The Impacts of Concentrated Ambient Particulates on Heart Rate Variability Rats in Detroit, Michigan and Steubenville, Ohio.

Epidemiological studies indicate that inhalation of fine ambient air particulates less than 2.5µm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) are linked to heart rate variability (HRV) and can exacerbate cardiovascular disease in humans. In this study, spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rats were exposed to concentrated ambient particulates (CAPs) to determine if changes in HRV could be associated with individual chemical constituents, or sources of PM2.5. Winter and summer exposures were undertaken in Steubenville, Ohio, and in Detroit, Michigan, for 13 day periods. The observed heart rates of exposed (CAPs) rats and control (AIR) rats were processed to calculate average heart rate (HR) and HRV, (e.g. ln(SDNN), and ln(r-MSSD)). Mixed modeling analyses identified statistically significant differences between AIR and CAPs rats. Specifically, ln(SDNN) was significantly different in the CAPs-exposed rats (Detroit summer study), whereas HR and ln(r-MSSD) were significantly different in CAPs rats (Detroit winter study). In Steubenville HR and ln(SDNN) were significantly different between the CAPs and AIR rats for the summer exposure, whereas the winter study did not find any significant changes in HR or HRV. A sympathetic autonomic response to PM2.5 was indicated during the Detroit summer study. A similar response, increased HR and decreased HRV, was observed in the Steubenville winter study, and was associated with specific PM2.5 constituents, but not PM2.5 mass. Results from Detroit winter and Steubenville summer exposures revealed bidirectional effects on HR and HRV; CAPs constituents were associated with either an increase or a decrease in parameters, which may indicate that various source contributions effect HR and HRV differently. Across the four exposure studies, the concentration of individual PM2.5 constituents had compelling but inconsistent relationships with changes in HRV, and therefore specific constituents cannot easily be attributed to an autonomic response. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) was applied to 30-minute trace element data to identify the major source types, and to calculate their contribution to fine ambient mass. Mixed modeling analysis found that emissions from Iron-Steel manufacturing and Metal Processing facilities were associated with changes in HRV; in Detroit, emissions from Diesel-Motor Vehicles may have enhanced the effect of other attributed sources on HR and HRV.Ph.D.Environmental Health SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64801/1/alikamal_1.pd

Morphological Variation between Life and Death Gastropod Populations in the Nile Delta: A Pollution-Induced Evolution

Wetland ecosystems of the Nile Delta face severe threats due to natural climatic changes and anthropogenic activities. Life and death assemblage comparisons can be implemented as a historical record to detect anthropogenic-induced environmental changes in the past few decades. A geometric morphometric approach was applied to quantify the pollution-induced morphological variation between life and death populations of the gastropod Melanoides tuberculata. The results indicated that life populations differ significantly from the death ones, where the first tend to be much smaller, more globular, and with a depressed aperture and whorl section. In addition, the phenetic diversity of the life populations was also decreased, and the allometric growth was shifted. These morphological changes in the life populations are well-known adaptations for reducing the cost of shell maintenance in polluted water. No distinct morphospace was found between life populations from different habitats, suggesting that habitats have no significant role in the current pollution-induced evolution.This work is funded by the Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R455), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

LSTM-based Electroencephalogram Classification on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is categorized as a neurodevelopmental disability. Having an automated technology system to classify the ASD trait would have a huge influence on paediatricians, which can aid them in diagnosing ASD in children using a quantifiable method. A novel autism diagnosis method based on a bidirectional long-short-term-memory (LSTM) network's deep learning algorithm is proposed. This multi-layered architecture merges two LSTM blocks with the other direction of propagation to classify the output state on the brain signal data from an electroencephalogram (EEG) on individuals; normal and autism obtained from the Simon Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) database. The accuracy of 99.6% obtained for 90:10 train:test data distribution, while the accuracy of 97.3% was achieved for 70:30 distribution. The result shows that the proposed approach had better autism classification with upgraded efficiency compared to single LSTM network method and potentially giving a significant contribution in neuroscience research

Synthesis and Physicochemical Behaviour of Polyurethane-Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Nanocomposites Based on Renewable Castor Oil Polyols

Polyurethanes (PUs) are high performance materials, with vast industrial and engineering applications. In this research, effects of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) on physicochemical properties of Castor Oil based Polyurethanes (COPUs) were studied. MWCNTs were added in different weight percentages (0% to 1% wt) in a castor oil based polyurethane (COPUs-MWCNTs) nanocomposites. The composition, structure, and morphology of polyurethanes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and element detection by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) analysis, respectively. Thermal stability was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Barrier properties and surface area studies were investigated by nitrogen permeability machine and BET technique. Mechanical properties were calculated by tensile universal testing machine. Results showed well dispersed MWCNTs in polyurethane matrix at different weight percentages. The best results were obtained with 0.3 wt% of MWCNTs in the composite. Surface area studies revealed presence of very few pores which is in a good agreement with barrier permeability, reduced up to ~68% in 1 wt% and ~70% in 0.5 wt% of MWCNTs in polymer matrix, with respect to pure COPUs samples

PM2.5-induced cardiovascular dysregulation in rats is associated with elemental carbon and temperature-resolved carbon subfractions

Abstract Background We tested the hypothesis that cardiovascular responses to PM2.5 exposure will be enhanced in hypertensive rats and linked to specific carbonaceous pollutants in an urban industrial setting. Methods Spontaneously hypertensive rats were exposed by inhalation to concentrated PM2.5 in an industrial area of Dearborn, Michigan, for four consecutive summer days. Blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and HR variability (HRV) metrics (SDNN, RMSSD) were assessed by radiotelemetry and compared to 1 h- and 8 h-averaged fluctuations in PM2.5 composition, with a focus on elemental and organic carbon (EC and OC, respectively), and temperature-resolved subfractions (EC1-EC5, PC (pyrolized carbon), and OC1-OC4), as well as other major and minor PM components. Results Mean HR and BP were increased, while HRV was decreased over 4 days of exposure. Using 1 h averages, EC (1 μg/m3 increase) was associated with increased HR of 11-32 bpm (4-11% increase), 1.2-1.5 ms (22-27%) decreases in SDNN, 3-14 mmHg (1.5-8%) increases in systolic BP, and 5-12 mmHg (4-9%) increases in diastolic BP. By comparison, associations with OC were negligible. Using 8 h averages, EC subfractions were linked with increased heart rate (EC1: 13 bpm; EC2, EC3, PC:  > EC2 > EC3, EC4, PC), but with decreased RMSSD (EC2, EC5 > EC3, EC4). Minimal effects were associated with OC and OC1. Associations between carbon subfractions and BP were negligible. Associations with non-carbonaceous components and trace elements were generally non-significant or of negligible effect size. Conclusions These findings are the first to describe associations between acute cardiovascular responses and thermally resolved carbon subfractions. We report that cardiovascular responses to PM2.5 carbonaceous materials appear to be driven by EC and its EC1 fraction.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115867/1/12989_2014_Article_306.pd

Design and analysis of air cooled radiator

In this work discussed about the problems associated with treatment and disposal of water have become more costly with government regulations and environmental concerns. The objective of the work is to increase the performance of thermic fluid heat exchanger by utilizing the single thermic fluid instead of double fluid presently used in the process industries. Thermic fluid offers outstanding high temperature performance including thermal stability and low vapor pressure. The project design comprises the idea of implementing two 3 way control valves to by – pass the inlet of thermic fluid to the air cooled radiator when the temperature of thermic fluid has increased after cycling through the process. The fluid flow simulation is conducted using commercial software, fluent. The pressure and temperature distribution along the tube length and tube width are presented and analyzed

USING 18O, 2H ISOTOPES TO STUDY THE EFFECT OF FISH LAKE ON SURFACE WATER IN AL-AZEZEYIA, KUT GOVERNORATE, IRAQ

The interaction between surface water represented by Tigers River, Fish Lake, drainage and groundwater was examined in this study. Samples were collected from Al-Azezeyia city for stable isotope (2H and18O). Samplings of water were taken during January – September 2016 during the period of breeding fish. Two samples were taken from a fish lake, three samples from Tigers River and one sample from water drainage. The aim of this research is to assess the interaction of a fish lake on surface water by using isotopic techniques. The values of stable isotopes of 18O range-7.78 – 8.10‰, -7.43 – -8.11‰, -3.2 – 3.3‰ and -6.0 – 6.2‰. The values of Deuterium range -45 – 45.56‰, -46.7 – -45.72‰, -37.87 – 37.98‰ and -28.4 – -29.7‰ in the fish lake, Tigris river, groundwater and water drainage, respectively. The results show there is no effect of interaction between the fish lake and Tigers River due to a short distance between the river and the lakes, lack evaporation effects and high flow rate

Systematic study of incomplete fusion reactions: Role of various entrance channel parameters

263-266The evaporation residues, populated through complete and incomplete fusion processes in the reaction of 18O+ 165Ho, have been analyzed via excitation function measurements at projectile energies ≈ 4-7 MeV/nucleon. The cross-sections measured experimentally have been compared with the predictions of the compound nucleus model code PACE-4 calculations which only considers complete fusion (CF) reaction cross-sections. The experimental cross-section of the reaction residues populated through xn and pxn channels matches well with the theoretical model code PACE-4 predictions. On the other hand, α-emitting channels show an enhancement in the measured cross-section over PACE-4 calculations which reveals the occurrence of incomplete fusion (ICF) at the studied energy range. The relative percentage of incomplete fusion has been calculated from the experimental data and its dependence on various entrance channel parameters like projectile energy, mass-asymmetry, α-Q value and Coulomb factor (ZPZT) has been studied. The strength of incomplete fusion function obtained in the 18O+ 165Ho interaction has been compared with the previously studied systems. Results of the present study indicate that 18O (two neutron excess) projectile shows more incomplete fusion contribution as compared to 12C,13C and 16O projectiles due to its relatively small negative α-Q value

Physical layer secrecy by power splitting and jamming in cooperative multiple relay based on energy harvesting in full-duplex network

In this article, we investigated the secrecy performance of a three-hop relay network system with Power Splitting (PS) and Energy Harvesting (EH). In the presence of one eavesdropper, a signal is transferred from source to destination with the help of a relay. The source signal transmits in full-duplex (FD) mood, jamming the relay transfer signals to the destination. The relay and source employ Time Switching (TS) and Energy Harvesting (EH) techniques to obtain the power from the power beacon. In this study, we compared the Secrecy Rate of two Cooperative Schemes, Amplify and Forward (AF) and Decode and Forward (DF), for both designed systems with the established EH and PS system. The Secrecy Rate was improved by 50.5% in the AF scheme and by 44.2% in the DF scheme between the relay and eavesdropper at 40 m apart for the proposed system in EH and PS. This simulation was performed using the Monto Carlo method in MATLAB