Delineation of groundwater potential zones using remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Kadaladi region, Southern India

The primary objective of this research is to delineate potential groundwater recharge zones in the Kadaladi taluk of Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, India, using a combination of remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). Various factors such as geology, geomorphology, soil, drainage, density, lineament density, slope, rainfall were analyzed at a specific scale. Thematic layers were evaluated for quality and relevance using Saaty's scale, and then integrated using the weighted linear combination technique. The weights assigned to each layer and features were standardized using AHP and the Eigen vector technique, resulting in the final groundwater potential zone map. The AHP method was used to normalize the scores following the assignment of weights to each criterion or factor based on Saaty's 9-point scale. Pair-wise matrix analysis was utilized to calculate the geometric mean and normalized weight for various parameters. The groundwater recharge potential zone map was created by mathematically overlaying the normalized weighted layers. Thematic layers indicating major elements influencing groundwater occurrence and recharge were derived from satellite images. Results indicate that approximately 21.8 km2 of the total area exhibits high potential for groundwater recharge. Groundwater recharge is viable in areas with moderate slopes, particularly in the central and southeastern regions

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Incremental Test Pattern Generation for Structurally Similar Circuits

The advancement of semiconductor technology has resulted in the development of devices that are fast, cost-effective, low-power, and high-performance. Many gates are integrated into smaller areas, resulting in increased complexity of digital circuits. Increased size and complexity result in a large number of faults, which increases the time taken to test the circuit. However, as the size of the digital designs increases, they also exhibit structural similarities. This thesis describes a test generation process that utilizes structural similarity to speed up the test generation process. The property of structural similarity can be seen in circuits that are subjected to engineering change order (ECO), circuits that are modified during place and route, circuits subjected to retiming, circuits with multiple cores. The goal is to determine the testability of a circuit (circuit2) given a test set for a structurally similar circuit (circuit1). This is achieved by transforming a test set generated for circuit1 into a test set for circuit2 without repeating the entire test generation process. The algorithm starts with a structural analysis of circuit1 and circuit2 that captures their structural properties using an integer-arithmetic based computation called signatures. The signatures are used to obtain a partial mapping between the inputs and outputs of the two circuits. The mapping is used for transforming test patterns for circuit1 into test patterns for circuit2. The first chapter looks into similar circuits obtained after modifying the gate-level netlist. In the next chapter, structurally similar circuits were obtained by modifying the RTL, and the gate-level was resynthesized. This chapter proposed a mapping methodology to accommodate the changes introduced during the resynthesis of a netlist. Lastly, the thesis described a test generation methodology where transition faults are considered, which required two-cycle tests to be detected