A Review on Relationship Between Human Endogenous Retrovirus Groups and Human Diseases

Various factors are involved in the incidence of some diseases like autoimmune, psychiatric and cancerous ones. One of these probable factors is considered as the endogenous retroviruses, for example, proviruses that have been introduced in previous generations in some organisms' genome, and make up over 8% of the human genome. Recent studies have indicated that these factors and their related products (including RNA, cytosolic DNA, and proteins) may affect and also change the host cell function and immune system. This review summarizes the detailed information about the structure, classification, and pathogenesis mechanism of human endogenous retroviruses and their relationship with the autoimmune diseases and some kinds of cancers.

Nanocomposite scaffolds for accelerating chronic wound healing by enhancing angiogenesis

Skin is the body�s first barrier against external pathogens that maintains the homeostasis of the body. Any serious damage to the skin could have an impact on human health and quality of life. Tissue engineering aims to improve the quality of damaged tissue regeneration. One of the most effective treatments for skin tissue regeneration is to improve angiogenesis during the healing period. Over the last decade, there has been an impressive growth of new potential applications for nanobiomaterials in tissue engineering. Various approaches have been developed to improve the rate and quality of the healing process using angiogenic nanomaterials. In this review, we focused on molecular mechanisms and key factors in angiogenesis, the role of nanobiomaterials in angiogenesis, and scaffold-based tissue engineering approaches for accelerated wound healing based on improved angiogenesis.Figure not available: see fulltext

Nanocomposite scaffolds for accelerating chronic wound healing by enhancing angiogenesis

Skin is the body�s first barrier against external pathogens that maintains the homeostasis of the body. Any serious damage to the skin could have an impact on human health and quality of life. Tissue engineering aims to improve the quality of damaged tissue regeneration. One of the most effective treatments for skin tissue regeneration is to improve angiogenesis during the healing period. Over the last decade, there has been an impressive growth of new potential applications for nanobiomaterials in tissue engineering. Various approaches have been developed to improve the rate and quality of the healing process using angiogenic nanomaterials. In this review, we focused on molecular mechanisms and key factors in angiogenesis, the role of nanobiomaterials in angiogenesis, and scaffold-based tissue engineering approaches for accelerated wound healing based on improved angiogenesis.Figure not available: see fulltext

Cost-effective maintenance of railway track geometry : a shift from safety limits to maintenance limits

Railway infrastructure is a complex system which comprises different subsystems. Long life span is one of the important aspects of this prime mode of transport. However, the useful life of its assets is highly dependent on the maintenance and renewal strategy used during the assets’ life cycle. Today’s demands on the railway industry call for increased capacity, including more trains, travelling at higher speeds with higher axle loads. This increased usage results in higher degradation of railway assets and higher maintenance costs. Formerly, railway maintenance procedures were usually planned based on the knowledge and experience of the infrastructure owner. The main goal was to provide a high level of safety, and there was little concern for economic issues. Today, however, the deregulated competitive environment and budget limitations are forcing railway infrastructures to move from safety limits to cost-effective maintenance limits to optimise operation and maintenance procedures. The goal is to make operation and maintenance cost-effective while still meeting high safety standards.One of the main parameters to assure railway safety and comfortable railway service is to maintain high quality of track geometry. Poor quality of track geometry, directly or indirectly, may result in safety problems, speed reduction, traffic disruption, greater maintenance cost and higher degradation rate of the other railway components (e.g. rails, wheels, switches and crossings etc.). The aim of this study is to develop a methodology to optimise track geometry maintenance by specifying cost-effective maintenance limits. The methodology is based on reliability and cost analysis and supports the maintenance decision-making process. The thesis presents a state-of-the-art review of track geometry degradation and maintenance optimisation models. It also includes a case study carried out on the iron ore line in the north of Sweden to analyse the track geometry degradation and discuss possible reasons for the distribution of failures along the track over a year. It describes Trafikverket’s (Swedish Transport Administration) maintenance strategy regarding measuring, reporting on and improving track quality, and it evaluates the efficiency of this strategy. It introduces two new approaches to analyse the geometrical degradation of turnouts due to dynamic forces generated from train traffic. In the first approach, the recorded measurements are adjusted at crossing point and then the relative geometrical degradation of turnouts is evaluated by using two defined parameters, the absolute residual area (ARa) and the maximum settlement (Smax). In the second approach, various geometry parameters are defined to estimate the degradation in each measurement separately. It also discusses optimisation of the track geometry inspection interval with a view to minimising the total ballast maintenance costs per unit traffic load. The proposed model considers inspection time and the maintenance-planning horizon time after inspection and takes into account the costs associated with inspection, tamping and risk of accidents due to poor track quality. Finally, it proposes a cost model to identify the cost-effective maintenance limit for track geometry maintenance. The model considers the actual longitudinal level degradation rates of different track sections as a function of million gross tonnes (MGT) / time and the observed maintenance efficiency.Godkänd; 2013; 20130814 (iman); Tillkännagivande disputation 2013-08-26 Nedanstående person kommer att disputera för avläggande av teknologie doktorsexamen. Namn: Iman Arasteh Khouy Ämne: Drift och underhållsteknik/Operation and Maintenance Avhandling: Cost-Effective Maintenance of Railway Track Geometry A Shift from Safety Limits to Maintenance Limits Opponent: Professor Peter Veit, Institute of Railway Engineering and Transport Economy, Technical University Graz, Austria Ordförande: Professor Uday Kumar, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser, Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Tisdag den 17 september 2013, kl 10.00 Plats: F1031, Luleå tekniska universitet</p

Optimization of track geometry maintenance : a study of track geometry degradation to specify optimal inspection intervals

Railway infrastructure is a complex system which comprises different subsystems. Long useful life span is one of the important aspects of this prime mode of transport. The useful life length of its assets is highly dependent on the maintenance and renewal strategy used during its life cycle. Today’s demands on the railway industry call for increased capacity, including more trains, travelling at higher speeds with higher axle loads. This increased usage will result in higher degradation of railway asset and higher maintenance costs. However, due to the competitive environment and limited budgets, railway infrastructure managers are compelled to optimize operation and maintenance procedures to decrease operation and maintenance costs while meeting high safety standards. To assure track safety and maintain high quality, a cost effective track maintenance strategy is required, one based not only on technical and/or safety limits but also on cost-effective maintenance thresholds. RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) and LCC (Life Cycle Cost) analyses, which are derived from reliable track condition data, provide an approach to specify cost effective maintenance strategy to lessen corrective maintenance actions and downtimes.One of the main parameters to assure railway safety and comfortable railway service is to maintain high quality of track geometry. Poor track geometry quality, directly or indirectly, may result in safety problems, speed reduction, traffic disruption, greater maintenance cost and higher degradation rate of the other railway components (e.g. rails, wheels, switch, crossings etc.). The aim of this study is to develop a methodology to optimize track geometry maintenance by using historical geometry data. The methodology is based on reliability and cost analysis and supports the maintenance decision-making process to identify cost-effective inspection interval. An important phase of track geometry maintenance optimization is to estimate the track degradation rate. Obtaining knowledge about degradation helps to properly schedule maintenance activities such as inspection and tamping.The thesis provides a methodology to identify a cost-effective inspection interval based on track degradation rate and cost drivers. It contains state-of-the-art track geometry maintenance optimization. It describes Trafikverket’s (Swedish Transport Administration) maintenance strategy regarding measurements, reporting on and improving track quality, and it evaluates the efficiency of this strategy. Finally, it includes a case study carried out on the iron ore line in north of Sweden that runs from Boden to Gällivare to evaluate track geometry degradation and analyze the probability distributions of failures. A cost model is developed in order to find optimal inspection interval.Keywords: Track geometry degradation, Track maintenance optimization, Maintenance planning, TampingGodkänd; 2011; 20110516 (iman); LICENTIATSEMINARIUM Ämnesområde: Drift och underhållsteknik/Operation and Maintenance Engineering Examinator: Professor Uday Kumar, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser, Luleå tekniska universitet Diskutant: Adjungerad Professor, Per-Olof Larsson-Kråik, Trafikverket, Luleå Tid: Måndag den 13 juni 2011 kl 10.00 Plats: F1031, Luleå tekniska universitet</p

Från mätdata till underhållsbeslut : hjulslitage och spårkrafter

Denna rapport beskriver resultaten från projektet ”Från mätdata till underhållsbeslut” där avdelningen för drift och underhållsteknik/JVTC vid Luleå tekniska universitet på uppdrag av MTAB följt hjulslitaget på två malmvagnar under ett års tid. Under perioden har vagnarnas rälkrafter registrerats vid JVTC:s forskningsstation i Sävast.Godkänd; 2011; 20131121 (mikpal)</p

Medical Image Segmentation Using Automatic Optimized U-Net Architecture Based on Genetic Algorithm

Image segmentation is a crucial aspect of clinical decision making in medicine, and as such, it has greatly enhanced the sustainability of medical care. Consequently, biomedical image segmentation has become a prominent research area in the field of computer vision. With the advent of deep learning, many manual design-based methods have been proposed and have shown promising results in achieving state-of-the-art performance in biomedical image segmentation. However, these methods often require significant expert knowledge and have an enormous number of parameters, necessitating substantial computational resources. Thus, this paper proposes a new approach called GA-UNet, which employs genetic algorithms to automatically design a U-shape convolution neural network with good performance while minimizing the complexity of its architecture-based parameters, thereby addressing the above challenges. The proposed GA-UNet is evaluated on three datasets: lung image segmentation, cell nuclei segmentation in microscope images (DSB 2018), and liver image segmentation. Interestingly, our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves competitive performance with a smaller architecture and fewer parameters than the original U-Net model. It achieves an accuracy of 98.78% for lung image segmentation, 95.96% for cell nuclei segmentation in microscope images (DSB 2018), and 98.58% for liver image segmentation by using merely 0.24%, 0.48%, and 0.67% of the number of parameters in the original U-Net architecture for the lung image segmentation dataset, the DSB 2018 dataset, and the liver image segmentation dataset, respectively. This reduction in complexity makes our proposed approach, GA-UNet, a more viable option for deployment in resource-limited environments or real-world implementations that demand more efficient and faster inference times

Selection of maintenance strategy, using analytical hierarchy process

Selection of appropriate maintenance strategy is key to economic viability of aviation and manufacturing industries. The study discusses and presents an approach to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate maintenance strategy on the basis of the cost-benefit analysis by using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The goal is to select the most cost-effective alternative, among Run-To-Failure (RTF), Preventive Maintenance (PM), incorporating Prognostic Health Management(PHM) capability, or any possible Design-Out Maintenance (DOM) strategies, which positively affects on aircraft operational availability. In this paper we proposed a stepwise algorithm to guide the selection process, based on two criteria of operational availability (benefit) and cost of failure.Godkänd; 2009; 20090912 (aliahm)</p