A Systematic Approach to Generate 3D Path Loss Heat Maps for WIFI Indoor Positioning

To estimate the location of an object in an indoor environment, many indoor positioning techniques have been developed in recent decades. The popularity of indoor positioning systems has increased nowadays to enable the implementation of indoor location-based services. WIFI-based fingerprinting is one the most promising techniques to estimate the user or robot’s location in an indoor environment. Fingerprinting-based indoor positioning systems require the laborious task of environmental surveys to generate the fingerprinting database. This calibration process of a fingerprinting database causes the adaptability problem due to the high cost of the survey of the WIFI environment. Researchers have proposed different techniques to minimize the survey cost by means of the automatic generation of a fingerprinting database and its calibration. Most of these techniques only generate 2D path loss heat maps, while ignoring the height information of transmitting and receiving devices. In this paper, a systematic approach is presented to generate 3D path loss heat maps in which height information is also incorporated in the generation of more realistic 3D heat maps. The results show that the proposed technique for 3D environment generation outperformed the existing techniques, and the root mean square error (RMSE) is 2.17. Moreover, the proposed technique generated 3D heat maps effortlessly and its accuracy is almost equivalent to the real maps

Thermal Analysis and Energy Efficiency Improvements in Tunnel Kiln for Sustainable Environment

Kiln is a prime need in the ceramics industry, where energy loss is a major part which consumes about 60% production cost through thermal energy for different applications. Higher density of fired and tunnel kiln refractory material lowers the thermal diffusivity and the proper selection of fired material minimizes the energy loss along the kiln. In particular, this research analysed the results of a heat recovery system comprised of a metallic recuperator which gives around 8% energy savings in natural gas consumption. In this work, detailed power quality analysis of low-power factor motors of a tunnel kiln was carried out and a power factor improvement solution was suggested to save electrical energy with payback period of 0.8 y. The motor operating at a low-power factor consumes more reactive power which does not produce beneficial work. A low-power factor around 0.4 causes network power loss, increases in transformer loss and voltage drops. The solution with accumulative capacitance power of 148.05 uF was installed to achieve the power factor to 0.9. Flu gas analyzer was installed to monitor the range of O2 in pre-heating, oxidation, and firing zones of the kiln which should be ≥8% and 3%, respectively. Regression analysis for thermal energy consumption of a tunnel kiln is done to find the forecast thermal energy consumption. This analysis can be used to find operational efficiency, supporting decisions regarding dependent variable of thermal energy consumption and independent variable of production. This research is very helpful for the ceramics industry to mitigate the energy loss at SMEs as well as in mass production level

Evaluation of Medication Use in Malaysian Predialysis Patients

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients suffer from multiple comorbidities and complications as a cause or consequence of kidney disease. Information regarding medicationprescribing patterns in predialysis patients is sparse. We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the medication prescription patterns among predialysis patients. Medical records (both paper based and computerized) of patients at CKD Resource Centre, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia, were reviewed. A total of 615 eligible cases were included in the study. The mean number of medications prescribed per patient was 8.22 ± 2.81, and medication use was correlated to the renal function (stage 3a < stage 3b < stage 4 < stage 5; P <0.001). The top three prescribed medication groups were found to be lipid-lowering agents, calcium channel blockers, and antiplatelet agents. Some medication classes such as nonaluminum/noncalcium phosphate binders, erythropoietin-stimulating agents, and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockers, particularly in advanced stage, were found to be underutilized. In conclusion, predialysis patients are prescribed a large number of medications. Our findings highlight the need for assessing the impact of current medication-prescribing patterns on morbidity and mortality rates in Malaysian predialysis population

Potential enzyme inhibitor triazoles from aliphatic esters: Synthesis, enzyme inhibition and docking studies

Enzyme inhibitors are vital aspects for studying enzymes and are employed as drugs to treat certain disorders, thus implying pivotal role in drug discovery. In the current study, a series of triazole compounds 4(a-o) were synthesised to explore their inhibitory potential against α-glucosidase and urease enzymes. These derivatives with dichlorophenyl substituents were prepared by cyclization of thiosemicarbazides and their structures were confirmed through spectroanalytical techniques. The in vitro biological screening revealed that the compounds 4a, 4b, 4k, 4l, 4m, 4o having IC50 values of 121.09 ± 1.25, 137.22 ± 0.22, 110.4 ± 2.4, 114.79 ± 1.1, 146.72 ± 1.29, 94.21 ± 0.15 [µM] respectively, exhibited good potential α-glucosidase inhibition, in comparison to Acarbose: IC50 51.23 µM, while the compounds 4a, 4b, 4c, 4k, 4l, having IC50 values of 48.52 ± 0.39, 52.22 ± 1.37, 60.98 ± 0.34, 37.06 ± 0.51, 38.66 ± 1.7 [µM] respectively exhibited good potential for urease inhibition near to standard(Thiourea: IC50 24.14 [µM]). These in vitro findings were accompanied further by molecular docking simulations, which revealed significant binding interactions of the synthesized derivatives within the active sites of the enzymes