Mix Design For Oil-Palm-Boiler Clinker (OPBC) Concrete

An experimental investigation was conducted in mix design for lightweight concrete using Oil-Palm-Boiler Clinker (OPBC) as coarse aggregate. ACI mix design as used for normal weight concrete and mix design methods as used for lightweight concrete were employed to obtain the target compressive strength at 28-day and was found to be lower than the target strength for OPBC concrete. It was confirmed that the above established mix design methods couldn’t be used in this new OPBC concrete. Through trial mixes, the acceptable mix designs of this new concrete were obtained. The properties obtained from the acceptable mix designs were slumps of 40 to 100mm, demoulded densities of 1845 to 1980 kg/m3 and the 28-day compressive strengths of 27 to 35MPa.Keywords: Oil-Palm-Boiler Clinker (OPBC), Solid Waste, Mix Design, Lightweight Concrete, Compressive Strengt

Using a Markov simulation model to assess the impact of changing trends in coronary heart disease incidence on requirements for coronary artery revascularization procedures in Western Australia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The population incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) has been declining in Australia and many other countries. This decline has been due to reduced population levels of risk factors for CHD and improved medical care for those at higher risk of CHD. However, there are signs that there may be a slowing down or even reversal in the decline of CHD incidence due to the 'obesity epidemic' and other factors and this will have implications for the requirements for surgical treatments for those with CHD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using a validated Markov simulation model applied to the population of Western Australia, different CHD incidence trend scenarios were developed to explore the effect of changing CHD incidence on requirements for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), together known as coronary artery revascularization procedures (CARPs).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The most dominant component of CHD incidence is the risk of CHD hospital admission for those with no history of CHD and if this risk leveled off and the trends in all other risks continued unchanged, then the projected numbers of CABGs and PCIs are only minimally changed. Further, the changes in the projected numbers remained small even when this risk was increased by 20 percent (although it is an unlikely scenario). However, when the other CHD incidence components that had also been declining, namely, the risk of CABG and that of CHD death for those with no history of CHD, were also projected to level off as these were declining in 1998-2000 and the risk of PCI for those with no history of CHD (which was already increasing) was projected to further increase by 5 percent, it had a substantial effect on the projected numbers of CARPs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There needs to be dramatic changes to several CHD incidence components before it has a substantial impact on the projected requirements for CARPs. Continued monitoring of CHD incidence and also the mix of initial presentation of CHD incidence is required in order to understand changes to future CARP requirements.</p

SHOPPING MALL AIR DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

The objective to design Heating, Ventilation &amp; Air conditioning (HVAC) system for a commercial Building, with simultaneously controls its temperature, humidity, cleanliness, proper distribution, noise level, heat load calculation, fresh air, exhaust, duct design, pipe design, equipment selection and layout of accessories such as indoor and outdoor unit of the project. Cooling load will be calculated on E20 form. Indeed, today the emphasis is no more on understanding air conditioning ‘products’ but on creating ‘solutions’ and not just solutions, but ‘customized solutions’ that suit specific cooling needs of specific business and establishment

Methodological problem with comparing increases in different measures of body weight

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A number of studies have compared proportional increases over time in waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI). However this method is flawed. Here, we explain why comparisons of WC and BMI must take into account the relationship between them. We used data from two cross-sectional US surveys (NHANES 1988-94 and 2005-06), and calculated the percentage change in the average BMI and the average WC between the two surveys, comparing the results with a regression analysis of changes in WC relative to BMI.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The crude percentage change in BMI (5.8%) was marginally greater than for WC (5.1%). But these percentages cannot be directly compared, as the relationship between the measures is described by a regression equation with an intercept term that does not equal zero. The coefficient of time from the regression equation will determine whether or not WC is on average larger for a given BMI at the second compared with the first time point.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Differences in the percentage change in WC and the percentage change in BMI cannot be usefully directly compared. Comparisons of increases in the two measures must account for the relationship between them as described by the regression equation.</p

Frequency and outcome of thrombocytopenia in neonates who are at risk of developing thrombocytopenia - a prospective observational study

Thrombocytopenia is the commonest hematological abnormality encountered in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This prospective, observational study was conducted among 78 consecutive at-risk neonates admitted in NICU, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka from September 2016 to August 2017. Platelet count was measured in all at risk neonates at enrollment and less than 1,50,000/cmm was consiered as the cut off point for determining thrombocytopenia. Platelet count was measured every alternate day till discharge or normalisation of platelet count if the initial platelet count was low. If initial platelet count revealed normal, then the babies were followed up clinically if they develop any further risk condition for developing thrombocytopenia. During the period from enrollment to discharge, if any baby develops thrombocytopenia at any time then baby was defined as thrombocytopenic. Overall 39.7%patients found to be thrombocytopenic among 78 at-risk neonates. Pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH), neonatal sepsis and small for gestational age (SGA), intra uterine growth restriction(IUGR), prematurity, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) were significantly associated with thrombocytopenia. Sepsis and NEC were found to be independent risk factor for thrombocytopenia. Regarding outcome, length of hospital stay was significantly more in thrombocytopenic patients than non-thrombocytopenic patients. Death rate was also higher in thrombocytopenic patients in comparison to non-thrombocytopenic patients. BSMMU J 2022; 15(2): 115-12

What has been missed for predicting human attention in viewing driving clips?

Recent research progress on the topic of human visual attention allocation in scene perception and its simulation is based mainly on studies with static images. However, natural vision requires us to extract visual information that constantly changes due to egocentric movements or dynamics of the world. It is unclear to what extent spatio-temporal regularity, an inherent regularity in dynamic vision, affects human gaze distribution and saliency computation in visual attention models. In this free-viewing eye-tracking study we manipulated the spatio-temporal regularity of traffic videos by presenting them in normal video sequence, reversed video sequence, normal frame sequence, and randomised frame sequence. The recorded human gaze allocation was then used as the ‘ground truth’ to examine the predictive ability of a number of state-of-the-art visual attention models. The analysis revealed high inter-observer agreement across individual human observers, but all the tested attention models performed significantly worse than humans. The inferior predictability of the models was evident from indistinguishable gaze prediction irrespective of stimuli presentation sequence, and weak central fixation bias. Our findings suggest that a realistic visual attention model for the processing of dynamic scenes should incorporate human visual sensitivity with spatio-temporal regularity and central fixation bias

Clinical Experience with Insulin Detemir: Results from the Bangladesh Cohort of Global A 1 chieve Study

Abstract Objective: To present results from the Bangladesh cohort of the A 1 chieve study receiving insulin detemir (Levemir) ± oral anti diabetic drugs. Methods: Out of 1093 patients recruited from 49 sites in Bangladesh, 370 were initiated on insulin detemir (Levemir).Study visits were defined as baseline, interim (around 12 weeks from baseline) and final (around 24 weeks from baseline) visit. Results: Glycaemic control was poor in all the groups at baseline. In the entire cohort at 24 weeks, significant reductions from baseline were observed in mean HbA 1c (from 10.0 % to 7.2%, p&lt;0.001), FPG (from 10.5 to 6.7 mmol/L, p&lt;0.001) and PPPG (from 15.3 to 8.9 mmol/L, p&lt;0.001) levels. Overall 45.5% of th

What is the role of the film viewer? The effects of narrative comprehension and viewing task on gaze control in film

Film is ubiquitous, but the processes that guide viewers' attention while viewing film narratives are poorly understood. In fact, many film theorists and practitioners disagree on whether the film stimulus (bottom-up) or the viewer (top-down) is more important in determining how we watch movies. Reading research has shown a strong connection between eye movements and comprehension, and scene perception studies have shown strong effects of viewing tasks on eye movements, but such idiosyncratic top-down control of gaze in film would be anathema to the universal control mainstream filmmakers typically aim for. Thus, in two experiments we tested whether the eye movements and comprehension relationship similarly held in a classic film example, the famous opening scene of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (Welles & Zugsmith, Touch of Evil, 1958). Comprehension differences were compared with more volitionally controlled task-based effects on eye movements. To investigate the effects of comprehension on eye movements during film viewing, we manipulated viewers' comprehension by starting participants at different points in a film, and then tracked their eyes. Overall, the manipulation created large differences in comprehension, but only produced modest differences in eye movements. To amplify top-down effects on eye movements, a task manipulation was designed to prioritize peripheral scene features: a map task. This task manipulation created large differences in eye movements when compared to participants freely viewing the clip for comprehension. Thus, to allow for strong, volitional top-down control of eye movements in film, task manipulations need to make features that are important to narrative comprehension irrelevant to the viewing task. The evidence provided by this experimental case study suggests that filmmakers' belief in their ability to create systematic gaze behavior across viewers is confirmed, but that this does not indicate universally similar comprehension of the film narrative