Analysis of Public Transport System, Hatay Example: Detection of Existing System

Today, with the development of our cities, the population density has increased and therefore many problems have arisen due to the increase of the traffic density in the city and the existing transportation systems which were previously not planned with erroneous technical infrastructure have become unable to answer. Measurements of the decision variables related to the routes, vehicles and passengers are made in order to determine the existing public transport system. These decision variables include the number of vehicles leaving service during the day, the passenger carrying capacity of the vehicles, the starting and ending times of the laps, the length of the public transport line, the number of laps made during the day, the number of passengers per vehicle, and the total number of passengers. By using these variables, the structure of the existing public transportation system is determined. Increasing the quality of public transport services in metropolitan cities and raising the quality of users in more economical conditions is only possible by incorporating business activities into an institutional structure, integrating public transportation enterprises into one and planning and managing them in a unified way. Our aim in this study is to evaluate the existing route structures, vehicle types and travel analyzes in the public transportation system in Hatay Province and evaluate the positive and negative points in the developing urban structure and to transform them into an effective and sustainable structure

Scalable local energy management systems

Commercial buildings have been identified as a major contributor of total global energy consumption. Mechanisms for collecting data about energy consumption patterns within buildings, and their subsequent analysis to support demand estimation (and reduction) remain important research challenges, which have already attracted considerable work. We propose a cloud based energy management system that enables such analysis to scale to both increasing data volumes and number of buildings. We consider both energy consumption and storage to support: (i) flattening the peak demand of commercial building(s); (ii) enable a “cost reduction” mode where the demand of a commercial building is reduced for those hours when a “triad peak” is expected; and (iii) enables a building manager to participate in grid balancing services market by means of demand response. The energy management system is deployed on a cloud infrastructure that adapts the number of computational resources needed to estimate potential demand, and to adaptively run multiple what-if scenarios to choose the most optimum configuration to reduce building energy demand

Sustainable solutions for the construction sector: integration of secondary raw materials in the production cycle of concrete

The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of raw materials and energy and one of the highest contributor to green-houses gases emissions. In order to become more sustainable it needs to reduce the use of both raw materials and energy, thus lim-iting its environmental impact. Developing novel technologies to integrate secondary raw materials (i.e. lightweight recycled aggre-gates and alkali activated “cementless” binders - geopolymers) in the production cycle of concrete is an all-inclusive solution to im-prove both sustainability and cost-efficiency of construction industry. SUS-CON “SUStainable, Innovative and Energy-Efficiency CONcrete, based on the integration of all-waste materials” is an European project (duration 2012-2015), which aim was the inte-gration of secondary raw materials in the production cycle of concrete, thus resulting in innovative, sustainable and cost-effective building solutions. This paper presents the main outcomes related to the successful scaling-up of SUS-CON concrete solutions in traditional production plants. Two European industrial concrete producers have been involved, to design and produce both pre-cast components (blocks and panels) and ready-mixed concrete. Recycled polyurethane foams and mixed plastics were used as aggre-gates, PFA (Pulverized Fuel Ash, a by-product of coal fuelled power plants) and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag, a by-product of iron and steel industries) as binders. Eventually, the installation of SUS-CON concrete solutions on real buildings has been demonstrated, with the construction of three mock-ups located in Europe (Spain, Turkey and Romania

Detecting a Currency's Dominance or Dependence using Foreign Exchange Network Trees

In a system containing a large number of interacting stochastic processes, there will typically be many non-zero correlation coefficients. This makes it difficult to either visualize the system's inter-dependencies, or identify its dominant elements. Such a situation arises in Foreign Exchange (FX) which is the world's biggest market. Here we develop a network analysis of these correlations using Minimum Spanning Trees (MSTs). We show that not only do the MSTs provide a meaningful representation of the global FX dynamics, but they also enable one to determine momentarily dominant and dependent currencies. We find that information about a country's geographical ties emerges from the raw exchange-rate data. Most importantly from a trading perspective, we discuss how to infer which currencies are `in play' during a particular period of time

Investigating the Role of Metoclopramide and Hyoscine-N-Butyl Bromide in Colon Motility

Metoclopramide is a treatment for gastroenteritis accompanied by vomiting. Hyoscine-n-butyl bromide as an anticholinergic agent causes inhibition of the acetylcholine (Ach) by acting on muscarinic receptors. The study aims to ascertain how metoclopramide affects Ach-induced cortical motility and also investigates the effects of metoclopramide alone and in combination with hyoscine-n-butyl bromide drug effects on colon motility. In this study, 1 cm of colon tissue width was cut, 2 cm long strips were made, and both sides of the tissue were secured with surgical silk at both ends of isolated bath tissues of isolated organs with (1g) tension to the suspended instrument that recorded isometric contractions. Tissue fixation is followed by drug addiction: Ach, metoclopramide, and hyoscine-N-butyl bromide. The tissue was treated with metoclopramide and hyoscine-n-butyl bromide and excess Caine for 10 min. The results show changes in colon frequency, peak-to-peak, and amplitude levels for metoclopramide, hyoscine-N-butyl, and metoclopramide and hyoscine. Apaired T-test statistically analyzes the results. Metoclopramide by itself, as well as in combination with hyoscine-n-butyl bromide, increases colon motility and induces Ach release. In addition, an analysis of the physicochemical characteristics of hyoscine-n-butyl bromide and metoclopramide molecules is conducted. The study includes theoretical calculations of electronic parameters for both protonated and unprotonated forms of these molecules in both gaseous and aqueous environments. These results show the potential use of metoclopramide as a therapeutic option for gastroenteritis with vomiting, warranting additional study, and clinical evaluation. The research also reveals hyoscine-n-butyl bromide and metoclopramide’s molecular features by their physicochemical properties

Studying of heart diseases prevalence, distribution and cofactors in Sudanese population

Background: the following study aimed to reveals the heart diseases (HD) prevalence, distribution and co-factors in Sudanese population during June 2014-June 2015 and to answer the questions related to, in Sudan.Methods: The data collected from different hospitals as gender, age, body mass index BMI, smoking habits, residential states, Pathologies, cardiothoracic ratio CCT, symptoms and breathing rate.Results: showed that HD were predominant among male with 56% and peaked among 65-77 year old, most of sample were either obese or overweight   representing 57% or 35% respectively. The common cofactors for HD were the socio-economic, smoking, hypertension and obesity which representing 90%, 75%, 60% and 57% respectively. The heart diseases HD incidence in Khartoum, Aljazeera, White Nile, Red Sea, and West of Sudan was 40%, 25%, 20%, 10% and 5% respectively. The common type of HD was Coronary Arteries, Valves, Myocardial infarction, and Congestive Heart Failure representing 45%, 17%, 23%, and 15% respectively. And signs were Hypertension, Diabetes mellitus, High Cholesterol, breathing rate, edema, palpitation with relative frequencies 9%, 11%, 6%, 12%, 8% and 10% respectively. Patients’ cardiothoracic ratio CTR exceeding normal level (0.5), A significant relationship between CTR and Breathing rate (BR) (R2 = 0.8) fits in CTR=0.02BR+0.2 as well between age and BR (R2) fits in BR=0.21age + 12.84. And all patients had BR exceeding the adult normal range (12-20).Conclusions: HD could be as endemic to increase mortality following the uneasy avoidable cofactors in the nearest future.

Continuous Processing and Efficient in Situ\textit{in Situ} Reaction Monitoring of a Hypervalent Iodine(III) Mediated Cyclopropanation Using Benchtop NMR Spectroscopy

Real-time NMR spectroscopy has proven to be a rapid and an effective monitoring tool to study the hypervalent iodine(III) mediated cyclopropanation. With the ever increasing number of new synthetic methods for carbon−carbon bond formation, the NMR $\textit{in situ}$ monitoring of reactions is becoming a highly desirable enabling method. In this study, we have demonstrated the versatility of benchtop NMR using inline and online real-time monitoring methods to access mutually complementary information for process understanding, and we developed new approaches for real-time monitoring addressing challenges associated with better integration into continuous processes.University of Cambridge (Daphne Jackson Fellowship), iCON through CMAC (Grant ID: RG74817), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Critical Mass grant (Grant ID: EP/K009494K/1), Core Capability grant (Grant ID: EP/K039520/1

A Fuzzy Logic Control Model for the Curing Process of Heat-Activated Coupling of FRP Composites to Alloy Pipes

ABSTRACT A fuzzy control (FLC) approach has been developed to control the curing process of a polymeric laminate used as the bonding material for the heat-activated coupling (HAC) of a fiberglass composite to Cu-Ni alloy pipe. Controlling the temperature of the curing environment is required in order to achieve uniform cure within the bonding prepreg. Without temperature control, the alloy side of the coupling is essentially a heat sink. Therefore, a controlled heat source on the alloy pipe is needed to compensate for the heat sink effect that tends to decrease curing temperatures within the laminate. The simulation results obtained show that the curing process of HAC of a composite-to-alloy pipe is significantly improved with required uniform cure characteristics being obtained through the thickness of the laminate. INTRODUCTION Fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) are materials that have gained increasing usage in engineering applications in the past decade. The curing process of these materials to convert them into structural parts for engineering systems involves heating. The prescribed heating process cures the uncured FRP normally referred to as pre-impregnated (prepreg) laminate. Controlling the temperature of the curing environment is desirable in order to achieve uniform cure within the prepreg laminate with optimum mechanical properties. For such type of systems a fuzzy logic control approach can be employed. Since the experience of the experts directs the control structure, the control system does not need analytical model. Fuzzy logic models, called fuzzy inferenc

In vitro assessment of anti-proliferative effect induced by α-mangostin from Cratoxylum arborescens on HeLa cells

Natural medicinal products possess diverse chemical structures and have been an essential source for drug discovery. Therefore, in this study, α-mangostin (AM) is a plant-derived compound was investigated for the apoptotic effect on human cervical cancer cells (HeLa). The cytotoxic effects of AM on the viability of HeLa and human normal ovarian cell line (SV40) were evaluated by using MTT assay. Results showed that AM inhibited HeLa cells viability at concentration- and time-dependent manner with IC50 value of 24.53 ± 1.48 µM at 24 h. The apoptogenic effects of AM on HeLa were assessed using fluorescence microscopy analysis. The effect of AM on cell proliferation was also studied through clonogenic assay. ROS production evaluation, flow cytometry (cell cycle) analysis, caspases 3/7, 8, and 9 assessment and multiple cytotoxicity assays were conducted to determine the mechanism of cell apoptosis. This was associated with G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and elevation in ROS production. AM induced mitochondrial apoptosis which was confirmed based on the significant increase in the levels of caspases 3/7 and 9 in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the MMP disruption and increased cell permeability, concurrent with cytochrome c release from the mitochondria to the cytosol provided evidence that AM can induce apoptosis via mitochondrial-dependent pathway. AM exerted a remarkable antitumor effect and induced characteristic apoptogenic morphological changes on HeLa cells, which indicates the occurrence of cell death. This study reveals that AM could be a potential antitumor compound on cervical cancer in vitro and can be considered for further cervical cancer preclinical and in vivo testing