The journey of demand responsive transportation: Towards sustainable services

The concept of Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) describes a technology-enabled shared mobility service that has a flexible operating schedule and/or provides virtual stops and/or flexible routes. While these on-demand services are not new, the developments in communication and tracking technology (vehicle positioning systems) have revived these services in the past decade. The benefits of adopting demand responsive transport services for intra-community and FLM travel needs are widely accepted, but there is still a cautious approach towards their implementation due to the failure of many promising demand responsive transport schemes in the past. This article 1) creates an overview of the various on-demand services introduced across the world, to understand the factors that may have contributed to the failure of these services in the past 2) identifies the progress made towards sustainable demand responsive transport ventures through analysis of global case studies 3) provides an overview of the flexibility of vehicle and deployment technologies in the demand responsive transport sphere. A bibliometric analysis, where the top keywords were further categorised using VOSviewer’s default clustering algorithm, highlighted the importance of sustainability in demand responsive transport ventures. By the progress made towards sustainable demand responsive transport ventures, it can be concluded that environmentally sustainable demand responsive transport ventures can be achieved through the adoption of electric and autonomous vehicles for demand responsive transport services, by reducing mileage of the vehicle and/or adjusting the length of route. The study concludes by reviewing existing research gaps regarding performance expectation, and recommending policy and practice implications, based on the case study of the Bus-on-Demand in Dubai, UAE

Predication of soil pH using HSI colour image processing and regression over Guwahati, Assam, India

Soil is known to be the most valuable natural source for all agriculture fields. Soil has two properties, namely- physical and chemical. These properties include soil moisture, texture, etc. and the latter include pH value. Soil texture plays an important role in crop cultivation. The physical properties of soil such as texture and granular size determine the water and nutrient holding capacity. Also the chemical property like pH value is very important for plant growth and development. Soil having pH value between 5.5 and 7 is optimal for agricultural purpose. Hence, a detailed study of soil pH property is necessary for cultivation. But laboratory method of soil pH calculation is a very costly and tedious process. Therefore, it is essential to develop an expert-based system that will overcome this issue. However, the system must be able to give correct result and should match with those conducted in laboratory. Farmers analyze pH either in lab or by soil pH card based on soil image color. But this is not an effective method since it relies heavily on human perception. Hence, we have developed an expert based system which can determine the pH of the soil without any human error. For this, we have conducted our experiments with the help of MatLab tool and smart phone as we have concerned about the rural farmers. We have analyzed and compared the proposed system results with the traditional laboratory methods with regression and have found 86 % accuracy in our model

Indications, outcomes and complications of therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography procedures in a tertiary care centre in North East India

Background: Therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is one of the most complex endoscopic procedures in the management of several pancreatobiliary diseases. There is no comprehensive data available till date about ERCP procedures from North East India. The aim of this study was to review the indications, outcomes and complications of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) procedures in a tertiary care centre of North East India.Methods: We retrospectively analysed the clinical records of all patients undergoing ERCP between July 2011 and November 2019. ERCP was performed under sedation (Midazolam + Pentazocine). Patient’s demographic characters, ERCP indications, outcome and post-ERCP complications were reviewed. Potential important patient and procedure related risk factors for overall post-ERCP complications were investigated.Results: A total 1038 patients were included in the study. Cannulation of the desired duct was successful in 89.2% of ERCPs. Among them male patients were 392 and females were 646. Mean age was 45 years and the age range were 7 to 92 years. Commonest indication was choledocholithiasis followed by malignancy. Overall Success rate was 82.66% with 84.64% in CBD stone and 75.65% in stenting of malignancy. Post ERCP complications developed in 96 patients (9.2%) and pancreatitis was the most common post-ERCP complication. Sedation related complications occurred only in few cases.Conclusions: Despite its associated morbidity and risk of mortality, ERCP is an important method for managing the pancreatic-biliary diseases. Indications, outcomes, and complications of therapeutic ERCPs in our centre are comparable to those reported from other centres

Transformative Effect of Oxygen Plasma to Upshot the Structural and Electrical Properties of Pr0.5Sr0.5MnO3 Manganites

A methodical inquiry of the outcome of oxygen plasma exposure in low bandwidth compounds belonging to the perovskite family Pr1-xSrxMnO3 manganites where x = 0.5, has been presented in this communication by comparing the structural and transport properties of the untreated and plasma treated samples. It is witnessed that the high-temperature transmission is carried out by small polarons while the low-temperature transmission is attributed to variable range polarons. The changes in the transport properties may be attributed to the structural modification due to plasma exposure as revealed by the Rietveld analysis of the X-ray diffraction pattern. Further, oxygen plasma exposure boosts the conductivity due to the integration of oxygen ions in the plasma-exposed samples, thereby rendering them oxygen-rich.Comment: 21 pages, 9 Figures, 3 Table

Athermal GES-based solar plasma stability with sphero-logabarotropic special effects

A model formalism for the small-scale radial fluctuations excitable in the athermal (non-thermal) solar plasma system on the basis of the non-extensive gravito-electrostatic sheath (GES) model fabric is reported. A unique speciality here is that it intercouples the solar interior plasma (SIP) and the solar wind plasma (SWP) gravito-electrostatically via the interfacial diffused solar surface boundary (SSB). The constitutive electrons are thermostatistically framed in the κ-distribution laws via the Tsallis thermostatistics. In contrast, the heavier ions are treated as an inhomogeneous fluid. The turbulent degrees of freedom are accounted through the Larson nonlinear logabarotropic equation of state in curved geometry. A spherically symmetric wave analysis over the perturbed GES structure results in a unique pair of distinct linear dispersion laws (SIP plus SWP) without any typical quasi-classic approximation. A numerical illustrative platform for the dispersion analysis specifically shows that an antikink-type (kink-type) impulsive rarefactive (compressive) propagatory boost due to irregular dispersion is experienced by the fluctuations at the heliospheric core (photospheric SSB). We see that the thermostatistical parameter (Tsallis power-law tail index κ) acts as a unique form of acceleration agency for both the SIP and SWP instabilities to proliferate. At the last, the explorative semi-analytic results are contextually compared with the realistic domains of the collective excitation of the helioseismic waves and SSB oscillations

Growth Performance of Low Chilling Varieties of Apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) under the Influence of Different Nutrient Levels in Assam, India

The present investigation was undertaken to evaluate the growth characters and leaf nutrient content of low-chilling apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) under the effect of different nutrient levels in Assam. Three low-chilling varieties viz. HRMN-99, Dorsett Golden and Anna were grown for this purpose subjected to different nutrients levels comprising of FYM applied alone or in combination with NPK doses. Obtained results revealed that HRMN-99 registered the highest significant plant height (179.76 cm), stem girth (9.91 cm), leaf area (63.34 cm2) and leaf area index (2.42) at the end of season. Amongst various nutrient levels, the application of 5 kg FYM+ 150 g urea+ 210g SSP+ 120 g MOP/plants showed superior performance in terms of plant height (192.03 cm), stem girth (11.30 cm), number of branches (17.25), leaf area (69.38 cm2) and leaf area index (2.61). Analysis of leaf nutritional status revealed that the variety HRMN-99 and nutrient application of 5 kg FYM+ 150 g urea+ 210g SSP+ 120 g MOP/plants showed impressive results in terms of leaf N, P, K, Ca and Mg. Thus, the variety HRMN-99 at nutrient level of 5 kg FYM+ 150 g urea+ 210g SSP+ 120 g MOP/plant proved to be promising for apple cultivation under Assam condition

Морфологічні та електричні характеристики SiNWs, синтезованих методом безелектричного хімічного травлення за допомогою металів

Кремнієві нанодроти (SiNWs) синтезували, застосовуючи двоступеневий метод безелектричного хімічного травлення за допомогою металів (EMACE), беручи срібло як металевий каталізатор. Вплив концентрації AgNO3 на ріст SiNWs вивчали з використанням скануючих електронно-мікроскопічних зображень SiNWs. Підтвердження кремнієвого матеріалу було здійснено за допомогою рентгенівської дифракції (XRD) та енергодисперсійного рентгенівського (EDS) спектра SiNWs. Як було виявлено, оптимальна концентрація, необхідна для росту SiNWs, становила 20 і 25 мМ розчину AgNO3. Як очікувалося, вольт-амперні характеристичні криві для SiNWs показують діодні характеристики з утворенням випрямляючого переходу. Струм, отриманий в області зворотного зміщення, є дуже низьким, порядку 10 – 7, для SiNWs, синтезованих з використанням 20 мМ AgNO3 порівняно з використанням 25 мМ AgNO3, що пояснює його перевагу в застосуванні фотодіодів надмалих розмірів з високою чутливістю. Тому дана дослідницька робота показує різноманітність застосувань SiNWs в електротехніці, оптоелектроніці, а також в датчиках завдяки дуже хорошій електропровідності та діодним характеристикам.Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) were synthesized by following two-step electroless metal-assisted chemical etching method (EMACE) by taking silver as the metal catalyst. The effect of AgNO3 concentration on the growth of SiNWs was studied with the help of scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of SiNWs. The confirmation of the Si material was done with the help of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDS) spectrum of SiNWs. As studied the optimum concentration required for the growth of SiNWs was 20 and 25 mM of AgNO3 solution. The I-V characteristics curves for SiNWs show diode characteristics as expected with the formation of a rectifying junction. The current obtained in the reverse biased region is very low of the order of 10 – 7 for SiNWs synthesized by using 20 mM AgNO3 concentration as compared to the using 25 mM AgNO3 prepared SiNWS, which attributes its superiority in the application of ultra-small sized photodiodes with high sensitivity. Therefore, the current research work shows the variety of applications of SiNWs in electrics, optoelectronics as well as in sensors due to their very good electrical conductivity and their diode characteristics

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ABSTRACT Context Hemosuccus pancreaticus is a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The intensity of bleeding ranges from intermittent occult bleeding to massive acute bleeding leading to death. Although most cases can be managed by angioembolization, surgery plays an important role. Case report We report two cases of hemosuccus pancreaticus managed at our institution in the past three years. Both cases occurred associated with acute pancreatitis. A pseudocyst was found in one case. Angioembolization failed in one case and was not tried in the other because of hemodynamic instability. Both cases were successfully managed by surgery. Conclusion Timely intervention, either by embolization or by surgery, can control this potentially life-threatening bleeding. Choice of treatment, surgery or embolization, depends on technological availability and expertise of the practitioner

<i>ViT-SmartAgri</i>: Vision Transformer and Smartphone-Based Plant Disease Detection for Smart Agriculture

Invading pests and diseases always degrade the quality and quantity of plants. Early and accurate identification of plant diseases is critical for plant health and growth. This work proposes a smartphone-based solution using a Vision Transformer (ViT) model for identifying healthy plants and unhealthy plants with diseases. The collected dataset of tomato leaves was used to collectively train Vision Transformer and Inception V3-based deep learning (DL) models to differentiate healthy and diseased plants. These models detected 10 different tomato disease classes from the dataset containing 10,010 images. The performance of the two DL models was compared. This work also presents a smartphone-based application (Android App) using a ViT-based model, which works on the basis of the self-attention mechanism and yielded a better performance (90.99% testing) than Inception V3 in our experimentation. The proposed ViT-SmartAgri is promising and can be implemented on a colossal scale for smart agriculture, thus inspiring future work in this area