An approximate dynamic programming approach to food security of communities following hazards

Food security can be threatened by extreme natural hazard events for households of all social classes within a community. To address food security issues following a natural disaster, the recovery of several elements of the built environment within a community, including its building portfolio, must be considered. Building portfolio restoration is one of the most challenging elements of recovery owing to the complexity and dimensionality of the problem. This study introduces a stochastic scheduling algorithm for the identification of optimal building portfolio recovery strategies. The proposed approach provides a computationally tractable formulation to manage multi-state, large-scale infrastructure systems. A testbed community modeled after Gilroy, California, is used to illustrate how the proposed approach can be implemented efficiently and accurately to find the near-optimal decisions related to building recovery following a severe earthquake.Comment: As opposed to the preemptive scheduling problem, which was addressed in multiple works by us, we deal with a non-preemptive stochastic scheduling problem in this work. Submitted to 13th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP13 Seoul, South Korea, May 26-30, 201

Image Outlier filtering (IOF) : A Machine learning based DWT optimization Approach

In this paper an image outlier technique, which is a hybrid model called SVM regression based DWT optimization have been introduced. Outlier filtering of RGB image is using the DWT model such as Optimal-HAAR wavelet changeover (OHC), which optimized by the Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) . The LS-SVM regression predicts hyper coefficients obtained by using QPSO model. The mathematical models are discussed in brief in this paper: (i) OHC which results in better performance and reduces the complexity resulting in (Optimized FHT). (ii) QPSO by replacing the least good particle with the new best obtained particle resulting in 201C;Optimized Least Significant Particle based QPSO201D; (OLSP-QPSO). On comparing the proposed cross model of optimizing DWT by LS-SVM to perform oulier filtering with linear and nonlinear noise removal standards

Immunomodulatory Effects of Resolvin D2 in a Model of Infection

Dysregulated hyperinflammatory host immune response to underlying bacterial infections is a characteristic of sepsis. In sepsis, bacteria often trigger abnormal hyperinflammatory responses which can cause multiple organ failure and if sustained can lead to an immunosuppressive phase where the host is susceptible to secondary infections caused by opportunistic bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa). In our studies, we used a 2-hit model of cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) followed by P. aeruginosa secondary lung infection to investigate cellular and molecular mechanisms in the beneficial action of resolvin D2 (RvD2). Resolvins of the D-series are a group of fatty acids known as Specialized Pro-resolving Mediators (SPMs), synthesized endogenously from docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) by different immune cells including neutrophils and macrophages during infection and inflammation. In CLP sepsis, we observed that production of RvD2 in spleens had returned to basal levels by 48 hours after CLP surgery. Administering RvD2 (100 ng/mouse, i.v.) in CLP mice at this time point where endogenous RvD2 synthesis is low enabled CLP mice to clear blood bacteria more efficiently at 24 hours after administration compared to saline controls. There was no significant difference in plasma cytokine production. To further understand cellular and molecular mechanisms, we used flow cytometry to identify different immune cells in spleen and found that RvD2 treatment increased splenic neutrophils (Ly6G+) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs: CD11b+ Ly6G+ Ly6C+) compared to vehicle treated mice. RvD2 treatment increased oxidative burst in splenic neutrophils but not in splenic MDSCs compared to vehicle treated mice. These results provide evidence that RvD2 can expand splenic neutrophil and MDSC numbers to effect greater blood bacterial clearance even when given 48 hours after primary infection. When mice were challenged with P. aeruginosa (intranasally; 24 h after RvD2 treatment) we found that RvD2 increased bacterial clearance in lungs, increased alveolar macrophage numbers and reduced lung IL-23. These results suggest that late RvD2 administration boosted host defense to reduce infection and inflammation. This study provides insight into immunomodulatory effects of RvD2 in a 2-hit infection model of sepsis (Sundarasivarao et al., 2022)

Generative adversarial deep learning in images using Nash equilibrium game theory

A generative adversarial learning (GAL) algorithm is presented to overcome the manipulations that take place in adversarial data and to result in a secured convolutional neural network (CNN). The main objective of the generative algorithm is to make some changes to initial data with positive and negative class labels in testing, hence the CNN results in misclassified data. An adversarial algorithm is used to manipulate the input data that represents the boundaries of learner’s decision-making process. The algorithm generates adversarial modifications to the test dataset using a multiplayer stochastic game approach, without learning how to manipulate the data during training. Then the manipulated data is passed through a CNN for evaluation. The multi-player game consists of an interaction between adversaries which generates manipulations and retrains the model by the learner. The Nash equilibrium game theory (NEGT) is applied to Canadian Institute for Advance Research (CIFAR) dataset. This was done to produce a secure CNN output that is more robust to adversarial data manipulations. The experimental results show that proposed NEGT-GAL achieved a grater mean value of 7.92 and takes less wall clock time of 25,243 sec. Therefore, the proposed NEGT-GAL outperforms the compared existing methods and achieves greater performance

Effectiveness of public awareness programme on knowledge and attitude regarding ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users in selected village, Vellore District.

A study to assess the effectiveness of public awareness programme on knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users at selected village, Vellore District. OBJECTIVES 1. To assess the prevalence of tobacco users in the selected village. 2. To identify the factors influencing tobacco use among tobacco users. 3. To assess the pre and post test level of knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. 4. To assess the effectiveness of public awareness programme on knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. 5. To correlate the mean differed knowledge score with attitude score regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. 6. To associate the mean differed knowledge and attitude score with their selected demographic variables Major finding of the study The first objective was to assess the prevalence of tobacco users in the selected village. The findings of the study revealed that out of the total population of the village (1444) around 223(15.5%) people were using one or more types of tobacco products. Among them 191(85.6%) were males and 32(14.4%) were females. Among the total tobacco users, 193(86.5%) were smokers, 78(34.9%) of people were using chewing type of tobacco and 24(10.7%) were using snuff. All forms of tobacco use like smoking, chewing and snuff were more prevalent among males (100%, 65% and 79% respectively). The second objective was to identify the factors influencing tobacco use. The findings of the study showed that, majority 63(63%) were unaware about the adverse effects of tobacco use, 58(58%) were using tobacco because of curiosity, 31(31%) were using tobacco to lift themselves, 28(28%) were using tobacco to get rid of tension and 44(44%) was considering tobacco as an unavoidable thing in their life. With respect to parental factor, 78(78%) had a family history of tobacco use, 67(67%) experienced that their family members were asking about tobacco use and none of them were using tobacco as a revenge to their family. With respect to socio-economic and cultural factors, 56(56%) were encouraged by friends to use tobacco, 89(89%) were not spending money for tobacco because they are getting enough money from job, 94(94%) were not attracted by any tobacco advertisement, 72(72%) were not using tobacco with a purpose to cope up with job workload, 93(93%) were not using tobacco because it is easily available and none of them consider it as an accepted behavior in their culture. The third objective was to assess the pre and post test level of knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. The findings of the study revealed that majority of tobacco users 66(66%) had inadequate knowledge, 34(34%) had moderately adequate knowledge and none of them had adequate knowledge regarding the ill effects of tobacco. The findings of the study revealed that majority, 76(76%) had moderately favorable attitude, 19(19%) had unfavorable attitude and 5(5%) had favorable attitude. Analysis of the post test level of knowledge of the tobacco users revealed that, 13(13.0%) had inadequate knowledge, 30(30.0%) had moderately adequate knowledge and 57(57%) had adequate knowledge regarding the ill effects of tobacco. Analysis of the post test level of attitude of the tobacco users revealed that, 3(3.0%) had unfavorable attitude, 27(27.0%) had moderately favourable attitude and 70(70%) had favourable attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco. The fourth objective was to assess the effectiveness of public awareness programme on knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. When comparing the pre and post test level of knowledge regarding the ill effects of tobacco, the pre-test mean score was 11.07 with S.D 2.96. The post test mean score was 19.19 with S.D 3.34. The mean difference was 8.12 and the calculated‘t’ value was 56.489, which was statistically highly significant at P <0.05 level. This finding was suggestive of effectiveness of public awareness programme. When comparing the pre and post test level of attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco, the pre-test mean score was 29.07 with S.D 5.52. The post test mean score was 39.81 with S.D 5.91. The mean difference was 10.74 and the calculated ‘t’ value was 40.645, which was statistically highly significant at P<0.001. This finding was suggestive of effectiveness of public awareness programme. Hence the null hypotheses NH1 stated in the present study that “there is no significant difference in pre and post test level of knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of tobacco use at p<0.05 level” was rejected. The fifth objective was to correlate the mean differed knowledge score with attitude score regarding the ill effects of tobacco among tobacco users. While analyzing the level of knowledge and attitude of tobacco users, the mean knowledge score was 8.12 with S.D of 1.44 and the mean attitude score was 10.74 with S.D of 2.64. The calculated ‘r’ value was 0.126 at p<0.05, which showed that there was a moderate positive correlation indicating that as knowledge improves there was enhancement in favourable attitude also. Hence the null hypotheses NH2 stated in the present study that “there is no significant relationship between the mean differed knowledge score with attitude score regarding the ill effects of tobacco at p<0.05 level” was rejected. The sixth objective was to associate the mean differed knowledge and attitude score with their selected demographic variables. The study result revealed that none of the demographic variables had shown a statistical significant association with the mean differed knowledge score and attitude score regarding the ill effects of tobacco. Hence the null hypotheses NH3 stated in the present study that “there is no significant association between the mean differed knowledge score and attitude scores and selected demographic variables at p<0.05 level” was accepted

An unusual cause of hemoptysis due to leaking subclavian artery pseudoaneurysm secondary to trauma

Pseudoneurysms of the subclavian artery after blunting thoracic trauma presenting with a complication of hemoptysis are rare, most of which occur early, within days of trauma and represent a challenging surgical problem. Only a few scattered case reports are found in the literature. Here, we present the case of a 36-year-old male, with a history of blunt injury to the chest with right clavicular fracture, a few years back, who presented with cough, hemoptysis and shortness of breath of five days duration. On complete evaluation it was found that these complaints were due to a sub clavian artery pseudo aneurysm in the proximal part, which is compressing on the right upper lobe bronchus and blood leaking into the parenchyma and airways producing the symptoms. He was managed conservatively and stabilized. Later aneurysm resection and anastomosis was done electively. The patient is now asymptomatic and healthy