HeartBeat - An interactive installation to reflect the sentiments of Canadians during pandemics like Covid-19

Social media has given citizens an avenue to express their views on various subjects in their personal lives, policies, and even a way to communicate with each other about their sentiments and emotions. This is key during a pandemic such as Covid-19 where the world is facing a global impact and the need for a pandemic-related public art framework has been sought globally by art societies and researchers to revitalize the society. However, due to the pace of this pandemic, most city art strategy papers require a framework for pandemic related public art especially in Toronto which has an agenda of moving towards becoming a smart city and public art should reflect that. This thesis investigates how might public art installations reflect the sentiment of smart communities in a pandemic. I designed 'HeartBeat', an interactive installation and visualization to reflect the emotions of citizens during the pandemic using Research Through Design and user-centered design approaches. The goal is to reflect the sentiment of Canadians during the current pandemic. HeartBeat uses tweets from Canada and visualizes the popular emotion groups during the pandemic period in an interactive installation. To evaluate HeartBeat, I conducted case study evaluation for various time periods and semi-structured interviews by selecting experts such as artists, designers, curators, policymakers, and data journalists. The contributions from HeartBeat could provide designers and artists exploring the pandemic to consider these design choices and methodologies; discussion shows the ways available to understand emotions of citizens during a pandemic in a smart city; detailed process design and technology stack architecture for pandemic related public art which could be used as public art frameworks during pandemics

Industrial Digitization, the Use of Real-Time Information, and Operational Agility : Digital and Information Perspectives for Supply Chain Resilience

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Evaluation of Antibacterial Potential of Artemisinin Extracts of Artemisia Annua In Vivo and In Vitro

To ensure universal health care, the World Health Organization recognized the significance of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) and recommended the use of natural herbs and plants bearing therapeutic potential and fewer adverse effects. Therefore, Artemisia annua herb was evaluated for its antibacterial potential and therapeutic efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus and Escherichia coli both in vitro and in vivo. Artemisinin was extracted from Artemisia annua by chemical treatment. Subsequently, the culture sensitivity tests were performed on MHA by disk diffusion method to determine the antibacterial potential of the Artemisinin extracts against the test bacteria (in vitro phase). The results of this in vitro trial revealed that the test bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus were significantly sensitive to Artemisinin extracts and showed a diameter of 27.7 and 22.3 mm of the bacteriostatic zone, respectively, while the Escherichia coli was moderately sensitive to the Artemisinin extracts with the bacteriostatic zone of 12.9mm. During the 2nd phase of the study (in vivo trial), 20 rabbits were maintained which were infected with S. aureus and were successfully treated with varying concentrations of the Artemisinin extracts @ 1 mg/ml, 2 mg/ml and 5 mg/ml in DMSO and were recovered. Similarly, rabbits infected with Streptococcus were also successfully treated and recovered. Thereafter, rabbits infected with E. coli were treated with Artemisinin, and out of 15 rabbits in three test groups, 03 rabbits died while the others were recovered. Hence, as per findings of this study, Artemisinin extracts were recommended against Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus infections

Smart product platforming powered by AI and Generative AI : Personalization for the circular economy

Peer reviewe

Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System for Prediction of Surgery Time for Ischemic Stroke Patients

With the advent of machine learning techniques, creation and utilization of prediction models for different medical procedures including prediction of diagnosis, treatment and recovery of different medical conditions has become the norm. Recent studies focus on the automation of infarction volume growth rate prediction by the utilization of machine learning techniques. These techniques when effectively applied, could significantly help in reducing the time needed to attend to stroke patients. We propose, in this proposal, a Fuzzy Inference System that can determine when a stroke patient should undergo Decompressive Hemicraniectomy. The second infarction volume growth rate and the decision whether a patient needs to undergo this procedure, both predicted outputs of two trained models, act as inputs to this system. While the initial prediction model, that which predicts the second infarction volume growth rate is adopted from an earlier model, we propose the later model in this paper. Three Machine Learning techniques - Support Vector Machine, Artificial Neural Network and Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System with and without the feature reduction technique of Principle Component Analysis were modelled and evaluated, the best of which was selected to model the proposed prediction model. We also defined the structure of Fuzzy Inference System along with its rules and obtained an overall accuracy of 95.7% with a precision of 1 showing promising results from the use of fuzzy logic

Ependymal tumors with oligodendroglioma like clear cells: Experience from a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan

Background: Ependymal tumors with oligodendroglioma like clear cells have never been reported from Pakistan. We aimed to see the features and outcomes of this rare entity.Methods: It was retrospective cohort conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery, Aga Khan University from 2003 to 2013. The medical records and radiology of patients with proven histopathology were reviewed. Analysis was done on SPSS 20.Results: Eleven cases of ependymal tumors with clear cells were found, which equated to 1.5% of the total tumor burden in 11 years. The median age was 49 years. Most common presenting symptom was headache 54.5%. Out of 11 patients, 9 patients had a supratentorial tumor. Magnetic resonance imaging showed hypointense signals on T1 and hyperintense signals on T2-weighted images in all cases. Contrast enhancement was found in 9 patients (77.8%), necrosis and hemorrhage was found in 4 (36%) and 3 (27%) patients, respectively. Immunohistochemistry showed glial fibrillary acidic protein and epithelial membrane antigen positivity in all cases. Ki-67 showed high proliferative index in 6 patients. According to the World Health Organization grading of ependymal tumors, 2 patients had Grade II tumors, and 9 patients had Grade III tumors with clear cells. Gross total resection was achieved in 6 (54.5%) and subtotal resection in 5 patients (45.4%). Recurrence was observed in 9 patients. Six patients died of the disease. Median progression-free survival and overall survival was 8 months and 10 months, respectively.Conclusion: Ependymal tumors with clear cells presented more commonly in Grade III lesions and were more aggressive in behavior with poorer outcome compared to similar studies

Enhancing Supply Chain Innovation and Operational Agility Through Knowledge Acquisition From the Social Media : A Microfoundational Approach

Peer reviewe

Validation Study of the Mini-Mental State Examination in Urdu Language for Pakistani Population

Validation study of the Mini-Mental State Examination in Urdu language for Pakistani population. Objective: This study was conducted primarily to validate and determine the optimal cutoff score in the diagnosis of dementia among Pakistani’s and study the effects of gender and education on the MMSE performance in our population. Methods: Four hundred participants took part in the study. Patient with dementia recruited from five major hospitals from Pakistan. The MMSE was translated into Urdu. Results: There were 61 men and 39 women in dementia group and 225 men and 75 women in the control group. The mean score of Urdu MMSE were lower in patients with dementia 18.5 ± 5.6 (range 0-30) as compared to the controls 26.8 ± 2.6 (range 7-30). This difference between groups was statistically significant (p\u3c0.001). Educational based MMSE score below 15 yielded perfect sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of dementia. Conclusions: These finding confirm the influence of level of education on MMSE score and education stratified cutoff scores should be used while screening for cognitive impairment in this population

Validation Study of the Mini-Mental State Examination in Urdu Language for Pakistani Population

Validation study of the Mini-Mental State Examination in Urdu language for Pakistani population. Objective: This study was conducted primarily to validate and determine the optimal cutoff score in the diagnosis of dementia among Pakistani’s and study the effects of gender and education on the MMSE performance in our population. Methods: Four hundred participants took part in the study. Patient with dementia recruited from five major hospitals from Pakistan. The MMSE was translated into Urdu. Results: There were 61 men and 39 women in dementia group and 225 men and 75 women in the control group. The mean score of Urdu MMSE were lower in patients with dementia 18.5 ± 5.6 (range 0-30) as compared to the controls 26.8 ± 2.6 (range 7-30). This difference between groups was statistically significant (p\u3c0.001). Educational based MMSE score below 15 yielded perfect sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of dementia. Conclusions: These finding confirm the influence of level of education on MMSE score and education stratified cutoff scores should be used while screening for cognitive impairment in this population

Computational Seismic Analysis of Dry-Stack Block Masonry Wall

In this research the computational modeling of Dry-Stack Block Masonry (DSM) walls subjected to cyclic monotonic loading testing is done. The analytical results were compared with experimental test results of the unreinforced and unconfined DSM cantilever walls subjected to lateral loading along with a constant axial load. ABAQUS has been used for Finite Element Modeling and analysis of the wall. Various material properties are defined for the wall in the software and modeled as a homogeneous material. The proposed numerical models had a good correlation with the experimental data. The test results discussion includes failure moods, load displacement curves, and stress/strain profile. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091668 Full Text: PD