Emergence of Major Pandemics: Examining the Use of AI for the Fight Against Covid-19

Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and which is considered today as a global health emergency. Long before this pandemic, several others such as the plague of Athens, the plague of Antonine, the black plague, the Spanish flu, cholera, the Asian flu, AIDS raged, with consequences as fatal, even more serious than covid-19. The emergence of AI over the past ten years has brought it to the forefront of the response to this disease. The objective of this work is to present the significant contribution of AI in the fight against the new coronavirus, comparing it to previous large pandemics. A preliminary search of information related to past pandemics and covid-19 has been carried out. Next, the contribution of AI following the WHO framework for combating pandemics was presented. Finally, the discussion part resulted in the conclusion that if AI had already been fundamentally implemented during the time of the other major pandemics, the damage to human losses would have been less

Determination of the natural radioactivity, elemental composition and geological provenance of sands from Douala in the littoral region of Cameroon using X-ray and γ-ray spectrometry

peer reviewedThis study aimed to determine the concentration of natural radionuclides, the chemical composition, and the geological provenance of sand samples from seven large quarries within the Douala Basin and surrounding locations within the Littoral Region of Cameroon along the Gulf of Guinea. The analyses were undertaken on a total of 24 samples, using both gamma- and X-ray spectrometry techniques. Gamma spectrometric results indicated that the samples from the study area contained amounts of natural radioactivity that are less than the globally agreed safe limits. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry yielded quantitative major, minor, and trace element concentrations that were used in tectonic discrimination diagrams, indicating that these sediments were deposited in a passive margin environment. These concentration and natural radionuclide radioactivity level data provide a reference database for this region of Cameroon as well as for the wider Gulf of Guinea

Multivariate statistical assessment of natural radioactivity and radiological hazards data of cement building materials mainly used in Cameroon

The present study aimed to assess radioactivity level in thirty cement samples from five main cement types manufactured and commonly used in Cameroon using a gamma-ray spectrometric technique based-Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe-6530 model) Canberra coaxial detector. The activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 232 Th, and 40 K in cement samples varied from 9.49 to 33.24, 15.54 to 48.15, and 60.78 to 285.7 Bq kg− 1, respectively. Radiological parameters and hazard indexes such as the Radium equivalent activity, the outdoor and indoor absorbed gamma dose rate, the outdoor and indoor annual effective dose, the outdoor and indoor excess lifetime cancer risk, the annual gonadal dose equivalent, the activity utilization index, the representative level index, the external and internal hazard indexes, and the gamma and alpha indexes were assessed and compared with the recommended standard

Elemental quantification and radioactive characterization of soil from Douala Bassa Area: littoral region of Cameroon using EDXRF and γ-spectrometry technics

The objectives of the present work were to characterize the investigated soil using Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and to evaluate the radioactivity concentration of the primordial radionuclides with gamma-ray spectrometry based High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. Soil characterization using EDXRF in the present study gives an overview of the geological origin or provenience of the investigated area. As a result, the analysed soil samples can be classified chemically as Fe-soil and are illustrative dregs from the Continental margin because of high concentration of Fe (where the concentration of Fe in different soil sample ranged from 14.78% to 22.26 %) in all the investigated samples. The plotting of Al2O3/SiO2 (%) as a function of Fe2O3 and MgO (%) for the eighteen investigated samples points from Douala and a diagram for the tectonic discrimination of sediment provenance evidenced that all soil samples are residue from Passive margins. The observed activity concentration profile of the primordial radionuclides and the calculated radium equivalent activity show that no significant radiological risk can be observed for inhabitance within the study areas. As regard to that, the obtained results of the two analytical techniques can be seen as a baseline data for future investigations about elemental composition and radioactivity background levels in the study area