Development of a Programmable Logic Controller Based Control System for a Water Plant

     The primary objective of this study is to use programmable logic techniques to control the operation of water sucking pumps to supply Bait Elmal plant from the S stream. Basically the proposed system works as follows: the raw water sucking pumps controlled by level sensors inside the water reservoir. The sand filter washing process is automatically initiated by level sensors installed inside the filter basin. Some are used to measure water flow rate and turbidity for adjusting the addition of chemicals    Practically the reservoir has been controlled by using two sensors connected to the raw water pumps through a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). The filter washing  process valves are open and closed automatically by a signal coming from a control unit. The readings of flow rate, pH, and turbidity devices are used as inputs to the PLC with the aid of a program designed for automatically adjusting the addition of chemical materials      Finally, a complete control system has been successfully tested, where the sucking pumps are installed to supply Bait Elmal water plant from the river Nile. The result obtained prove the reliability and applicability or the system with more advantages at Bait Elmal plant or any similar drinking water plant

Assessment of the Strength of Remixed Concrete Structures

This work presents an experimental investigation to study the effect of remixing on the strength of concrete. The compressive strength, the splitting tensile strength, the shear strength as well as the flexural strength for 6 different concrete mixes have been measured. The results of investigation showed that the strength of concrete may be improved by remixing, provided that the time between remixing and casting does not exceed 0.7 the initial setting time of cement. Further improvement is achieved when remixing is associated with adding fresh concrete. The results showed that the improvement in strength can be as high as 20%. The improvement in strength was found to be affected by the blend ratio

Impact of riparian trees shade on aquatic plant abundance in conservation islands

Temperature, acidity, light conditions, total dissolved salts, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, submerged macrophytes and shade and sun path directions were measured at 23 sites along the River Nile banks with Acacia nilotica growing at water’s edge around the First Cataract Conservation Islands. Ceratophyllum demersum and Potamogeton crispus were common in the shaded and unshaded zones, Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria spiralis were found only in the unshaded zone and Azolla filiculoides only in the shaded zone. Banks of the sites surveyed were oriented to five directions (NW, SE, NE, SW, N). There is a significant difference in both the type and density of submerged plants growing under the shade of riparian trees (Acacia nilotica) as compared to unshaded areas. Water column irradiance is the most influential variable dictating the distribution of submerged plants. The area of the shade provided by riparian trees was affected by environmental and/or plant variables. Environmental variables comprised the daily course of the exposition to sun; and plant variables included the area of the tree crown, the height of the tree and geographical position of the tree in relation to sun exposition. Trees on the west bank of the islands at the SW-NE direction have the highest shading effect. The management of tree vegetation might control incoming solar radiation affecting submerged macrophytes

Environmental drivers of aquatic macrophyte communities in southern tropical African rivers:Zambia as a case study

The first-ever extensive macrophyte survey of Zambian rivers and associated floodplain waterbodies, conducted during 2006–2012, collected 271 samples from 228 sites, mainly located in five freshwater ecoregions of the world primarily represented in Zambia. The results supported the hypothesis that variation in macrophyte community structure (measured as species composition and diversity) in southern tropical African river systems, using Zambia as a case study area, is driven primarily by geographical variation in water physico-chemical conditions. In total, 335 macrophyte taxa were recorded, and a chronological cumulative species records curve for the dataset showed no sign of asymptoting: clearly many additional macrophyte species remain to be found in Zambian rivers. Emergent macrophytes were predominant (236 taxa), together with 26 floating and 73 submerged taxa. Several species were rare in a regional or international context, including two IUCN Red Data List species: Aponogeton rehmanii and Nymphaea divaricata. Ordination and classification analysis of the data found little evidence for temporal change in vegetation, at repeatedly-sampled sites, but strong evidence for the existence of seven groups of samples from geographically-varied study sites. These supported differing sets of vegetation (with eight species assemblages present in the sample-groups) and showed substantial inter-group differences in both macrophyte alpha-diversity, and geographically-varying physico-chemical parameters. The evidence suggested that the main environmental drivers of macrophyte community composition and diversity were altitude, stream order, shade, pH, alkalinity, NO3-N, and underwater light availability, while PO4-P showed slightly lower, but still significant variation between sample-groups

Nutritional and hematological status of Sudanese women of childbearing age with steady-state sickle cell anemia

We sought to investigate the nutritional and hematological status of Sudanese women of childbearing age with sickle cell anemia (SCA). Anthropometry and hematology were used to assess nutritional status and health and disease conditions, respectively. Women with steady-state (HbSS, n = 39; age = 19.0±2.7) and without (HbAA, n = 36; age, 19.8±2.7) SCA were recruited during a routine visit to the Hematology Clinic, Ibn-Auf Teaching Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. The two groups of women lived in similar environmental conditions and ate similar diets three times a day. However, despite taking regular meals, the women with sickle anemia were thinner and lighter ( 0.050). The low anthropometric (height, weight, and body mass index) and abnormal hematological values in the women with SCA in steady-state reflect sustained nutritional insults inflected by the disease and poverty. Tailored nutritional counseling/advice must be an integral part of managing patients with SCA. Such advice is particularly vital for women of childbearing age because of the adverse effects of prepregnancy nutritional deficiency on outcomes

Adverse pregnancy outcomes in sickle cell trait: a prospective cohort study evaluating clinical and haematological parameters in postpartum mothers and newborns

Background: Sickle cell trait (SCT) is a congenital condition caused by the inheritance of a single allele of the abnormal haemoglobin beta gene, HbS. Carriers of SCT are generally asymptomatic, and they do not manifest the clinical and haematological abnormalities of sickle cell anaemia (SCA). However, there is evidence that they display some symptoms in stressful situations. Pregnancy is a stressful physiological event, and it is not clear if SCT adversely affects pregnancy outcomes, particularly in those from developing countries where people regularly suffer from nutritional insufficiency. Objective: This study aims to investigate pregnancy outcomes in Sudanese women with SCT. Subjects and methods: Pregnant women with (HbAS, n=34) and without (HbAA, n=60) SCT were recruited during their first trimester at El Obeid Hospital, Kordofan, Western Sudan. Following appropriate ethical approval and informed consent from the participants, detailed anthropometric, clinical, haematological, obstetric, and birth outcome data were registered. In addition, blood samples were collected at enrolment and at delivery. Results: At enrolment in the first trimester, the SCT group did not manifest SCA symptoms, and there was no difference in the haematological parameters between the SCT and control groups. However, at delivery, the women with SCT, compared with the control group, had lower levels of hemoglobin (Hb, p=0.000), packed cell volume (PCV, p=0.000), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH, p=0.002) and neutrophil counts (p=0.045) and higher mean corpuscular volume (MCV, p=0.000) and platelet counts (p=0.000). Similarly, at delivery, the babies of SCT women had lower birth weight (p=0.000), lower Hb (p=0.045), PCV (p=0.000), MCH (p=0.000), and higher neutrophil (p=0.004) and platelet counts (p=0.000) than the babies of the healthy control group. Additionally, there were more miscarriages, stillbirths, and admissions to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) in the SCT group. Conclusions: The study revealed that SCT is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, including maternal and neonatal anaemia, low birth weight, and increased risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, and admission to SCBU. Therefore, pregnant women with SCT should be given appropriate pre-conceptual advice and multidisciplinary antenatal and postnatal care

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Virtual Reality Module Depicting Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection as Educational Tool to Reduce Antibiotic Resistant Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Infections

Virtual Reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are used as simulation models in student-patient interactive medical education and shown to enhance learning outcomes. The rise in global burden of infectious diseases accompanied with the significant rise in antibiotic resistance world-wide prompt immediate action to combat the emerging threat of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Urinary tract infections are common bacterial infections. Urinary catheters are commonly used in hospitalized patients and catheter associated urinary infections (CAUTI) are the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. The aim of this research is to develop a virtual reality (VR) based educational tool depicting the process of CAUTI caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. The VR-CAUTI module is designed to bring awareness and provide insights to health care providers and community which help in reducing the burden and spread of antibiotic resistant infections. VR based modules have the potential to transform and revolutionize learning experience and render medical education compatible with the IoT in the current 4th industrial revolution.Scopu