38 research outputs found
Erratum to: Treadmill exercise alters ecstasy- induced long- term potentiation disruption in the hippocampus of male rats (Metabolic Brain Disease, (2017), 32, 5, (1603-1607), 10.1007/s11011-017-0046-9)
In the original publication of the article, author name Masoumeh Asadbegi was incorrectly written as Masoumeh Asadbeigi. The authors regret the oversight. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Clinical and radiological characteristics of pediatric patients with COVID-19: focus on imaging findings
Purpose: CT imaging has been a detrimental tool in the diagnosis of COVID-19, but it has not been studied thoroughly in pediatric patients and its role in diagnosing COVID-19. Methods: 27 pediatric patients with COVID-19 pneumonia were included. CT examination and molecular assay tests were performed from all participants. A standard checklist was utilized to extract information, and two radiologists separately reviewed the CT images. Results: The mean age of patients was 4.7 ± 4.16 (mean ± SD) years. Seventeen patients were female, and ten were male. The most common imaging finding was ground-glass opacities followed by consolidations. Seven patients had a single area of involvement, five patients had multiple areas of involvement, and four patients had diffuse involvement. The sensitivity of CT imaging in diagnosing infections was 66.67. Also, some uncommon imaging findings were seen, such as a tree-in-bud and lung collapse. Conclusion: CT imaging shows less involvement in pediatric compared to adult patients, due to pediatric patients having a milder form of the disease. CT imaging also has a lower sensitivity in detecting abnormal lungs compared to adult patients. The most common imaging findings are ground-glass opacities and consolidations, but other non-common imaging findings also exist. © 2020, Japan Radiological Society
Characteristics of phase-change materials containing oxide nano-additives for thermal storage
Comparison of RANS and LES turbulence models for predicting air-coal and oxy-coal combustion behaviours
It is commonly accepted that with existing physical sub-models, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can offer significant insight to the complex combustion systems such as those found in the coal-fired power generation industry. With the growth of computing resources and, in particular, the availability of powerful computer clusters, application of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) emerges as an attractive option in modelling of turbulence combustions in coal-fired furnaces. This paper presents the results from a CFD simulation of the coal combustion processes, under both air-fired and oxy-fired conditions in a 1 MWth industrial combustion test facility. Both Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) and LES approaches have been employed and the results are compared with each other and with experimental measurements. Advantages of the LES underlining its potential for future industrial applications are addressed. It is shown that validation a CFD model that is based on LES requires more detailed experimental data from well-controlled experimental measurements
A NEW ONTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE FOR INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTS: DISABILITY AND REHABILITATION CONTEXT
Social dimension of environment is an important aspect that should be reflected in research works related to studying the interactions
between human and the environment. However, this dimension is usually neglected when representing the environment in
geographic information systems for different applications. For instance, disability as a result of the interaction between human and
environment is influenced by social and physical dimensions of environment. Although, this aspect is highlighted in most conceptual
disability models by defining various taxonomies of the environment, from ontological perspective justifying and connecting social
dimension to the physical dimension of the environment is not clearly determined. Integrating social dimension of the environment
with its physical dimension for disability studies is a challenging task, which is the main objective of the present study. Here, we
review some of the disability models and their perspective about classifying the environment. Then, from ontological perspective,
their limitations are discussed and a new approach for the classification of concepts form the environment is presented. This
approach facilitates and simplifies integration of social dimension in ontologies for more effective assessment of disability issue in
Geographic Information System
Search and rescue optimization algorithm: A new optimization method for solving constrained engineering optimization problems
[EN] A new optimization method namely the Search and Rescue optimization algorithm (SAR) is presented here to solve constrained engineering optimization problems. This metaheuristic algorithm imitates the explorations behavior of humans during search and rescue operations. The e-constrained method is utilized as a constraint-handling technique. Besides, a restart strategy is proposed to avoid local infeasible minima in some complex constrained optimization problems. SAR is applied to solve 18 benchmark constraint functions presented in CEC 2010, 13 benchmark constraint functions, and 7 constrained engineering design problems reported in the specialized literature. The performance of SAR is compared with some state-of-the-art optimization algorithms. According to the statistical comparison results, the performance of SAR is better or highly competitive against the compared algorithms on most of the studied problems.Shabani, A.; Asgarian, B.; Salido, MA.; Asil Gharebaghi, S. (2020). Search and rescue optimization algorithm: A new optimization method for solving constrained engineering optimization problems. Expert Systems with Applications. 161:1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.11369811516
CFD modeling of oxy-coal combustion: Prediction of burnout, volatile and NO precursors release
The devolatilisation step of coal is a vital stage in both air–coal and oxy-coal combustion and there is interest in whether methods of estimating the reaction parameters are similar for both cases. A network pyrolysis model, the FG-DVC (Functional Group-Depolymerisation Vaporisation Cross-linking) code was employed to evaluate the effect of temperature (1273–1773 K) and heating rate (104–106 K/s) on the devolatilisation parameters of two coals of different rank. The products distribution between char and volatiles, and volatiles and NH3/HCN release kinetics were also determined. In order to assess the accuracy of the FG-DVC predictions, the values for nitrogen distribution and devolatilisation kinetics obtained for a temperature of 1273 K and a heating rate of 105 K/s were included as inputs in a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for oxy-coal combustion in an entrained flow reactor (EFR). CFD simulations with the programme default devolatilisation kinetics were performed. The oxygen content in oxy-firing conditions ranged between 21% and 35%, and air-firing conditions were also employed as a reference. The experimental coals burnouts and oxygen concentrations from the EFR experiments were employed to test the accuracy of the CFD model. The temperature profiles, burning rates, char burnout and NO emissions during coal combustion in both air and O2/CO2 atmospheres were predicted. The predictions obtained when using the CFD model with FG-DVC coal devolatilisation kinetics were much closer to the experimental values than the predictions obtained with the ANSYS Fluent (version 12) program default kinetics. The predicted NO emissions under oxy-firing conditions were in good agreement with the experimental values.The present study was carried out with financial support from the Spanish MICINN
(Project PS-120000-2005-2) co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
L.A. and J.R. acknowledge funding from the CSIC JAE program, which was cofinanced
by the European Social Fund, and the Asturias Regional Government (PCTI
program), respectively. MG acknowledges financial support from E.ON UK, and for an
EPSRC Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award. We also thank Dr L Ma for helpful
discussions.Peer reviewe
Treadmill exercise attenuates 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-induced memory impairment through a decrease apoptosis in male rat hippocampus
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) leads to apoptosis in the hippocampus with consequent induction of learning and memory impairment. In this study, we have investigated the effects of treadmill exercise on memory in relation to apoptosis and oxidative stress in the hippocampi of MDMA-treated rats. Male Wistar rats received multiple intraperitoneal (IP) injections of MDMA (10 mg/kg) and exercised for one month on a treadmill (simultaneously or asynchronously with MDMA). We assessed memory function with the Morris water maze (MWM) test. Lipid peroxidation (LPO) and expression of caspase 3, Bax, and Bcl-2 were examined by the thiobarbituric acid assay (TBA) and western blot, respectively. Our results showed that asynchronous treadmill exercise could significantly improve MDMA-induced memory impairment in the MWM test. Caspase 3 expression decreased in the exercise group compared to the MDMA group. Although MDMA treatment caused an increase in the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, the treadmill exercise reduced this ratio. Simultaneous exercise caused a reduction in lipid peroxidation in the hippocampus. This data suggests that treadmill exercise can be a useful strategy for treating memory impairment in persons with neurodegenerative disease and stimulant drug users. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc