Automated Ergonomics Assessment of Material Handling Activities

Manufacturing companies for decades have relied on forklifts as their workhorses for material handling. However, in recent years, productivity, cost and safety concerns have led manufacturing companies to reduce and eliminate the use of forklifts. While there are many alternatives to the traditional forklifts, tugger tow trains deliveries (tuggers) have been the common and the most effective choice for regular material handling activities within manufacturing facilities. Tugger carts are towing vehicles that can be in the form of manned or unmanned systems. The latter is generally classified as automated guided carts and are unsurprisingly more expensive than their counterparts and are still long way from becoming a convincing choice for manufacturing companies. The low profile of these tuggers enable them to tow large loads and have the ability to drop/pickup full and empty carts to/from the respective stations during a single circuit which provides great flexibility in designing the tugger routes. However, these tuggers pose new physical fatigue issues to the material handlers - tugger drivers who previously rarely left their fork trucks. On average a tugger driver will have to walk, lift, pushup and push heavy loads to and from stations between 10 to 60 feet per container. As a result, companies are forced to take into consideration these ergonomic factors when designing tugger routes and their work shift times. This study analyzes these constraints and proposes an automated process in calculating the metabolic energy expenditure of tugger drivers in manufacturing plants using metabolic energy expenditure prediction analysis. The proposed program was run for a simulated sample data created based on literature. The results provide insights about the manual material handlers’ energy expenditure and its variations while performing tasks and while resting, throughout their work shifts. This information can be useful for managers to better balance the material handling jobs among multiple operators and to allow relaxation times for proper recovery which will reduce the possibility of physical fatigue related injuries

Computer-Aided vaccine design for selected positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses

Spontaneous mutations and lack of replication fidelity in positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses (+ssRNA virus) result in emergence of genetic variants with diverse viral morphogenesis and surface proteins that affect its antigenicity. This high mutability in +ssRNA viruses has induced antiviral drug resistance and ability to overcome vaccines that subsequently resulted in rapid viral evolution and high mortality rate in human and livestock. Computer aided vaccine design and immunoinformatics play a crucial role in expediting the vaccine production protocols, antibody production and identifying suitable immunogenic regions or epitopes from the genome sequences of the pathogens. T cell and B cell epitopes can be identified in pathogens by immunoinformatics algorithms and methods that enhance the analysis of protective immunity, vaccine safety, immunity modelling and vaccine efficacy. This rapid and cost-effective computational vaccine design promotes development of potential vaccine that could induce immune response in host against rapidly mutating pathogens like +ssRNA viruses. Epitope-based vaccine is a striking concept that has been widely employed in recent years to construct vaccines targeting rapidly mutating +ssRNA viruses. Therefore, the present review provides an overview about the current progress and methodology in computer-aided vaccine design for the most notable +ssRNA viruses namely Hepatitis C virus, Dengue virus, Chikungunya virus and Coronaviruses. This review also highlights the applications of various immunoinformatics tools for vaccine design and for modelling immune response against +ssRNA viruses

High-Performance Computing for SKA Transient Search: Use of FPGA based Accelerators -- a brief review

This paper presents the High-Performance computing efforts with FPGA for the accelerated pulsar/transient search for the SKA. Case studies are presented from within SKA and pathfinder telescopes highlighting future opportunities. It reviews the scenario that has shifted from offline processing of the radio telescope data to digitizing several hundreds/thousands of antenna outputs over huge bandwidths, forming several 100s of beams, and processing the data in the SKA real-time pulsar search pipelines. A brief account of the different architectures of the accelerators, primarily the new generation Field Programmable Gate Array-based accelerators, showing their critical roles to achieve high-performance computing and in handling the enormous data volume problems of the SKA is presented here. It also presents the power-performance efficiency of this emerging technology and presents potential future scenarios.Comment: Accepted for JoAA, SKA Special issue on SKA (2022

Automated Ergonomics Assessment of Material Handling Activities

Manufacturing companies for decades have relied on forklifts as their workhorses for material handling. However, in recent years, productivity, cost and safety concerns have led manufacturing companies to reduce and eliminate the use of forklifts. While there are many alternatives to the traditional forklifts, tugger tow trains deliveries (tuggers) have been the common and the most effective choice for regular material handling activities within manufacturing facilities. Tugger carts are towing vehicles that can be in the form of manned or unmanned systems. The latter is generally classified as automated guided carts and are unsurprisingly more expensive than their counterparts and are still long way from becoming a convincing choice for manufacturing companies. The low profile of these tuggers enable them to tow large loads and have the ability to drop/pickup full and empty carts to/from the respective stations during a single circuit which provides great flexibility in designing the tugger routes. However, these tuggers pose new physical fatigue issues to the material handlers - tugger drivers who previously rarely left their fork trucks. On average a tugger driver will have to walk, lift, pushup and push heavy loads to and from stations between 10 to 60 feet per container. As a result, companies are forced to take into consideration these ergonomic factors when designing tugger routes and their work shift times. This study analyzes these constraints and proposes an automated process in calculating the metabolic energy expenditure of tugger drivers in manufacturing plants using metabolic energy expenditure prediction analysis. The proposed program was run for a simulated sample data created based on literature. The results provide insights about the manual material handlers’ energy expenditure and its variations while performing tasks and while resting, throughout their work shifts. This information can be useful for managers to better balance the material handling jobs among multiple operators and to allow relaxation times for proper recovery which will reduce the possibility of physical fatigue related injuries.</p

Computer-Aided vaccine design for selected positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses

281-296Spontaneous mutations and lack of replication fidelity in positive-sense single stranded RNA viruses (+ssRNA virus) result in emergence of genetic variants with diverse viral morphogenesis and surface proteins that affect its antigenicity. This high mutability in +ssRNA viruses has induced antiviral drug resistance and ability to overcome vaccines that subsequently resulted in rapid viral evolution and high mortality rate in human and livestock. Computer aided vaccine design and immunoinformatics play a crucial role in expediting the vaccine production protocols, antibody production and identifying suitable immunogenic regions or epitopes from the genome sequences of the pathogens. T cell and B cell epitopes can be identified in pathogens by immunoinformatics algorithms and methods that enhance the analysis of protective immunity, vaccine safety, immunity modelling and vaccine efficacy. This rapid and cost-effective computational vaccine design promotes development of potential vaccine that could induce immune response in host against rapidly mutating pathogens like +ssRNA viruses. Epitope-based vaccine is a striking concept that has been widely employed in recent years to construct vaccines targeting rapidly mutating +ssRNA viruses. Therefore, the present review provides an overview about the current progress and methodology in computeraided vaccine design for the most notable +ssRNA viruses namely Hepatitis C virus, Dengue virus, Chikungunya virus and Coronaviruses. This review also highlights the applications of various immunoinformatics tools for vaccine design and for modelling immune response against +ssRNA viruses

Effect of home-based Tai Chi, Yoga or conventional balance exercise on functional balance and mobility among persons with idiopathic Parkinson\u27s disease: An experimental study

Background and Purpose: Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) invariably experience functional decline in a number of motor and non-motor domains affecting posture, balance and gait. Numerous clinical studies have examined effects of various types of exercise on motor and non-motor problems. But still much gap remains in our understanding of various therapies and its effect on delaying or slowing the dopamine neuron degeneration. Recently Tai Chi and Yoga both are gaining popularity as Complementary Therapies, since both have components for mind and body control. The aim of this study was to determine whether 8 weeks of home-based Tai Chi or Yoga was more effective than regular balance exercises on functional balance and mobility. Methods: Twenty-seven individuals with Idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (Modified Hoehn and Yahr stage 2.5-3) were randomly assigned to either Tai Chi, Yoga or Conventional exercise group. All the participants were evaluated for Functional Balance and Mobility using Berg Balance Scale, Timed Ten Meter Walk test and Timed Up and Go test before and after eight weeks training. Results: The results were analyzed using Two-way mixed ANOVA which showed that there was significant main effect for time as F (1,24)=74.18, p=0.000, ƞ2=0.76 for overall balance in Berg Balance Scale. There was also significant main effect of time on mobility overall as F(1,24)=77.78, p=0.000, ƞ2=0.76 in Timed up and Go test and F(1,24)=48.24, p=0.000, ƞ2=0.67 for Ten Metre walk test. There was significant interaction effect for time × group with F (2,24)=8.67, p=0.001, ƞ2=0.420 for balance. With respect to mobility the values F (2,24)=5.92, p=0.008, ƞ2=0.330 in Timed Up and Go test and F(2,24)=10.40, p=0.001, ƞ2=0.464 in Ten-meter walk test showed a significant interaction. But there was no significant main effect between the groups for both balance and mobility. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggests that Tai Chi as well as Yoga are well adhered and are attractive options for a home-based setting. As any form of physical activity is considered beneficial for individuals with PD either Tai Chi, Yoga or conventional balance exercises could be used as therapeutic intervention to optimize balance and mobility. Further studies are necessary to understand the mind-body benefits of Tai Chi and Yoga either as multicomponent physical activity or as individual therapy in various stages of Parkinson’s Disease

Multi-level scoring approach to discover multi-targeting potency of medicinal plant phytochemicals against protein targets in SARS-CoV-2 and human ACE-2 receptor

1088-1105SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has become a major threat to human healthcare and world economy. Due to the rapid spreading and deadly nature of infection, we are in a situation to develop quick therapeutics to combat SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we have adopted a multi-level scoring approach to identify multi-targeting potency of bioactive compounds in selected medicinal plants and compared its efficacy with two reference drugs, Nafamostat and Acalabrutinib which are under clinical trials to treat SARS-CoV-2. In particular, we employ molecular docking and implicit solvent free energy calculations (as implemented in the Molecular Mechanics -Generalized Born Surface Area approach) and QM fragmentation approach for validating the potency of bioactive compounds from the selected medicinal plants against four different viral targets and one human receptor (Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 -ACE-2) which facilitates the SARS-CoV-2 entry into the cell. The protein targets considered for the study are viral 3CL main protease (3CLpro), papain-like protease (PLpro), RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), and viral spike protein-human hACE-2 complex (Spike:hACE2) including human protein target (hACE-2). Herein, there liable multi-level scoring approach was used to validate the mechanism behind the multi-targeting potency of selected phytochemicals from medicinal plants. The present study evidenced that the phytochemicals Chebulagic acid, Stigmosterol, Repandusinic acid and Geranin exhibited efficient inhibitory activity against PLpro while Chebulagic acid was highly active against 3CLpro. Chebulagic acid and Geranin also showed excellent target specific activity against RdRp. Luteolin, Quercetin, Chrysoeriol and Repandusinic acid inhibited the interaction of viral spike protein with human ACE-2 receptor. Moreover, Piperlonguminine and Piperine displayed significant inhibitory activity against human ACE-2 receptor. Therefore, the identified compounds namely Chebulagic acid, Geranin and Repandusinic acid can serve as potent multi-targeting phytomedicine for treating COVID-19

Acute and chronic effects of carbaryl on survival, growth, and metamorphosis in the bullfrog (Rana tigrina)

The effects of carbaryl (1-naphthalenyl methylcarbamate), an extensively used insecticide in agricultural operations, have been studied on survival, growth, and metamorphosis of the bullfrog tadpole Rana tigrina. The 96 hr LC50 value for tadpoles (0.02 g) was 6.2 mg/L. The tadpoles were reared from hatching to metamorphosis in sublethal concentrations of carbaryl. Rates of feeding, defecation, and excretion increased with increasing concentration of carbaryl but the conversion rate decreased leading to the production of small froglets. The tadpoles exposed to the sublethal concentrations suffered no mortality until the appearance of the forelimb; however, during metamorphosis mortality was significant, even at 2 mg/L