Where to Make the Transition from Open-pit to Underground?: Using Integer Programming

The transition from open pit (OP) to underground (UG) is one of the challenging mining engineering issues. The mines which have the potential to make transition from OP mining to UG mining will eventually come to a point introduced as a ‘Transition Point’ where it needs to determine whether to extend the pit or switch to UG mining. This research proposes a new integer programming (IP) formulation to obtain the optimal transition point from OP to UG mining. The proposed model has been implemented on a three-dimensional (3-D) gold deposit and a two-dimensional (2-D) case study has been used to demonstrate the validity of the model. Due to the large number of variables, strategies have been proposed to shorten the solution time. The proposed model has successfully determined the optimal transition point and generated significantly better undiscounted profit than that of the traditional approach

Mental health screening and increased risk for anxiety and depression among treatment-seeking smokers

Background: The aim of this study was to compare the risk for mental health disorders between smokers and non-smokers and to assess the risk for depression and anxiety according to addiction severity. Methods: This cross-sectional study assesses the mental health status and relationship with the severity of nicotine addiction in a sample of smokers admitted to Pamukkale University Hospital Smoking Cessation Clinic (n = 101) from 1 June 2012 to 31 August 2012 compared to a group of non-smokers from the general population (n = 101). We conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews to collect sociodemographic data; we assessed the participants' mental health status with the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and we measured nicotine addiction severity with the Fagerström Test. Results: The risk for mental illness reported by smokers based on the GHQ-12 was significantly higher than that for non-smokers (p = 0.001). The anxiety and depression scores according to HADS were higher among smokers (16.8% and 22.8%, respectively) than non-smokers (4.0% and 5.0%, respectively) (p = 0.006 and p = 0.001, respectively). The nicotine addiction severity was higher in smokers with higher anxiety and depression scores (p = 0.008). Conclusions: We found high scores for mental illness in treatment-seeking smokers compared with non-smokers. The risk for anxiety and depression was higher among smokers. Increased nicotine addiction severity was associated with increased risk for mental illness and increased scores of anxiety and depression. © 2014 Emre et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Kırka Boraks atıklarının soda liçi

Bor, çok geniş kullanım alanları ile, insanlığın bugünkü ve gelecekteki yaşamlarında, vazgeçilmez bir endüstriyel hammadde olarak önemini gittikçe arttıracaktır. Ülkemiz bu açıdan şanslı bir konumda olup, toplam dünya bor rezervlerinin yaklaşık %60 'mı içermektedir Bu nedenlerden dolayı, bor cevherlerimizin en verimli bir şekilde üretimi ülkemiz açısından çok fazla önem arz etmektedir. Kırka boraks konsantratöründe, her yıl yaklaşık %10-12 B2O3 tenörlü 250 bin ton yaş artık oluşmakta ve bunun yanında artık göletinde de benzer tenörlü yaklaşık 4 milyon ton birikmiş katı artık bulunmaktadır. Artıkların teknolojik koşullara uygun olarak değerlendirilmesi gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmada, kırka boraks artıklarının soda liçi ile değerlendirilmesinde etken olan parametreler ayrıntılı bir şekilde araştırılmıştır. Bu amaçla, boraks artıklarının Na2C03 ve NaHCC>3 liçi; değişik sıcaklık, çözücü"miktarları, katı/sıvı oranlan ve çözeltine sürelerinde denenmiş olup, düşük çözücü oranlarında, optimal sıcaklık ve sürede başarılı sonuçlar alınmıştır. Sonuçta, seyreltik soda çözeltisi ile yapılan deneylerde, artiklardaki boraks yüksek verimle çözünmüş ve elde edilen bulgulardan yararlanılarak, tesisin mevcut çalışma koşullarına uygun optimum öneri akım şemalan geliştirilmiştir. Aynca, bu yöntemle boraks artıklarının değerlendirilmesinde, çözücü olarak tronanın kullanılması ile ülkemizde büyük bir potansiyele sahip olan trona yataklan yem bir kullanım alam bulmuş olacaktır.Boron will continue its importance in the recent world and in the future as a very well-known and necessary industrial rawmaterial with common use areas. Our country is very advantegeous in this point and contains approximately 60 % of total world reserves of boron. Thus production of boron ores is greatly significant for our country. In the Kırka Tincal Concentrator, approximately 250 000 tons wet tailings with a grade of 10 -12 % are produced and separately 4 million tons tailings with similar grade are disposed. Beneficiation from the Kırka Tincal tailings is thereby necessary. In this study, the effective parameters m soda leaching of the Kırka Tincal tailings have been investigated in detail. For this aim, Na2CC>3 and NaHCC>3 leaching of the tailings at different temperature, concentration, solid/liquid ratio and leaching time were carried out. As a conclusion, in the experiments made with aqueous soda solutions, tincal were efficiently extracted and an optimum processing plant proposal was developed. Furthermore, with use of trona in this processing method of the tailings, the great trona deposits will find a different use

Movies emotional analysis using textual contents

In this paper, we use movies and series subtitles and applied text mining and Natural Language Processing methods to evaluate emotions in videos. Three different word lexicons were used and one of the outcomes of this research is the generation of a secondary dataset with more than 3658 records which can be used for other data analysis and data mining research. We used our secondary dataset to find and display correlations between different emotions on the videos and the correlation between emotions on the movies and users’ scores on IMDb using the Pearson correlation method and found some statistically significant correlations

The comparision of glybenclamide and metformin-loaded bacterial cellulose/gelatin nanofibres produced by a portable electrohydrodynamic gun for diabetic wound healing

Wound dressings made from natural polymers are an important aspect of biomaterials. Protein-based materials are less likely to instigate an immunogenic response and have the capacity to degrade in vivo, also without triggering an inflammatory response. Therefore, gelatin (GEL) was chosen and combined with bacterial cellulose (BC) to produce nanofibres and the potential of an all-natural polymer construct was determined. GEL and BC were successfully electrospun with metformin (Met) and glybenclamide (Gb) using a portable, point of need electrospinning set up. The virgin fibre group exhibited a significant effect on the proliferation of L929 (mouse fibroblast) cells but all fibre samples can safely be applied on wound site without risk of cytotoxicity. According to the results obtained by animal tests, the GEL-BC-Gb group showed better recovery than the GEL-BC-Met group. Diabetic wounds treated with GEL-BC-Met were characterized by moderate re-epithelialization and partially organized granulation tissue. Moderate to complete re-epithelialization and well-formed granulation tissue were observed in diabetic wounds treated with GEL-BC-Gb. The histologic scores obtained on day 14 confirmed that the GEL-BC-Gb group played a stronger wound-healing role compared to the GEL-BC-Met group. The highest decrease of TNF-α level was observed in the GEL-BC-Gb group at the end of the experiment but there is no significant difference between drug-loaded fibre groups. Therefore, topical administration of Met and Gb in a sustained release form has a high potential for diabetic wound healing with high bioavailability and fewer systemic side effects but Gb showed better improvement according to the results of the animal tests

Supramolecular peptide nanofiber morphology affects mechanotransduction of stem cells

Chirality and morphology are essential factors for protein function and interactions with other biomacromolecules. Extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins are also similar to other proteins in this sense; however, the complexity of the natural ECM makes it difficult to study these factors at the cellular level. The synthetic peptide nanomaterials harbor great promise in mimicking specific ECM molecules as model systems. In this work, we demonstrate that mechanosensory responses of stem cells are directly regulated by the chirality and morphology of ECM-mimetic peptide nanofibers with strictly controlled characteristics. Structural signals presented on l-amino acid containing cylindrical nanofibers (l-VV) favored the formation of integrin β1-based focal adhesion complexes, which increased the osteogenic potential of stem cells through the activation of nuclear YAP. On the other hand, twisted ribbon-like nanofibers (l-FF and d-FF) guided the cells into round shapes and decreased the formation of focal adhesion complexes, which resulted in the confinement of YAP proteins in the cytosol and a corresponding decrease in osteogenic potential. Interestingly, the d-form of twisted-ribbon like nanofibers (d-FF) increased the chondrogenic potential of stem cells more than their l-form (l-FF). Our results provide new insights into the importance and relevance of morphology and chirality of nanomaterials in their interactions with cells and reveal that precise control over the chemical and physical properties of nanostructures can affect stem cell fate even without the incorporation of specific epitopes

Do Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) Make Counterproductive Choices Because They Are Sensitive to Human Ostensive Cues?

Dogs appear to be sensitive to human ostensive communicative cues in a variety of situations, however there is still a measure of controversy as to the way in which these cues influence human-dog interactions. There is evidence for instance that dogs can be led into making evaluation errors in a quantity discrimination task, for example losing their preference for a larger food quantity if a human shows a preference for a smaller one, yet there is, so far, no explanation for this phenomenon. Using a modified version of this task, in the current study we investigated whether non-social, social or communicative cues (alone or in combination) cause dogs to go against their preference for the larger food quantity. Results show that dogs' evaluation errors are indeed caused by a social bias, but, somewhat contrary to previous studies, they highlight the potent effect of stimulus enhancement (handling the target) in influencing the dogs' response. A mild influence on the dog's behaviour was found only when different ostensive cues (and no handling of the target) were used in combination, suggesting their cumulative effect. The discussion addresses possible motives for discrepancies with previous studies suggesting that both the intentionality and the directionality of the action may be important in causing dogs' social biases

The association of vitamin D deficiency with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

OBJECTIVE: Vitamin D deficiency has been related to diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and peripheral vascular disease. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of vitamin D status in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. METHODS: We included 211 consecutive subjects to examine the presence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Of these subjects, 57 did not have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and 154 had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. RESULTS: The non-alcoholic fatty liver disease group had significantly higher fasting blood glucose (p = 0.005), uric acid (p = 0.001), aspartate aminotransferase (

A new generic open pit mine planning process with risk assessment ability

Conventionally, mining industry relies on a deterministic view, where a unique mine plan is determined based on a single resource model. A major shortfall of this approach is the inability to assess the risk caused by the well-known geological uncertainty, i.e. the in situ grade and tonnage variability of the mineral deposit. Despite some recent attempts in developing stochastic mine planning models which have demonstrated promising results, the industry still remains sceptical about this innovative idea. With respect to unbiased linear estimation, kriging is the most popular and reliable deterministic interpolation technique for resource estimation and it appears to remain its popularity in the near future. This paper presents a new systematic framework to quantify the risk of kriging-based mining projects due to the geological uncertainties. Firstly, conditional simulation is implemented to generate a series of equally-probable orebody realisations and these realisations are then compared with the kriged resource model to analyse its geological uncertainty. Secondly, a production schedule over the life of mine is determined based on the kriged resource model. Finally, risk profiles of that production schedule, namely ore and waste tonnage production, blending grade and Net Present Value (NPV), are constructed using the orebody realisations. The proposed model was applied on a multi-element deposit and the result demonstrates that that the kriging-based mine plan is unlikely to meet the production targets. Especially, the kriging-based mine plan overestimated the expected NPV at a magnitude of 6.70% to 7.34% (135 M$to 151 M$). A new multivariate conditional simulation framework was also introduced in this paper to cope with the multivariate nature of the deposit. Although an iron ore deposit is used to prove the concepts, the method can easily be adapted to other kinds of mineral deposits, including surface coal mine