Spatial multi-criteria decision analysis for safe school site selection

Schools which are located in a strategic and safe area play an important role in improving students’ performance and excellence. To ensure both success and long -term sustainability of the school planning,the finding of suitable sites for school is important and challenging. This study delves into a site selection process to establish a systematic public school. It was carried out by geographic information system (GIS)and multi-criteria evaluation model. A set of criteria was used to design a number of potential sites using a spatial analysis model. Mukim Batu which is located in Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (WPKL) has been selected as the study area. The final safety model outputs were compared with the field verification data and found to be reliable

Mobile laser scanning, for monitoring polythylene city infrastructure network.

This research discusses a more efficient geospatial monitoring technique for city infrastructure networks. It will concentrate on polyethylene city infrastructure materials, where power, water and communication networks are covered or protected by polyethylene materials. A technical comparison is conducted between current and proposed geospatial monitoring techniques in order to develop an overall performance evaluation. The mobile laser scanning technology achieved the best performance evaluation, where detailed data analysis and collection, mobile laser missions, modeling and interpretation, and system geometrical corrections for location and orientation have also been conducted. Prior to conducting the performance evaluation, the research investigates mobile laser behavior and recognition capabilities with respect to Polyethylene City infrastructure materials. After analyzing the mobile laser pulses behavior, and its correlations with the mission ground speed and exposed scanned surface, it is concluded that the mobile laser pulses response is constant for the Polyethylene City infrastructure materials. The concluded mobile laser pulses constant is utilized to develop a mathematical model for re-planning the mobile laser scanning missions to obtain the best model for monitoring the Polyethylene City infrastructure networks

The Impact of Cutting Tool Materials on Cutting Force

A judicious choice of insert material, tool geometry and cutting conditions can make hard turning produce better surfaces than grinding. In the present study, an attempt has been made to investigate the effect of cutting tool materials on cutting forces (feed force, thrust force and cutting force) in finish hard turning of AISI D2 cold work tool steel. In conclusion of the results obtained with a constant depth of cut and feed rate, it is important to note that cutting force is directly affected by cutting tool material

Immunosuppressive effects of benzo (a) pyrene on Newcastle disease vaccination in broilers

Newcastle disease (ND) vaccination was used as a model in assessing the role of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) in inducing immunosuppression. Forty day-old chicks were divided into a control and BaP group comprising of 20 birds each. The control group was instilled with tricaprylin alone while that of BaP received 15 mg BaP/kg intratracheally for 5 consecutive days. Live ND vaccine was given on Day 7 and repeated again on Day 21 to all chickens. Prior to post mortem, blood was collected from five chickens from each group at Days 0, 7, 14, 21 and 35 for determination of HI titer. At necropsy, liver and lung samples were procured for the determination of glutathione transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and malionaldehyde (MDA) activities. The BaP group gained a slower immune protective level compared to that of the control (21 versus 7 days). The hepatic and pulmonary GST activity and MDA level of the BaP group demonstrated an increment until Day 14 p.i. which then tapered towards the end of study. However, the GPX activity was only invoked towards that later stage of the experiment. Likewise, it was also shown that the GST and GPX activities were negatively correlated. Thus, this study unveiled that the metabolism of intra-tracheally instilled BaP brings about systemic oxidative stress which induces immunosuppression in broilers

Use of geospatial technology for landfill site selection.

Growth of population and extensive industrial development had increases solid wastes and pollutants in many parts of the world (superscript [1-2]). Due to the economic and technologic limitations not all waste can be easily turn to other sort of materials or energy. As a result so, we still have to rely on the common solution to bury as to excrete urban wastes. Selection of an appropriate site for this process in a big city like Mashad in Iran is an important task which needs a cautious, strategic planning and investigations at various levels. With regards to this issue it is necessary to have a comprehensive volume of spatial information ofthe surrounding area and a proper analysis and spatial exploration need to be done. The methodology being implemented utilized geospatial technology for the management and visualization of spatial data while fuzzy logic is used in searching the best location for site selection. In this paper the basic elements of the fuzzy logic methodology as well as its potential in the specific problem are described. A case study for Mashad city is elaborated. The results drawn up by fuzzy logic are compared with that of the traditional Boolean approach in the decision making process

Maximal service area problem for optimal siting of emergency facilities

Geographic information systems (GIS) have been integrated to many applications in facility location problems today. However, there are still some GIS capabilities yet to be explored thoroughly. This study utilizes the capability of GIS to generate service areas as the travel time zones in a facility location model called the maximal service area problem (MSAP). The model is addressed to emergency facilities for which accessibility is an important requirement. The objective of the MSAP is to maximize the total service area of a specified number of facilities. In the MSAP, continuous space is deemed as the demand area, thus the optimality was measured by how large the area could be served by a set of facilities. Fire stations in South Jakarta, Indonesia, were chosen as a case study. Three heuristics, genetic algorithm (GA), tabu search (TS) and simulated annealing (SA), were applied to solve the optimization problem of the MSAP. The final output of the study shows that the three heuristics managed to provide better coverage than the existing coverage with the same number of fire stations within the same travel time. GA reached 82.95% coverage in 50.60 min, TS did 83.20% in 3.73 min, and SA did 80.17% in 52.42 min, while the existing coverage only reaches 73.82%

A Laboratory Based Study of Hydraulic Simulation of Leakage in Water Distribution Networks

It is obvious to all people the importance of water as an essential element for life, hence, water loss is a life-threatening and alarming predictor of the future. Leakage problem is one of the most important causes of water loss in water systems; therefore, it was and is still a matter of attention of many researchers, who are in search of the most effective methods to solve this problem using many techniques. These techniques vary with one another in terms of accuracy, cost and speed of obtaining results. This research paper presents a part of an extensive research work, which aims to develop a geospatial approach for solving the leakage detection problem in water systems using an integrated geospatial system. This paper will show a sample of the results that has been obtained through a lab experiment, which explains the changes in hydraulic behavior of the network due to the change in leakage size and leakage location as a step for validating the mentioned approach. Keywords: Leakage detection, water distribution networks, GIS, Hydraulic modeling

Hip fragility fractures: Anaemia, calcium and vitamin D supplementation

Objective: To assess the burden of anaemia and osteoporosis in hip fracture patients, to determine the rate of blood transfusion per-operatively, to assess the use of calcium and vitamin D supplements and the use of anti-osteoporotic medications postoperatively.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at Aga Khan University and Hospital (AKUH) between June 2009 and May 2011, and comprised record of patients treated for intertrochanteric and femur neck fractures. Patients with associated pathological, open or long bone fractures were excluded. The main study outcome measures were the use of pre-operative and post-operative calcium, vitamin D, bisphosphonates and management of anaemia pre- and post-operatively. Demographic data was also collected including age, gender, and co-morbids. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 19.Results: Of the 129 patients, 65(50.4%) were women. The overall mean age was 67.2±15.5 years. Mean pre-operative haemoglobin level was 12.3±1.5 gm/dl and 39(30%) patients were anaemic, while post-operative haemoglobin was 10.2±1.71 with 90(70%) anaemic patients, but only 14(10.9%) patients received per-operative blood transfusion. Pre-operative and post-operative vitamin D supplementation was advised in 3(2.3%) and 18(14%) patients respectively, whereas pre-operative and post-operative bisphosphonate supplementation was advised in 3(2.3%) and 1(0.8%) patients.Conclusions: There is a strong need to pay attention to the management of peri-operative anaemia and calcium, vitamin D and bisphosphonate supplementation in the discharge medications of patients with hip fragility fractures

Intertrochanteric hip fractures in octogenarian patients: do we need to rethink fixation strategy?

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To compare outcomes in octogenarians with younger patients up to 1 year after undergoing dynamic hip screw fixation for intertrochanteric fractures to see the effectiveness of the implant. METHODS: The retrospective case-control study was conducted at The Aga Khan University and comprised records of patients who underwent dynamic hip screw surgery between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2012. They were divided into two groups based on their age:. Group A \u3c80 years; and Group B \u3e 80 years. All patients had a one-year follow-up\u3e Data including mortality, morbidity, radiological healing time, postoperative ambulatory status and Harris hip score were recorded. RESULTS: Of the 150 patients, 114(76%) were in Group A and 36(24%) were in Group B. Up to 25(70%) of octagenarians dropped their ambulatory ability by one or two levels, whereas 107(94%) of Group A patients were able to either maintain their pre-injury ambulatory ability or dropped their ambulation by one level only (p=0.02). Postoperative complications were higher in Group B 9(25%) compared to Group A 4(4%). One-year mortality was also significantly higher in Group B 8(22%) compared to Group A 9(8%) (p=0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Octagenarians undergoing internal fixation with dynamic hip screw had higher frequency of complications and death compared to younger patients

Using remote sensing and GIS for assessment of irrigation performance in the Al-Hindiyah Barrage, Babil City, Iraq

Problems and concerns over water lack would affect irrigated agriculture. Iraq suffers from shortage water and the principle use of water is for irrigation. Hence, better performance of irrigation saves more water, which can be used for other purposes. The objective of the research is to assess the irrigation performance in Al-Hindiyah barrage located in Babil city, in middle of Iraq using GIS and remote sensing. In order to achieve this objective, performance of the irrigation season for 2014 was defined upon five indicators, namely relative water supply, general consumed ratio, relative evapotranspiration, depleted fraction and crop water deficit. Actual and potential parameters of evapotranspiration used in determination of these indicators were estimated depending on the method of Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) by using a series of Landsat OLI satellite images. The range of seasonal averages of these indicators was between (0.138 and 2.704) for overall consumed proportion (0.395-7.129) for relative water supply (0.061-1.136) for depleted fraction (0.407-0.464) for relative evapotranspiration and (200.757-247.474) mm/month for crop water deficit. The result of this study indicated that the performance of the irrigation was poor according to the average of seasonal values of all performance indicators. The performance indicators revealed that the supplied irrigation water was less than needed. Thus, it was determined that nearness to the source might be an advantage to obtain water, and there should be a concurrence between the period when water is provided and the period when it is needed