The prediction of suspended solids of river in forested catchment using artificial neural network

This study presents an artificial neural network (ANN) model that is able to predict suspended solids concentrations in forested catchment namely Berring River, Kelantan, Malaysia.The network was trained using data collected during a period of 13 days in April 2001. The sampling location was established in the middle section of the river for collecting water samples. The study was carried out for a duration of two weeks in April 2001. The water sample was collected at 60% of the total depth from the river bed for every two hours starting from 6:00 am to 12:00 midnight for the whole duration of the study period. In this study five parameters were selected as input parameter for the network which are turbidity, flow velocity, depth, width, and weather condition of during the sampling period, while suspended solids as desire output. The data fed to the neural network were divided into two set: a training set and testing set. 116 of the data were used in training set and 24 remained as testing set. A network of the model was detected automatically by the network to give good predictions for both training and testing data set. A partitioning method of the connection weights of the network was used to study the relative percentage contribution of each of the input variables. It was found that turbidity and river width gives 73.03% and 24.73% each. The performance of the neural network model was measured by computing the correlation coefficient which gives the value of 0.93. It’s shown that the neural network gives superior predictions. Based on the results of this study, ANN modeling appears to be a promising technique for the prediction of suspended solids. Dynamic Metadata(s

Classification of Cornel Arcus using Texture Features with Bayesian Regulation Back Propagation

The corneal arcus (CA) is an eye problem frequently faced by some group of people. The CA signs indicate the presence of abnormal lipid in blood and can cause  several problems such as  blood pressure, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. This paper presents a comparison of classification of the abnormal eye using a neural network. In order to extract the image features,  the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM)was used. This matrix measures the texture of the image, where the statistical calculation can be used to present the image features. The Bayesian Regulation (BR) algorithm has been proposed, in which this classifier classifies the obtained results better than previous works by other researchers. In this experiment, two classes data-set of the eye image, normal and abnormal images CA are used. The results from this BR classifier demonstrate a sensitivity of 96.1 % and a specificity of 98.6 %. The overall accuracy of this proposed system is 97.6 %. Although this classifier does not obtain 100 % accuracy, however its result is  proven to be able to classify the CA images successfully

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Hubungan Supervisi Kepala Sekolah dengan Kepuasan Kerja Guru Sekolah Dasar

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menguji hubungan antara supervisi kepala sekolah dan kepuasan guru. Sampel berasal dari empat kecamatan di Kabupaten Muara Enim yang diambil dengan rumus Cohran berjumlah 100 orang guru dari 65 Sekolah Dasar. Data dianalisis dengan korelasi momen tangkar dan korelasi ganda. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa ada hubungan positif yang signifikan antara supervisi kepala sekolah dan kepuasan kerja guru. Berdasarkan temuan ini disarankan agar kepala sekolah memelihara hubungan yang harmonis dengan guru-guru, melakukan pertemuan, mengawasi, membimbing secara langsung dalam memecahkan masalah guru yang ada kaitannya dengan tugasnya dalam melaksanakan kegiatan belajar-mengaja

Variable nitrogen sources effect on Xanthomonas campestris ATCC 13915 ability for xanthan production in culture supplemented with pineapple waste

Xanthan gum is widely known as the source for numerous applications, for example, in the food industry, pharmaceuticals, and more recently, in the improvement of oil production. It is used in many industries as this biopolymer's properties meet the industry's needs. However, due to economic constraints, xanthan gum is produced in many industries using continuous fermentation technology. Glucose is the carbon substrate in the commercial manufacture of xanthan, which raises the cost of xanthan synthesis. Using a less expensive substrate, like agricultural waste, is one technique to lower the price of xanthan. Besides, a suitable nitrogen source with optimal concentration is vital to obtain high xanthan production. Therefore, this study emphasises the effect of different nitrogen sources supplemented with liquid pineapple waste in the cultivation medium for high xanthan production. The result shows that the medium supplemented with 12 gL-1 ammonium dihydrogen phosphate successfully produced the highest xanthan production of about 12.5 gL-1. This finding shows an increment of about 60% from the original medium used in xanthan production using Xanthomonas campestris ATCC 13951 in submerged cultivation

Effect of growth times on the physical and mechanical properties of hydrophobic and oleophilic silylated bacterial cellulose membranes

Bacterial cellulose is an extracellular natural byproduct of the metabolism of various bacteria. Its physical and mechanical properties were determined by growth period, method of cultivation either static or agitate, fermentation condition and medium. Thispaper presented works done on the effect of culture time on the physical and mechanical properties of silylated bacteria cellulose membranes. Bacterial cellulose (BC) growth under 4, 5, 6 and 7 days had been used as a natural reinforcement material and silane as a hydrophobic coating material. With extended culture time, the tensile strength and tensile modulus were increased linearly as result of more compact structure. Due to hydrophobic properties of silane, the water absorption and thickness swelling improved correspondingly. Contact angle testingusing three different liquid proven the functionality of silane as hydrophobic and oleophilic coating agent. The experimental results suggested that hydropobicand oleophilicsilylatedbacteria cellulose membranes with controlled growth time could be prepared and regarded as a reusable oil spills membrane

Design of welding armrest based on ergonomics analysis: Case study at educational institution In Johor Bahru, Malaysia

© 2006-2018 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). Nowadays, many high technology machines, mechanical devices, and modern mechanical processes exist to create better products and to produce them instantly. The welding process is one of the mechanical processes to produce a product, and it requires the welder to stay in a static posture for long period of time. Due to this problem, the process is seen to be unsafe and unhealthy to the welder. This study focuses on students who perform welding activities in the welding workshop of an educational institution in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The aims of this study were to propose a design to improve the welding process and reduce the ergonomics problem. The study used Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) analysis to analyze the posture of students during the welding process. The RULA analysis and proposed design were performed using CATIA V5R19 software. The results show that the proposed design gave better results which reduced the RULA score from 6 to 2 while the color turned from orange to green (acceptable position)

The use of active melioidosis detect tm in early diagnosis of melioidosis in Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan and Hospital Sultanah Nurzahirah

NTRODUCTION: Melioidosis is endemic in Malaysia and an important cause of sepsis. Current gold standard for diagnosis is by culture method,but its long procedure will delay the treatment leading to hospital-related mortality.Thus,a good rapid test is needed to reduce its mortality burden. Recently, Active Melioidosis Detect (AMD)have been shown to be useful. OBJECTIVES: (1)To measure the sensitivity and specificity of AMD.(2)To study the sensitivity and specificity of early morning urine AMD compared to spot urine AMD. METHOD : A prospective cross-sectional study of clinically suspected melioidosis patients in HTAA and HSNZ from April until December 2018. Blood and urine samples were tested with AMD. Test results were analysed for sensitivity, specificity,positive predictive value and negative predictive value. RESULTS: A total of 89 patients were included in this study.The mean age is 52 years old, and 56.3% were male gender.64% of patients have diabetes mellitus.11 patients have positive blood culture for Bukholderia pseudomallei, 4 of them were tested positive for AMD.3 of them presented with septic shock (3.4%), however none died.The sensitivity of the AMD was 36.4% ([95% CI 12.4 to 68.4]) and the specificity was 66.7% ( [95% CI 46.0 to 82.8]) in all samples, with positive predictive value of 30.7% and negative predictive value of 72%.Blood samples have lower sensitivity of 9.1% ([95% CI 4.8 to 42.9]) with high specificity of 100% ([95% CI 84.5 to 100]). Urine spot samples have higher sensitivity compared to serum and morning urine, with 36.4% ([95%CI 12.4 to 68.4]) and specificity of 88.9% ([95% CI 69.7 to 97.1]). CONCLUSION: From this pilot study, this test requires further evaluation before incorporating as point of care assay

High sensitivity flat SiO2 fibres for medical dosimetry

We describe investigation of a novel undoped flat fibre fabricated for medical radiation dosimetry. Using high energy X-ray beams generated at a potential of 6 MV, comparison has been made of the TL yield of silica flat fibres, TLD-100 chips and Ge-doped silica fibres. The flat fibres provide competitive TL yield to that of TLD-100 chips, being some 100 times that of the Ge-doped fibres. Pt-coated flat fibres have then been used to increase photoelectron production and hence local dose deposition, obtaining significant increase in dose sensitivity over that of undoped flat fibres. Using 250 kVp X-ray beams, the TL yield reveals a progressive linear increase in dose for Pt thicknesses from 20 nm up to 80 nm. The dose enhancement factor (DEF) of (0.0150±0.0003) nm-1 Pt is comparable to that obtained using gold, agreeing at the 1% level with the value expected on the basis of photoelectron generation. Finally, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been employed to characterize the surface oxidation state of the fibre medium. The charge state of Si2p was found to lie on 103.86 eV of binding energy and the atomic percentage obtained from the XPS analysis is 22.41%