Test Facility Research Articles

Deep learning based COVID and Pneumonia detection using chest X-ray

<p class="Abstract">Since the outbreak, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has infected more than 180 million people and has taken a toll of 3.91 million lives globally as of June 2021. This virus causes symptoms like fever, cold, and fatigue, and can develop into Pneumonia which can be detected using chest X-rays (CXRs). Therefore, early detection of COVID-19 can help get early medical attention. However, a sudden rise in the number of cases in many countries caused by COVID waves increases the burden on their testing facilities. As a result, they sometimes fail to perform enough testing to contain the spread. This work proposes a deep learning model to detect COVID-19 and Pneumonia based on CXRs. The dataset for our COVID model contains a total of 3,400 CXRs images of COVID-19 patients and 3,400 normal CXRs. The dataset for our Pneumonia model contains 1,300 CXR images of Pneumonia patients and 1,300 normal CXRs. We use convolutional neural network provided by TensorFlow to build our model, which gave 94.17% and 93.55% accuracy for COVID model and Pneumonia model, respectively. Finally, we deployed our model on the web and added a web tracker, which gives us the cases, deaths, and recoveries state-wise and nationwide.</p>

Deep learning-based prediction of float model performance in floatplanes: A case study on lift-to-drag coefficient ratio

Developing an engineering design is resource-intensive and time-consuming, particularly for the floats of a floatplane design, due to its complexity and limited testing facilities. Intelligent-based computational design (IBCD) techniques, which integrate computational design techniques and machine learning (ML) algorithms, offer a solution to reduce required testing by providing predictions. This paper proposes a deep learning (DL)-based IBCD method for modeling floats' lift-to-drag coefficient ratio (C<sub>L</sub>/C<sub>D</sub>), where DL is one of the most powerful ML. The proposed method consists of two phases: hyper-parameter optimization and DL model training and evaluation. A genetic algorithm (GA) is employed in the first phase to explore complex hyper-parameter combinations efficiently. Evaluation of the predicted C<sub>L</sub>/C<sub>D</sub> of the floats using the DL model resulted in a satisfactory R-squared of 0.9329 and the lowest mean squared error (MSE) of 0,001536. These results demonstrate the ability of DL model to predict the float's performance accurately and can facilitate further design optimization. Thus, the proposed method can offer a time-efficient and cost-effective solution for predicting float performance, aiding in optimizing floatplane designs and enhancing their functionalities.

Soil fertility in mixed crop-livestock farming systems of Punjab, Pakistan: The role of institutional factors and sustainable land management practices

CONTEXTSoil salinization is a significant environmental challenge prevalent in arid and semi-arid regions, causing adverse effects on crop yields and jeopardizing household food security. Previous research has examined the influence of institutional dynamics and the adoption of sustainable land management practices in bolstering agricultural output, and some have investigated the interplay among socioeconomic determinants, institutional frameworks, and the uptake of climate-resilient and sustainable methodologies, or the association between soil health and agricultural productivity. Yet, there has been a lack of studies that considered this relationship altogether and their role in enhancing soil fertility. OBJECTIVEWe investigate the relationship among socioeconomic and institutional factors, adoption of sustainable land management practices, and the resulting changes in soil fertility between 2016 and 2019 within the context of mixed crop-livestock farms in the three irrigated agroecological zones of Punjab, Pakistan. A household survey was conducted in 2019 to complement soil attributes data collected by the Government of Punjab in 2016. Households that implemented sustainable land management practices between 2016 and 2019 were analysed to investigate the effect of various factors on soil fertility, including the adoption of sustainable land management practices and their influence on soil fertility dynamics. METHODSA structural equation model was employed to examine the relationship among exogenous variables, moderating variables, and endogenous variables, to explain their collective influence on soil fertility between the two periods. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSThe key findings highlight the significant role of institutional factors, including access to formal information channels such as extension services, demonstration trials, and credit facilities, alongside secure land rights, in predicting the adoption of sustainable land management practices such as gypsum application, laser land leveling, farmyard manuring, and agroforestry. Furthermore, specific SLM practices, particularly agroforestry featuring intercropping with Acacia spp. and farmyard manure application, exhibited positive impacts on change in soil organic matter, albeit with agroforestry showing a negative influence on soil phosphorus levels. The adoption of gypsum and LLL displayed positive effects on soil phosphorus levels over time, contrasting with LLL's adverse impact on soil organic matter. SIGNIFICANCEOur findings suggest that soil fertility benefits from policies enacted through public-private partnerships that lead to improved access to sustainable land management information, reduced credit barriers, establishment of local soil testing facilities, and expedited land entitlement processes. These findings highlight the critical role of collaborative partnerships and institutional arrangements in enhancing agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability.

District energy modelling for decarbonisation strategies development—The case of a University campus

University campuses can be considered as microcosms of urban districts, since they are typically located within or near a city and have a significant impact on the surrounding area. Moreover, they have a high energy consumption due to the large number of buildings, facilities, and services that use energy for transportation, heating, cooling, and lighting. This makes university campus as testing facility for decarbonisation strategies that can be replicated in other urban areas. The present study discusses a decision-making framework based on a digital twin model for analysing decarbonisation strategies of University College Dublin in Ireland. The thermal and electricity networks of the university campus are modelled to analyse the current status of energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions. Five future development scenarios are explored to identify the optimum pathway for decarbonisation. Conclusions show that the campus can achieve a 10% reduction in emissions without the need for new generation units, while introduction of a new biomass CHP unit would increase this reduction to 17% compared to the baseline. Furthermore, Coupling this with the installation of 3 MW of solar photovoltaic, the calculated campus potential, a total reduction of 26% can be achieved.

Reliability inference for a family of inverted exponentiated distributions under block progressive Type II censoring

In this article, estimation of survival characteristics is discussed when life tests are performed against different test facilities using block progressive Type-II censoring. Under the assumption that the lifetimes of test units follow a family of inverted exponentiated distributions, estimates are derived under classical and hierarchical Bayesian frameworks when the differences in different test facilities are taken into consideration. Maximum likelihood estimators are obtained and their existence and uniqueness properties are also established. In addition, Bayes estimators are provided under a hierarchical framework, and a hybrid Metropolis-Hastings sampling procedure is proposed for complex posterior computation. The performance of all the proposed approaches is compared via extensive simulation studies and two real-life data are analyzed for illustration. From numerical results we observe that the hierarchical approach provides relatively better estimates for model parameters.

Development of an innovation ecosystem model in handling the covid-19 in Indonesia

Technological innovation in the medical area is vital when the COVID-19 pandemic strikes, including in Indonesia. One of the essential innovations is a health facility for infection testing. Through the TFRIC-19 program, several Indonesian researchers have developed a mobile laboratory named Mobile Lab Biosafety Level 2 (MBSL2). MBSL2 is one of the medical innovations from the TFRIC-19 program as a measure to handle the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. TFRIC-19 is an innovation system initiated by government institutions in the RnD area. Establishing TFRIC-19 was the initial step in handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. This research aims to identify the actor's role in developing MBSL2. The technique uses the Ecosystem Pie Model (EPM) approach for analysis. It was found that the most essential aspect of creating innovation is collaboration between involved actors.

DTT toroidal field conductor samples test in sultan: DC and AC characterization

Abstract The superconducting magnet system of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility, composed of 18 Toroidal Field (TF) coils, 6 Poloidal Field (PF) coils and a Central Solenoid (CS), has been designed and many procurements have been launched. Some manufacturing aspects and some conductor features require characterization under relevant close-to-operative conditions. To confirm the design choices in all details, cryogenic tests in qualified facilities have been foreseen. In this work, the results of the TF samples characterization at the SULTAN facility at the Swiss Plasma Centre (SPC, EPFL) are presented. The 3 weeks test campaign started on July the 8th, 2022. The DTT TF SULTAN sample was made of two Nb3Sn Cable-in-Conduit conductor “legs”, namely “TF-A” and “TF-B”, made with wires produced by Kiswire Advanced Technology (KAT), differing for the cabling twist pitch sequence only, and designed to work in DTT at 42.5 kA at 11.9 T peak field.
The extensive characterization comprised 3000 Electro-Magnetic (EM) cycles and two Warm-Up-Cool-Down (WUCD) steps, and in detail it included: AC measurements on the virgin conductors, on cyclic loaded conductors and after WUCDs; DC tests at 10.85 T / 42.5 kA with intermediate electro-magnetic (EM) cycles at 10.85 T / 45 kA before and after WUCDs; DC tests using partial Lorentz force loads, and Minimum Quench Energy (MQE) tests at 9 T / 42.5 kA after cycles and WUCDs. The results of the DC measurements analysis verified the design, in terms of current sharing temperature (Tcs) and critical current (Ic), as both samples are over the minimum acceptance values. In particular, the “TF-A” sample, characterized by a so-called “long twist pitch” cabling sequence, showed higher performance without any degradation with loading and WUCD cycles, whereas sample “TF-B” presented an initial Tcs reduction that afterwards substantially remained unchanged. In terms of strain acting at the Nb3Sn filaments level, this result can be described by a lower effective strain in the “TF-A” sample. AC losses were measured with a calorimetric method as a function of frequency for each series of AC sinusoidal pulsing measurements, and the characteristic coupling time constants were determined.

Historical Control Data of Spontaneous Pathological Findings in C57BL/6J Mice Used in 18-Month Dietary Carcinogenicity Assays.

A retrospective analysis in C57BL6/J mice used in dietary carcinogenicity studies was performed to determine the survival rate, causes of death and incidences of spontaneous non-tumoral and tumoral findings. Data were collected from 1600 mice from control dose groups of sixteen 18-month carcinogenicity assays performed between 2003 and 2021 at the same test facility with similar environmental conditions and experimental procedures. The survival rate was high in both sexes (81%-85%) and the causes of humane euthanasia or death were mainly non-tumoral (chronic ulcerative dermatitis, atrial thrombosis). Benign tumors were more frequent than malignant tumors and females were more affected than males. Pituitary gland adenoma in females, lymphoma, bronchioloalveolar adenoma, and harderian gland adenoma in both sexes were the most common tumors. Systemic amyloidosis, the most frequent non-tumoral lesion, was observed variably across studies without sex predilection. The analysis by cohort (3 time periods of 6 years) showed a tendency toward higher incidences of lymphoma and pituitary gland adenoma and lower incidences of amyloidosis over time. The results presented here provide for the first time a robust set of control historical data in untreated C57BL/6J mice kept for 18 months contributing to build in depth knowledge of this animal model.

A Full-Scale Tidal Blade Fatigue Test using the FastBlade Facility

Fatigue testing of tidal turbine blades requires the application of cyclic loads without the ability to match the natural frequency of the blade due to their high stiffness and the associated thermal issues of testing composite materials at those frequencies (i.e., 18–20 Hz). To solve this, loading the blades with an auxiliary system is necessary; in most cases, a conventional hydraulic system tends to be highly energy-demanding and inefficient. A regenerative digital displacement hydraulic pump system was employed in the FastBlade fatigue testing facility, which saved up to 75 % compared to a standard hydraulic system. A series of equivalent target loads were defined using Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations (based on on-site collected water velocity data) and utilised in FastBlade to demonstrate an efficient way to perform fatigue testing. During the test, a series of measurements were performed on the blade response and the Fastblade test structure itself, providing novel insights into the mechanical behaviour of a blade, and enabling improved testing practice for FastBlade. Without catastrophic failure, the blade withstood the principal tidal loading for 20 years (equivalent). This test data will enable FastBlade to identify improvements to the testing procedures, i.e., control strategies, load introduction, instrumentation layout, instrument calibration, and test design.

Development and validation of a test facility for bending corrosion fatigue of hybrid laminates

Development and validation of a test facility for bending corrosion fatigue of hybrid laminates

Dynamic Testing of a Hybrid-Propellant Water-Breathing Ram Rocket in Underwater Cruise Conditions

High-speed submerged marine vehicles, such as torpedoes, traveling at velocities of an order of 100 m/s and above, require powerful propulsion to overcome the tremendous hydrodynamic drag. This paper aims to investigate a marine hybrid-propellant water-breathing ram rocket (marine ramjet or ducted rocket) under various underwater cruise conditions. At high underwater cruise speeds, the ram rocket outperforms regular rocket motors, substantially increasing its specific impulse and thrust. This investigation utilized a unique test facility capable of dynamically testing the marine ramjet. Over 20 dynamic experiments have been conducted, revealing the submerged motor characteristics at different cruise speeds, water-to-propellant mass ratios, and oxidizer-to-fuel mass ratios, thereby creating a performance map of the marine ramjet. The results were compared with static firing data and theoretical calculations, showing a good agreement with standard specific impulse improvement of about 55% compared to a regular hybrid rocket, reaching a maximum value of 380 s. The significant increase in performance demonstrates the potential of the water-breathing ramjet for propelling high-speed underwater vehicles.

Review on attenuation methods of low-frequency noise in passive silencers

Noise reduction in various industrial and building systems such as ventilation ducts, vehicles, wind tunnels, and test facilities for jet engines, automobiles, and factories has always interested engineers, especially the problematic noise reduction at low frequencies. This problem is even more important with passive silencers, which require absorbent materials and more space. Passive silencers include reactive and dissipative silencers. Among reactive silencers, Helmholtz resonators, expansion chambers, flute-like, drum-like, and plate silencers have proven effective at low frequencies. Combining some of these silencers with a dissipative silencer, called a hybrid silencer, can achieve excellent performance at a wide range of low to high frequencies. In these silencers, the reactive part reduces noise at low frequencies, and the dissipative part reduces noise at medium and high frequencies. The aim of this work, which focuses more on experimental studies, is to introduce the mentioned silencers, investigate the presented methods to improve the performance of these silencers at low frequencies, and offer the practical advantages and disadvantages of these methods.

Primary extranodal lymphoma: a report of six cases in a private cancer centre in Nigeria

Primary extra-nodal lymphoma (PENL) refers to lymphomas which present with disease in any organ or tissue other than lymph nodes or spleen. Symptoms at initial presentation are mainly from extra nodal involvement and after routine staging procedures, the extra nodal involvement remains the clinically dominant site of disease with little or no nodal disease [1, 2]. About 25–40% of lymphomas arise at extra nodal sites and with clinical presentation similar to solid tumors [3, 4] creating ambiguity in diagnosis and delays in treatment especially in resource poor settings. We report six cases of PENL seen at a private cancer centre in Lagos, Nigeria between 2021 and 2022. The age range was 32–95 years with five females and one male. Two patients were HIV positive. Five patients had initial symptoms of vague abdominal pain with one patient investigated multiple times for peptic ulcer disease. One patient presented with pathological fracture of left femur. Another patient had previously been diagnosed with an inoperable cholangiocarcinoma. All patients had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, DLBCL being most common (83.37%). Four patients started chemotherapy. All treated patients showed good outcomes with complete or good partial response highlighting the importance of accurate diagnosis. Initial histological diagnosis in most of the cases did not suggest lymphoma until immunohistochemistry (IHC) results were received. Cancer care in Nigeria is fraught with difficulties obtaining accurate diagnosis due in part to the limited availability of IHC and molecular testing facilities required to characterize the malignant cells leading to delays in treatment and poorer prognosis [6–8].

A review of natural circulation flow in integral effect test facilities

The proposed NCFM map was reviewed using natural circulation data identified in the PWR simulated integral effect test (IET) facility with a height (length) scale ratio of 1/1. Based on this, the characteristics of natural circulation flow in the ATLAS and FESTA facilities, which are major IET facilities in Korea, are compared. It was confirmed that the natural circulation flow characteristics were well maintained within the NCFM area even at the half-height test facility of ATLAS. It was also confirmed that the natural circulation flow characteristics were well maintained within the NCFM area at the full-height test facility of FESTA, and the natural circulation flow characteristics were also maintained outside the NCFM region for a relatively small amount of coolant inventories.

Fault tree analysis for risk assessment of rocket engine testing process at high altitude test facility

Fault tree analysis for risk assessment of rocket engine testing process at high altitude test facility

Event driven high speed data acquisition with IEEE 1588 synchronization for long pulse operations of Indian Test Facility for ITER DNB

The Indian Test Facility (INTF) is a negative Hydrogen ion based 100 kV, 60A, 5 Hz modulated NBI system having duty cycle of 3 s ON time to 20 s OFF time. Prime objective of the facility is to characterize ITER Diagnostic Neutral Beam (DNB) with full specifications, prior to shipment and installation in ITER. In order to fully characterize ITER DNB, a matured Data Acquisition and Control system (DACS) is needed which will be responsible for supervisory control of the facility and for acquiring and monitoring signals at run time. Apart from conventional DACS, high speed data acquisition is needed for diagnostics and other signals with sampling rate requirements of 100 MS/s. For acquiring data from such systems it is imperative that the data be acquired only for certain duration on the occurrence of the event. Such acquisition systems are classified as event driven data acquisition system and are widely used in fusion engineering community.Development and implementation of high speed event driven data acquisition systems pose challenges in terms of data buffering, data streaming and synchronization. The precise timing of the event occurrence with respect to the main pulse should also be known for which a timing and synchronization system is needed. To fulfill this purpose, IEEE 1588 protocol offers a network based method of synchronizing multiple nodes based on Ethernet with sub microsecond accuracy. The present work describes the development of an event driven high speed data acquisition in synchronization with IEEE 1588 based timing network. The work proposes the time stamping of the event from synchronized network integrated with the event acquisition platform. The developed system has been tested for pulse durations longer than 3600 s. The performance of event data acquisition system has been thoroughly characterized and improved by applying various software optimizations in LabVIEW. The present work although intended to be used for INTF can be used for any such facility in fusion or other areas.The paper provides results of IEEE 1588 based timing network in various configurations and event data acquisition system developed on high speed FPGA controlled digitizer board with prototype results.

A scale model study of an engine test facility for alleviating low-frequency howl

A scale model experimental study is conducted addressing howl occurring during engine tests in the Propulsion Systems Laboratory (PSL) of NASA Glenn Research Center. The aim is to understand the sources of the howling noise and find possible remedies. It is shown that a jet discharged into the model of the PSL entrance duct gives rise to high levels of low frequency noise. This occurs apparently due to duct acoustic modes randomly excited by the jet. Wire-mesh screens of various mesh size and configuration as well as tabs, placed at the end of the model duct, are shown to affect the noise. Comparative effects of these configurations are studied, and some are found to alleviate the low-frequency noise significantly. Based on these results, the equivalent of a 4-mesh screen is recommended as the end treatment for the duct of the PSL facility.

Scaling analysis of nuclear power plant (APR1400) utilizing ATLAS integral effect test result of A5.1 (Counterpart test for LSTF 1% cold-leg break LOCA)

ATLAS is the thermal hydraulic integral effect test loop that can simulate the same pressure and temperature condition with nuclear power plant. It was designed with a height ratio of 1/2 and a volume ratio of 1/288 with reference to APR1400. The counterpart test against LSTF which was named as A5.1 test was performed within the OECD/NEA ATLAS international joint research project to compare major thermal hydraulic phenomena between two test facilities. The main scenario for the A5.1 test is the LSTF SB-CL-32 test. The SB-CL-32 test is a 1% horizontal small break loss of coolant accident (SBLOCA) at the cold leg with cold leg injection of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) and accident management (AM) action.From the counterpart test results, the significant differences were found in the viewpoint of the thermal–hydraulic phenomena. It was concluded that the different result were caused by the different design characteristic of each test facility because they referred the different nuclear power plant. Thus, the applicability of the ATLAS test results to its reference nuclear power plant was evaluated by utilizing ATLAS A5.1 test results which was the counterpart test with the LSTF.The transient scenario and initial and boundary conditions of the A5.1 test were adopted to APR1400 after applying scaling ratios of ATLAS. The MARS-KS code was utilized to analyzed thermal hydraulic behaviors of APR1400 and the analysis results were compared with the scaled A5.1 test result. From the result of comparison, it was concluded that the ATLAS test results predicted the thermal hydraulic behavior of the nuclear power plant well. Thus, it was confirmed that ATLAS is a well-designed integral effect test facility which is designed with an appropriate scaling method.

Performance Assessment Of Two Active Absorption Systems In A Large Wave Flume

The quality of most coastal or ocean laboratory experiment depends on the accuracy, uniformity and stability of the generated waves. Generation of waves in the laboratory seems simple, but it should consider the spatio-temporal variability of the wave profile. As they propagate, waves interact with the boundaries, i.e. changes in water depth, lateral walls, test specimens, instrument supporting structures, passive absorbers, etc., as well as with varying hydrodynamic conditions (wave-induced currents, wave-wave interactions, or nonlinear energy transfer, among others). Reflected, scattered and radiated waves may propagate back to the wave generator and reflect back. Re-reflections from the wave generator may be a non-realistic representation of the intended wave field, to the extent that the total energy content in the testing facility may increase significantly and uncontrollably. Theoretically, for weakly nonlinear unidirectional waves propagating over a relatively small number of wavelengths, and as long as the still water depth and facility width does not change, the wave properties should remain constant in space and time, which can be identified as the uniformity and stability of the waves. Under these conditions, nonuniform or unsteady wave properties can be associated to an inadequate selection of the wave theory (Airy, Stokes n-order, Cnoidal, Stream Function, etc., e.g. Fenton 1999), the approximation of the wave generation technique (first or second order, nonlinear - see e.g. Mohtat et al., 2020), formation of wave instabilities (e.g. Benjamin-Feir, 1967), wave reflection, scattering or radiation, and the performance of the active wave absorption system. It can be said that the performance of the active wave absorption control system is one of the responsible factors that can affect directly the quality of the generated waves. Many laboratories have implemented different passive and active wave absorption systems, but the performance on the uniformity and stability of the generated waves, as well as the performance of the active wave absorption system used, have not been assessed in a systematic way, and related published data and information is quite scarce, with few interesting exceptions, e.g. (Lykke-Andersen, 2016; Spinneken 2010; Schäffer and Skourup 1996). However, a direct comparison among the different available active wave absorption control systems is still missing. This paper presents a thorough experimental study on the performance assessment of two different active wave absorption control systems (MTS and Awasys7) as a means to establish the quality of the experiment in terms of the uniformity (space) and stability (time) of generated wave parameters (descriptors) in the laboratory.

Beam divergence of RF negative hydrogen ion sources for fusion

Neutral beam injectors (NBI) for fusion facilities have strict requirements on the beam divergence (7 mrad for the ITER NBI at 1 MeV). Measurements of the single beamlet divergence of RF negative ion sources (at lower beam energy < 100 keV) show significantly higher values (9–15 mrad), also larger than filament arc sources at similar beam energies. This opened up questions whether the higher divergence is caused by different measurement or evaluation techniques, whether it is a direct cause of the RF source, e.g. due to a higher temperature of negative ions or an oscillating extraction meniscus, and whether it is a problem at all after full acceleration. In a joint effort between the labs modeling and diagnostic capabilities at the NNBI test facilities have been strongly extended and evaluation methods benchmarked. Particularly challenging is the strong increase in beamlet divergence at a lower filling pressure, seen both in filament arc and RF sources.Beside the source and beam investigations carried out in SPIDER (with selected, isolated apertures rather than the total of 1280 apertures) at Consorzio RFX, the IPP test facilities ELISE (640 apertures) and BATMAN Upgrade (70 apertures) contribute to the physics understanding of the beam optics in RF sources. The determination of the beam divergence is not straight-forward because effects originating from measuring the divergence of multiple beamlets (Beam Emission Spectroscopy) and/or constraints from the individual diagnostic (lateral heat conductance in CFC tiles) lead to difficulties. Still, the divergence requirement is not met at the limited total beam energy available at ELISE and BATMAN Upgrade (< 60kV). However, variation of the beam energy show a decrease of the divergence for higher energies and beam simulation for the ITER NBI accelerator predict that the divergence requirement will be met after full acceleration of the negative ion beam.