QueRIE: Collaborative Database Exploration

Interactive database exploration is a key task in information mining. However, users who lack SQL expertise or familiarity with the database schema face great difficulties in performing this task. To aid these users, we developed the QueRIE system for personalized query recommendations. QueRIE continuously monitors the user’s querying behavior and finds matching patterns in the system’s query log, in an attempt to identify previous users with similar information needs. Subsequently, QueRIE uses these “similar” users and their queries to recommend queries that the current user may find interesting. In this work we describe an instantiation of the QueRIE framework, where the active user’s session is represented by a set of query fragments. The recorded fragments are used to identify similar query fragments in the previously recorded sessions, which are in turn assembled in potentially interesting queries for the active user. We show through experimentation that the proposed method generates meaningful recommendations on real-life traces from the SkyServer database and propose a scalable design that enables the incremental update of similarities, making real-time computations on large amounts of data feasible. Finally, we compare this fragment-based instantiation with our previously proposed tuple-based instantiation discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach

Effects of vitamin A overdose on rat’s organs involved in immunity and vitamin A storage

Vitamin A overdose is a common occurrence due to food fortification and ingestion of vitamin A supplements. Vitamin A is a nutrient that possesses known and potential effects on general health and the immune response. This research work is an in vivo investigation of the effects of administration of vitamin A above dietary requirements on some organs involved in immunity, vitamin A storage, and metabolism in healthy male rats. A total of 60 young adult male Wistar rats were equally divided into three groups. Rats in the two test groups were orally administered with vitamin A at different concentrations (8000 and 15 000 IU kg−1 body weight) for 21 days, while the control rats did not receive any supplementation. Weekly body weights and weights of the liver, kidney, spleen, and thymus were measured. Histological evaluations were carried out on the liver, kidney, thymus, and Peyer’s patches. Findings show that vitamin A did not significantly affect body and organs’ weights, except for a significant decrease of spleen weights for both experimental groups. Vitamin A was found to lead to some changes in the histology of the tested organs. This is the first study of its kind and sets a base for future studies

Vehicle to Vehicle Communication System for Smart Cities

A Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication system for smart cities is proposed here. The V2V communication system is an advance wireless technology to reduce the number of fatal roadway accidents by providing early warning messages. For development of smart cities V2V and V2R are important to reduce road accidents on highways. It gives ease of access by providing different facilities such as ATM transaction, accidents safety messages to the transport or central unit. Based on a careful analysis of application requirements, an effective protocol can be used, which comprising congestion control policies, service differentiation mechanisms and methods for emergency warning dissemination. The proposed protocol achieves low latency in delivering emergency warnings and use of efficient bandwidth in stressful road scenarios. This system uses WSN for communication between two vehicle modules

Outcome of adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia receiving the MRC UKALL XII protocol: a tertiary care centre experience

Introduction:Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a heterogeneous group of lymphoid neoplasm resulting from the proliferation of malignant lymphoid cells. We aimed to study the outcome of adult Patients with ALL receiving the Medical Research Council UKALL XII protocol. Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted at Aga Khan University Hospital from January 2001 to December 2008. The medical records of all adult Patients were reviewed and analysed for clinical, morphological and immunological features at presentation and impact on treatment outcomes. Multivariate analysis and survival studies were performed using Kaplan-Meier statistics. Results: The total number of Patients was 54, with a male to female ratio of 3.4:1 and a median age of 28 years. Common presenting symptoms were fever (n is 49) and bleeding (n is 14). 38 Patients had haemoglobin less than 10 gms/dl, 21 had white blood cell (WBC) count of 50 x 10E9/L or more, and 35 had lactate dehyrogenase more than 1,000 IU. Morphologically, FAB-L2 was the commonest subtype, with 38 Patients with B-ALL and eight with T-ALL. Multivariate analysis showed that age above 30 years, male gender, WBC count above 50 x 10E9/L and T-ALL subtype were independent risk factors for poor survival. 46 (85 percent) Patients achieved complete remission. The median survival was 12.3 months. At the end of five years, 16 Patients were alive, two were alive with disease and 14 were in complete remission. Conclusion: Overall survival and relapse rates in our study were comparable to those reported internationally

Modelling performance of ocean-thermal energy conversion cycle according to different working fluids

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a promising renewable energy technology with the concept to harness the energy stored at the surface seawater (SSW) and the cold deep seawater (DSW). The operation is based on the Rankine cycle, and involves at a minimum temperature difference of 20 K of the SSW and DSW to generate electricity. This research focuses on the economic efficiency of different working fluids used in the OTEC Rankine cycle. The various working fluids include ammonia, ammonia-water mixture (0.9), propane, R22, R32, R134a, R143a, and R410a. Most of the existing commercial OTEC systems use ammonia as the working medium despite its toxic nature. This study shows that the ammonia-water mixture still gives the best results in terms of heat transfer characteristics because of its greater transport properties and stability compared to other fluids. However, fluids such as propane and R32 can also be used as a substitute for ammonia-water mixture despite having slightly lower efficiency, because they are non-toxic and safer towards the environment. The same developmental model was used to present the proposed modified OTEC Rankine cycle, which shows a 4% increase in thermal cycle efficiency. This study reveals economically efficient and environmentally friendly working fluids

Concept study of microgrid dispatch strategy for solar thermal power plant with thermal storage

Complex grid systems have been gradually replaced by smaller and simpler grid systems called Microgrids. Integration of a solar thermal power generation systems into Microgrids open a new horizon of renewable energy power generation to achieve the supply and demand balance of electricity. Microgrid dispatch strategy is a control method of energy balance between power generation and electricity consumption. A thermal storage integrated into the system buffers the intermittency of solar radiation used as the heat source of the power generation system. The daily starting time for the power generation is determined by the dispatch strategy in search of minimum power from the conventional grid and maximum electricity generation from the solar thermal power generation system. In the simulation stage, the heat energy available for power generation and amount of thermal energy saved in the thermal storage is calculated at each time step using measured solar radiation data as the heat source and load profile data as the consumption required. Based on the simulation result, the power generation starting time for the next day is determined. The effectiveness of the proposed dispatch strategy is demonstrated by obtaining the best starting time and identifying minimum power requiredfrom the conventional grid. The power supply from the conventional grid is reduced by 10% by applying the proposed methodology

Association of AM fungi in important Pteridophytic plants of Maharashtra, India.

Four pteridophytic plants were studied for their Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal association. All tested plants were distributed in Maharashtra state. The result revealed that all the tested pteridophytic plants (viz. Equisetum spp, Marsilea spp, Nephrelepis spp, and Adiantum spp) had AM association in the roots and spore population in the soil. However, maximum root colonization was observed in Equisetum spp (96%) where as minimum was observed in Nephrelepis spp (28%). Equisetum spp (208) showed more spore density where as less in Adiantum spp (27). Total 15 AM fungal species were identified and quantified in which Glomus spp were dominant followed by Acaulospora spp Sclerocystis spp and Gigaspora spp were found less frequently distributed

Utilizing open source software running in inexpensive high performance computing system for cfd applications

The high cost of conducting research is a significant issue for the successfulness of any research project. For research activities involving flow simulation, the licensing fee for the numerical software and the cost to acquire powerful machine are the main factors contributing to the high cost. This paper reports our experiences in setting up a cost effective way of doing computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The actions involve two areas, i.e., software and hardware. For the software, open source softwares are utilized, particularly the OpenFOAM(r) as the CFD package. For the hardware, a parallel computer made from a cluster of inexpensive desktop computer is constructed. This architecture is found able to meet our requirement in investigating various flow problems that include aeroacoustics, vibration and wind engineering for ventilation

Qualitative and Quantitative Characterization of Textile Material by Fourier Transform Infra-Red A Brief Review

Abstract: Difference in the chemical properties of the textile materials is mainly attributed to the presence of different functional groups in their structure. Manufacturing process subjects the material to various treatments like mechanical stretching, bending, twisting, heating etc. They are liable to cause structural changes and therefore characteristics. So, knowledge of scientifically measured characterization of textile material before and after subjecting to various mechanisms of production pattern is needed. Fourier Transform Infra Red spectroscopy (FT-IR) has found preference over other techniques in this regards. It is successfully used in qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of textile substance

Comparative study on energy extraction from vibrating square cylinder

In this paper, the prospect of harvesting energy from flow induced-vibration of a square cylinder is assessed. The extraction of energy from the flow is attained by mounting the square cylinder on a one-degree elastic system with a massdamping (m*ζ) of 2.75. OpenFOAM®, an open source CFD package is used to model the flow induced motion of the square cylinder. A theoretical formulation to estimate the lift force acting on the square cylinder is derived to confirm the results obtained by the simulation. A good agreement between the results is obtained. The amplitude vibration and lift force are then used to estimate the power induced by the oscillating square cylinder. Energy in the micro scale range can be harvested from this flow induced-vibration system. This type of alternative green energy is suitable for the micro energy harvester system required for sensors in many engineering structure for health monitoring purpose