Work strain predictors in construction work

ArticleThe aim of this study was to predict the work strain indicators for construction workers and to work out measures for prevention of strain at work. Subjective and objective research methods were utilized in the research, including survey, work intensity measurements (Borg Scale), work strain index, fatigue index and work ability index determination, objective blood pressure and pulse measurements. Statistical analysis with significance calculations was carried out. The limitation of this study is the small number of subjects involved in the research. Subjective evaluation of fatigue index and strain index resulted in moderate and somewhat hard work heaviness categories accordingly to Borg Scale. Measurements of heart rate, blood pressure approved work strain of employees of both professions does not exceed the admissible heart rate limit during physical load. The research proved that the strongest work strain predictors were connected with psycho-social risks rather than with physical ones

A Faster Routing Scheme for Stationary Wireless Sensor Networks - A Hybrid Approach

A wireless sensor network consists of light-weight, low power, small size sensor nodes. Routing in wireless sensor networks is a demanding task. This demand has led to a number of routing protocols which efficiently utilize the limited resources available at the sensor nodes. Most of these protocols are either based on single hop routing or multi hop routing and typically find the minimum energy path without addressing other issues such as time delay in delivering a packet, load balancing, and redundancy of data. Response time is very critical in environment monitoring sensor networks where typically the sensors are stationary and transmit data to a base station or a sink node. In this paper a faster load balancing routing protocol based on location with a hybrid approach is proposed.Comment: 10 page

Predicting Rising Follower Counts on Twitter Using Profile Information

When evaluating the cause of one's popularity on Twitter, one thing is considered to be the main driver: Many tweets. There is debate about the kind of tweet one should publish, but little beyond tweets. Of particular interest is the information provided by each Twitter user's profile page. One of the features are the given names on those profiles. Studies on psychology and economics identified correlations of the first name to, e.g., one's school marks or chances of getting a job interview in the US. Therefore, we are interested in the influence of those profile information on the follower count. We addressed this question by analyzing the profiles of about 6 Million Twitter users. All profiles are separated into three groups: Users that have a first name, English words, or neither of both in their name field. The assumption is that names and words influence the discoverability of a user and subsequently his/her follower count. We propose a classifier that labels users who will increase their follower count within a month by applying different models based on the user's group. The classifiers are evaluated with the area under the receiver operator curve score and achieves a score above 0.800.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 8 tables, WebSci '17, June 25--28, 2017, Troy, NY, US

Augmented Reality Based 3D Furniture Shopping

The main aim of the paper is to present an Augmented Reality application for 3D furniture, with a particular emphasis on the development of an android application that provides a realistic view of an augmented reality 3D furniture target object in the real-world. This app for Android would overlay a virtual environment on top of the user's real world.  AR makes real-world data and presents it in an immersive manner, making the virtual section feel like it belongs in the real world. AR is commonly used in online shopping, and the 3D visualization allows any furniture piece to be configured. Results shows that, users can customize and combine their favorite furniture products, enhancing their shopping experience. This elevates the shopping experience to a new level. This application allows users to see and experience the object in their current environment before buying from a shop, and customers can visualize the furniture model in a real-world setting

The acute effect of different intensity aerobic and resistance training exercise on the body image in adult women

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the acute effect of different intensity aerobic (AE) and resistance training (RT) exercises on BI in adult women. Participants were 62 adult women (19.47 ± 2.53 yr., range 18 a 33 yr.), who were randomly assigned to three sessions of either: 1) Control group, 2) Low-intensity AE, 3) High-intensity AE, 4) Low-intensity RT, or 5) High-intensity RT. Before and immediately following each experimental intervention, BI, body weight, and arm and leg circumferences were measured. Three familiarization sessions were performed every 7 days before the AE and RT experimental interventions. Also, 5-RM tests were performed one week before the RT experimental interventions. Data were analyzed using mixed 3-way ANOVA, mixed 4-way ANOVA, and post-hoc analysis. An acute effect of RT on BI was observed, regardless of the exercise intensity, women felt more muscular immediately following the RT session. Regardless of the exercise intensity, 30-min of acute RT exercise changed BI perception, contrary to 30 min AE

Performance of peat biofilters treating ethyl acetate and toluene mixtures under non-steady-state conditions

[Abstract] This paper presents the response of peat biofilters to loading changes corresponding to industrial practices such as overnight and weekend shutdowns, intermittent emission or inlet concentration peaks. Three laboratory-scale reactors fed with air contaminated with ethyl acetate, toluene or a 1:1 mixture of ethyl acetate and toluene were operated under 65 g m-3 h-1 inlet load and 60 s EBRT during 16 h/day, 5 days/week. Dynamic behavior after feed resumption after night and weekend closures showed a 1-2 h period of transient response to recover stable CO2 production values. No increase in VOC emission was observed, except for biofilters treating toluene for which a transient peak in VOC emission during 4-8 h after weekend closures was detected. More stressful conditions such as intermittent emissions (2 h-on/ 2 h-off, 16 h/day, 5 days/week), or inlet concentration peaks (40-min, 50% increase) were successfully handled in the biofilter treating only ethyl acetate; but deterioration in the operation was observed in presence of toluene. The system performance after 15-days starvation period was fully recovered in less than 8 h of re-acclimation period. Living and dead cells monitoring results are also presented

Removal of a mixture of oxygenated VOCs in a biotrickling filter

[Abstract] Laboratory scale-studies on the biodegradation of a 1:1:1 wt mixture of three oxygenated volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ethanol, ethyl acetate and methyl-ethyl ketone (MEK) in a biotrickling filter were carried out using two identically sized columns, filled with different polypropylene rings. The reactors were seeded with a two-month preconditioned culture from activated sludge. The performance of the biotrickling filters was examined for a continuous period of 4 months at VOC concentration from 125 mg-C/m3 to 550 mg-C/m3 and at gas flow rates of around 1.0 m3/h, 2.0 m3/h and 4.6 m3/h, which correspond to gas empty bed residence times (EBRT) of 68 s, 33 s and 16 s, respectively. Similar performance was obtained for both supports. Intermittent flow rate of trickling liquid was shown as beneficial to improve the removal efficiency of the system. A stratification in the substrate consumption was observed from gas composition profiles, with MEK % in the emission greater than 78%. Continuous VOC feeding resulted in an excessive accumulation of biomass and high pressure drop was developed in less than 20-30 days of operation. Intermittent VOC loading with night and weekend feed cut-off periods passing dried air, but without water addition, was shown as a successful operational mode to control the biofilm thickness. In this case, operation at high inlet loads was extended for more than 50 days maintaining high removal efficiencies and low pressure drops

Quorum quenching activity of lysates from bioluminescent bacteria isolated from selected Philippine marine and freshwater organisms

Pathogens use cell density dependent gene expression known as Quorum Sensing (QS) to launch virulent factors. Targeting the QS circuit without killing the pathogens is a very promising alternative to using antibiotics which generate antibiotic resistance. The identity and diversity of bioluminescent bacteria associated with Philippine aquatic organisms, and their potential as sources of anti-QS or quorum quenching (QQ) molecules remain unknown. In this study, out of 43 organisms, 30 were observed to harbor bioluminescent bacteria with 26 from marine and four from freshwater sources. Purified bioluminescent bacterial cultures were screened for QQ activity using motility assay and the membrane fractions (MF) of 5 isolates from marine organisms namely Johnius sp. (croaker), Sillago sp. (golden-lined sillago), Variola louti (yellow-edged lyretail), Strombus variabilis (variable conch), Cistopus indicus (octopus), and one from a freshwater host, Chanos chanos (milkfish), inhibited the QS-mediated swarming of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain NSRI based on statistical analysis using Paired t-test and Univariate Analysis of Variance (p \u3c 0.05). Despite the host differences, the bacterial isolates shared evolutionary relationship with commonly known bioluminescent genera based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis with five strains belonging to the genus Photobacterium (P. leiognathi and P. mandapamensis, 99-100% identity), and two to the genus Vibrio (V. harveyi and V. campbellii, with 99% identity)

Engineering of III-Nitride Semiconductors on Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics

This work presents results in the feld of advanced substrate solutions in order to achieve high crystalline quality group-III nitrides based heterostructures for high frequency and power devices or for sensor applications. With that objective, Low Temperature Co-fred Ceramics has been used, as a noncrystalline substrate. Structures like these have never been developed before, and for economic reasons will represent a groundbreaking material in these felds of Electronic. In this sense, the report presents the characterization through various techniques of three series of specimens where GaN was deposited on this ceramic composite, using diferent bufer layers, and a singular metal-organic chemical vapor deposition related technique for low temperature deposition. Other single crystalline ceramic-based templates were also utilized as substrate materials, for comparison purposes