm rapidly declines during in vitro incubation, hindering the ability to develop these technologies. In this study, we evaluated the influence of several culture media (a modified canine capacitation medium (mCCM), a modified North Carolina State University-23 medium (mNCSU-23), a synthetic oviductal fluid (SOF), a fertilization Tyrode’s medium base or Fert-TALP (FERT), and a TRIS-based buffer (TRIS)) on the survival and capacitation of red wolf sperm during extended (18 h) incubation at 38.5°C and 5% CO2. Red wolf sperm motility averaged (±s.e.m.) 73.8 ± 7.1% at the time of collection, and was better maintained over 4 h incubation in mCCM (55.0 ± 9.8%) and mNCSU-23 (54.7 ± 10.4), compared to mSOF (43.8 ± 8.3%), FERT (30 ± 10.5), and TRIS (16.4 ± 4.1%) solutions. Patterns of tyrosine phosphorylation signal, as assessed via immunocytochemistry, indicated induction of capacitation between 2 and 4 h in vitro culture. Tyrosine phosphorylation signal was particularly robust in mCCM and mNCSU-23 incubated sperm, although significant acrosome exocytosis was not observed in response to progesterone supplementation after 3 h incubation in any of the media. In sum, results indicate mCCM and mNCSU-23 are promising base media for the in vitro incubation and capacitation of red wolf sperm, for assisted reproduction applications.Lay summaryDevelopment of assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination is of high importance to the genetic management of critically endangered species such as the red wolf (Canis rufus). However, these technologies require the ability to maintain sperm viability and function during extended incubation, which has not been successful for the red wolf thus far. In this study, various culture media developed for sperm/egg/embryo culture in large mammalian species were evaluated for their ability to maintain red wolf sperm motility under physiological incubation conditions. Media and conditions previously utilized for domestic dog sperm were found to best support sperm incubation and capacitation (process of becoming competent to fertilize an egg) in the red wolf, representing a key step for future development of assisted reproductive technologies for the species.