Multi-objective genetic algorithms for scheduling of radiotherapy treatments for categorised cancer patients

Abstract. This paper presents a multi-objective optimisation model and algorithms for scheduling of radiotherapy treatments for categorised cancer patients. The model is developed considering real life radiotherapy treatment processes at Arden Cancer Centre, in the UK. The scheduling model considers various real life constraints, such as doctors ’ rota, machine availability, patient’s category, waiting time targets, (i.e., the time when a patient should receive the first treatment fraction), and so on. Two objectives are defined: minimisation of the Average patient’s waiting time and minimisation of Average length of breaches of waiting time targets. Three Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are developed and implemented which treat radiotherapy patient categories, namely emergency, palliative and radical patients in different ways: (1) Standard-GA, which considers all patient categories equally, (2) KB-GA, which has an embedded knowledge on the scheduling of emergency patient category and (3) Weighted-GA, which operates with different weights given to the patient categories. The performance of schedules generated by using the three GAs is compared using the statistical analyses. The results show that KB-GA generated the schedules with best performance considering emergency patients and slightly outperforms the other two GAs when all patient categories are considered simultaneously. KB-GA and Standard-GA generated better performance schedules for emergency and palliative patient

A scheme for content based retrieval of music data in MIDI format

With phenomenal increases in the generation and storage of digital audio data in several applications, there is growing need for organizing audio data in databases and providing users with fast access to desired data. This paper presents a scheme for the content-based query and retrieval of audio data stored in MIDI format. This is based on extraction of melody from the MIDI files and suitably comparing with the melody of the query. The results of retrieval using the proposed algorithm are presented.<br /

Self-medication during COVID-19 outbreak: a cross sectional online survey in Dhaka city

Background: Self-medication is a common practice in Bangladesh as it provides a low-cost alternative for people, which involves inappropriate and injudicious use of medicines treat self-recognized symptoms by the people.Methods: A cross sectional online survey was conducted on 626 citizens by structured questionnaires during COVID-19 outbreak from April to May 2020 in Dhaka city, to observe the prevalence, pattern and sources of self-medication among the respondents with high socio-economic standings and education.Results: The prevalence of self-medication amid the outbreak of COVID-19 was 88.33% and only 179 (28.59%) took medication with doctors’ advice and remaining 447 (71.40%) respondents took the drugs as “self-medication” by other sources. The most frequently used prescription-only drug during the outbreak were ivermectin (77.15%), azithromycin (54.15%), doxycycline (40.25%). The common symptoms for which the respondent took self-medications were fever, throat pain, dry-cough and total 105 (16.77%) respondents took medications without having any symptoms. Almost 355 (85.33%) had taken medication without doing any test for COVID-19. This could be due to unusual distress, caused by high self-awareness of their health and buying capacity of medication.Conclusions: The study revealed the causes of self-medication as news of spread, effects and remedies in media channels, internet; mental stress of lockdown and isolation, insecurity and panic about scarcity of drug and healthcare support. High risks of developing antibiotic resistance, adverse drug reactions and financial loss was predictable with absence of strict regulatory enforcement to protect people and proper utilization resources during COVID-19 outbreak in Dhaka city

Effect of micro-channel geometry on fluid flow and mixing

Understanding the flow fields at the micro-scale is key to developing methods of successfully mixing fluids for micro-scale applications. This paper investigates flow characteristics and mixing efficiency of three different geometries in micro-channels. The geometries of these channels were rectangular with a dimension of; 300 lm wide, 100 lm deep and 50 mm long. In first channel there was no obstacle and in the second channel there were rectangular blocks of dimension 300 lm long and 150 lmwide are placed in the flow fields with every 300 lm distance attaching along the channel wall. In the third geometry, there were 100 lm wide fins with 150_ angle which were placed at a distance of 500 lm apart from each other attached with the wall along the 50 mm channel. Fluent software of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to investigate the flow characteristics within these microfluidic model for three different geometries. A species 2D model was created for three geometries and simulations were run in order to investigate the mixing behavior of two different fluid with viscosity of water (1 mPa s). Models were only built to investigate the effect of geometry, therefore only one fluid with similar viscosity was used in these models. Velocity vector plots were used in the CFD analysis to visualise the fluid flow path. Mass fractions of fluid were used to analyse the mixing efficiency. Two different colours for water were used to simulate the effect of two different fluids. The results showed that the mixing behaviour strongly depended on the channel geometry when other parameters such as fluid inlet velocity, viscosity and pressure of fluids were kept constant. In two geometries lateral pressure and swirling vortexes were developed which provided better mixing results. Creation of swirling vortexes increased diffusion gradients which enhanced diffusive mixing

Screening of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) lines against salinity under field condition

An experiment was undertaken in order to screening wheat genotypes against salinity under field condition with 14 wheat genotypes including 6 check varieties. The genotypes were&nbsp;tested in saline soil where the salinity of the experimental field ranges from 1.5 to 10.3 dS/m during the cropping period. Analysis of variance revealed significant variation among the&nbsp;genotypes for all characters. Phenotypic and Genotypic co-efficient of variation was low for almost all the characters. Phenotypic co-efficient of variation ranged from 8.42 to 23.45 for plant height and yield respectively, while the highest genotypic coefficient of variation (18.90) was observed in yield and lowest (6.83) was found in seed per spike. All of the trait exhibited moderate to high heritability in broad sense (h2b) coupled with a wide range of genetic&nbsp;advance and genetic advance in percentage of mean. Heritability ranged from 37.64`to 91.14 for seed per spike and thousand seed weight respectively. Yield had significant positive&nbsp;correlation with spike length, spikelet per spike, seed per spike, thousand seed weight. On the other hand, yield was found to show a positive relationship with tiller per plant. Tiller per Plant, spikelet per spike, 1000 seed weight were responsible for reduction of yield per plant indirectly. Yield ranged from 1.14 ton/ha to 2.1 ton/ha. The present research work clearly demonstrated that based on field performance considering yield, the genotypes BARI Gom 25 and BARI Gom 26 is best and other some genotypes BAW 1182, BAW 1177 respectively showed their most effective performance on saline soil

Noise based transmitted reference modulation for wireless sensor networks

Recent advances in the underlying technologies of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have led to its use in different applications, from fields as diverse as battlefield applications to temperature control to healthcare. Research in the different aspects of WSNs is therefore in full swing, in both academia and the industry. In the Wireless Ad-hoc Links using robust Noise-based Ultra-wideband Transmission (WALNUT) project, modulation concepts (and relevant MAC protocols) are intended to be explored which allow for robust ad-hoc radio links with radio nodes implemented on a single CMOS chip

Acquaintance, approach and application of pharmacovigilance: questionnaire based study at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Dhaka

Background: Pharmacovigilance is proven as an effective monitoring mechanism for safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products with the assistance of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to avoid undue physical, mental and financial suffering of patients. Thus, this study was conducted to assess awareness of pharmacovigilance among the healthcare service providers to evaluate the acquaintance, approach application (3A) of judicial reporting of ADRs and pharmacovigilance in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Dhaka.Methods: A pre-tested questionnaire-based study was done among the 5th year medical students, interns, doctors and nurses of Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh to assess the overall status of acquaintance (knowledge), approach (attitude) and application (practice) pharmacovigilance. Total 417 questionnaires were distributed and 389 were included as valid, compiled and analysed using SPSS version 25.0.Results: Among the respondents, almost 78% of the nurses responded the right answers and doctors responded the lowest 29% on average. The average percentage of approach and application of pharmacovigilance was low in all the respondent groups. The poorest outcome was observed about reporting an adverse drug reactions (ADR) form by all respondents as 01% to 08%.Conclusions: The overall status of pharmacovigilance in a tertiary teaching hospital was found paradoxically low, that revealed the necessity of much more initiatives at the undergraduate and postgraduate academic curriculum and intensive motivation, training, monitoring should be addressed to ensure the safety of medication, rationality of drug use and accomplish the national pharmacovigilance programs

Mechanical properties of graphene oxide reinforced aluminium matrix composites

In this paper, the properties of powder metallurgy produced samples of GO reinforced aluminium composites were examined. Discs of 20 mm diameter and 0.5 mm thickness were made from pure Al powder of 35 μm particle size and with GO reinforcement at different GO wt% (0.05, 0.1 and 0.2). The mixture of Al/GO powders prepared through liquid infiltration were cold compacted and then sintered. The GO reinforced Al matrix composites were characterised using the scanning e lectron microscope with energy dispersion spectroscopy (SEM/ EDX ) for investigation of the homogeneous dispersion of GO into the matrix. X - ray diffraction (XRD) analysis for crystallographic phase and micro - Raman spectroscopy w as used to identify the phases inside the composite matrix after the sintering process. Micro hardness and the strength values from the produced Al/GO composites were recorded. It is evident from the results obtained that where uniform mixing is achieved, GO reinforced Al composites ca n be produced with similar hardness values as for those produced from rGO reinforced Al composites