Online telemedicine systems are useful due to the possibility of timely and efficient healthcare services. These systems are based on advanced wireless and wearable sensor technologies. The rapid ...growth in technology has remarkably enhanced the scope of remote health monitoring systems. In this paper, a real-time heart monitoring system is developed considering the cost, ease of application, accuracy, and data security. The system is conceptualized to provide an interface between the doctor and the patients for two-way communication. The main purpose of this study is to facilitate the remote cardiac patients in getting latest healthcare services which might not be possible otherwise due to low doctor-to-patient ratio. The developed monitoring system is then evaluated for 40 individuals (aged between 18 and 66 years) using wearable sensors while holding an Android device (i.e., smartphone under supervision of the experts). The performance analysis shows that the proposed system is reliable and helpful due to high speed. The analyses showed that the proposed system is convenient and reliable and ensures data security at low cost. In addition, the developed system is equipped to generate warning messages to the doctor and patient under critical circumstances.
Like any other organization, it has become essential for the organizations in the construction industry to measure their performance effectively for long-term survival in today’s competitive business ...environment. Therefore, it is imperative for a construction organization to know about various performance measurement factors to evaluate its performance. However, most of the previous studies have focused on identification of factors for measuring performance at the level of projects only. Moreover, the majority of these studies have been undertaken in context to the developed construction markets. The present study addresses these gaps in the literature by identifying critical factors for examining the performance of construction firms at the organizational level. A total of 20 organizational performance attributes were identified and analyzed using a questionnaire survey conducted on 106 respondents among 90 different organizations operating in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India. It was found that attributes such as timely completion, relationship with the client, and satisfaction (in terms of both product and services) carry more weight than the cost performance of a construction organization. In addition to this, factor analysis conducted on the performance attributes of high importance has resulted in six performance factors: (1) profitability and asset management, (2) satisfaction of key stakeholders, (3) predictability of time and cost, (4) environment, health, and safety (EHS), (5) quality consciousness, and (6) low staff turnover. The performance factors obtained from the study may provide useful guidelines to the construction organizations enabling them to examine and improve their performance.
This review offers a hierarchical preview of the emergence of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) and their composites in the biomedical field providing an insight into their essential features. The need ...for coating their surfaces with stabilizers such as polyethylene glycol (PEG) and silica has also been explained. This is required for reducing their agglomeration and appropriate functionalization for final application. A magnetic material for such an application is required to be nanosized, superparamagnetic and biocompatible; all these requisites have been well discussed. Various research conducted on magnetic materials as maghemite, magnetite and ferrite based nanoparticles of Ni, Co, Mn, Zn, Ca and K have been described in detail, along with their composites such as PEG and silica. Folic acid conjugation is done on the coated MNPs as folate receptors are over-expressed on the tumor cells; this makes their targeting efficiency better and precise. In addition, various challenges associated with magnaetic nanoparticles/nanocomposites such as nanoparticle-biomolecule interface, drug loading, drug release properties, blood barrier etc., which inhibit their desired role, have also been described.
•A review of biomedical applications of magnetic nanoparticles is discussed.•Nanosize, superparamagnetism, biocompatibility, surface coatings are described.•Includes relevant research on Iron oxide, ferrites of Ni, Co, Mn, Zn, Ca, K.•Role and need of folic acid conjugation is discussed.•Various challenges and associated problems are explained.
Land use/land cover of the Earth is changing dramatically because of human activities and natural disasters. Information about changes is useful for updating land use/land cover maps for planning and ...management of natural resources. Several methods for land use/land cover change detection using time series Landsat imagery data were employed and discussed. Landsat 5 TM colour composites of 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999 were employed for locating training samples for supervised classification in the coastal areas of Ban Don Bay, Surat Thani, Thailand. This study illustrated an increasing trend of shrimp farms, forest/mangrove and urban areas with a decreasing trend of agricultural and wasteland areas. Land use changes from one category to others have been clearly represented by the NDVI composite images, which were found suitable for delineating the development of shrimp farms and land use changes in Ban Don Bay.
•Constructed wetland (CW) efficiently decreased up to 90% BOD from sewage in 24h.•P. australis, T. latifolia and C. esculenta (HGR) were main components of CW.•CW efficiently removed nutrients and ...metals from sewage.
With aim to develop an efficient and ecofriendly approach for on-site treatment of sewage, a sub-surface flow constructed wetland (CW) has been developed by raising potential aquatic macrophytes; Typha latifolia, Phragmites australis, Colocasia esculenta, Polygonum hydropiper, Alternanthera sessilis and Pistia stratoites in gravel as medium. Sewage treatment potential of CW was evaluated by varying retention time at three different stages of plant growth and stabilization. After 6months, monitoring of fully established CW indicated reduction of 90%, 65%, 78%, 84%, 76% and 86% of BOD, TSS, TDS, NO3–N, PO4–P and NH4–N, respectively in comparison to inlet after 36h of retention time. Sewage treatment through CW also resulted in reduction of heavy metal contents. Thus, CW proved an effective method for treatment of wastewater and may be developed along river Ganga stretch as an alternative technology. Treated water may be drained into river to check further deterioration of Ganga water quality.
Essential oil extracted from the leaves of
Chenopodium ambrosioides Linn. (Chenopodiaceae) was tested against the aflatoxigenic strain of test fungus
Aspergillus flavus Link. The oil completely ...inhibited the mycelial growth at 100 μg/ml. The oil exhibited broad fungitoxic spectrum against
Aspergillus niger,
Aspergillus fumigatus,
Botryodiplodia theobromae,
Fusarium oxysporum,
Sclerotium rolfsii,
Macrophomina phaseolina,
Cladosporium cladosporioides,
Helminthosporium oryzae and
Pythium debaryanum at 100 μg/ml. The oil showed significant efficacy in inhibiting the aflatoxin B1 production by the aflatoxigenic strain of
A. flavus. During
in vivo investigation it protected stored wheat from different storage fungi for one year.
Chenopodium oil also exhibited potent antioxidant activity when tested by ABTS method. All these observations suggest the possible exploitation of the
Chenopodium oil as potential botanical fungitoxicant in ecofriendly control of post harvest biodeterioration of food commodities from storage fungi.
This paper presents a new approach using an Artificial Neural Network technique to improve rainfall forecast performance. A real world case study was set up in Bangkok; 4 years of hourly data from 75 ...rain gauge stations in the area were used to develop the ANN model. The developed ANN model is being applied for real time rainfall forecasting and flood management in Bangkok, Thailand. Aimed at providing forecasts in a near real time schedule, different network types were tested with different kinds of input information. Preliminary tests showed that a generalized feedforward ANN model using hyperbolic tangent transfer function achieved the best generalization of rainfall. Especially, the use of a combination of meteorological parameters (relative humidity, air pressure, wet bulb temperature and cloudiness), the rainfall at the point of forecasting and rainfall at the surrounding stations, as an input data, advanced ANN model to apply with continuous data containing rainy and non-rainy period, allowed model to issue forecast at any moment. Additionally, forecasts by ANN model were compared to the convenient approach namely simple persistent method. Results show that ANN forecasts have superiority over the ones obtained by the persistent model. Rainfall forecasts for Bangkok from 1 to 3 h ahead were highly satisfactory. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the most important input parameter besides rainfall itself is the wet bulb temperature in forecasting rainfall.
Microbial characterization of the tree rhizosphere provides important information relating to the screening of tree species for re-vegetation of degraded land. Rhizosphere soil samples collected from ...a few predominant tree species growing in the coal mining ecosystem of Dhanbad, India, were analyzed for soil organic carbon (SOC), mineralizable N, microbial biomass carbon (MBC), active microbial biomass carbon (AMBC), basal soil respiration (BSR), and soil enzyme activities (dehydrogenase, urease, catalase, phenol oxidase, and peroxidase). Among the tree species studied,
Aegle marmelos recorded the highest value for MBC (590
mg kg
−1), urease (190.5
μg NH
4
+-N g
−1 h
−1), catalase (513
μg H
2O
2 g
−1 h
−1), dehydrogenase (92.3
μg TPF g
−1 h
−1), phenol oxidase (0.057
μM g
−1 h
−1) and BSR/AMBC (0.498
mg CO
2-C mg biomass
−1 day
−1);
Tamarindus indica for mineralizable N (69.5
mg kg
−1);
Morus alba for catalase (513
μg H
2O
2 g
−1 h
−1) and phenol oxidase (0.058
μM g
−1 h
−1);
Tectona grandis for peroxidase (0.276
μM g
−1 h
−1), AMBC/MBC (99.4%), and BSR/MBC (0.108
mg CO
2-C mg biomass
−1 day
−1);
Ficus religiosa for AMBC (128.4
mg kg
−1) and BSR (12.85
mg CO
2-C kg
−1 day
−1);
Eugenia jambolana for MBC/SOC (8.03%);
Butea monosoperma for AMBC/SOC (1.32%) and
Azadirachta indica for BSR/AMBC (0.1134
mg CO
2-C mg biomass
−1 day
−1). Principal component analysis was employed to derive a rhizosphere soil microbial index (RSMI) and accordingly, dehydrogenase, BSR/MBC, MBC/SOC, EC, phenol oxidase and AMBC were found to be the most critical properties. The observed values for the above properties were converted into a unitless score (0–1.00) and the scores were integrated into RSMI. The tree species could be arranged in decreasing order of the RSMI as:
A. marmelos (0.718),
A. indica (0.715),
Bauhinia bauhinia (0.693),
B. monosperma (0.611),
E. jambolana (0.601),
Moringa oleifera (0.565),
Dalbergia sissoo (0.498),
T. indica (0.488),
Morus alba (0.415),
F. religiosa (0.291),
Eucalyptus sp. (0.232) and
T. grandis (0.181). It was concluded that tree species in coal mining areas had diverse effects on their respective rhizosphere microbial processes, which could directly or indirectly determine the survival and performance of the planted tree species in degraded coal mining areas. Tree species with higher RSMI values could be recommended for re-vegetation of degraded coal mining area.
Chemical fungicides provide the primary means for controlling postharvest fungal decay of fruit and vegetables. Continuous use of fungicides has faced two major obstacles—increasing public concern ...regarding contamination of perishables with fungicidal residues, and proliferation of resistance in the pathogen populations. The ultimate aim of recent research in this area has been the development and evaluation of various alternative control strategies to reduce dependency on synthetic fungicides. Several non-chemical treatments have been proposed for fungal decay control. Although these approaches have been shown to reduce postharvest rots of fruit and vegetables, each has limitations that can affect their commercial applicability. When used as stand-alone treatments, none of the non-chemical control methods has been clearly shown to offer a consistently economic level of disease control that warrants acceptance as an alternative to synthetic fungicides. Recently, the exploitation of natural products to control decay and prolong storage life of perishables has received more and more attention. Biologically active natural products have the potential to replace synthetic fungicides. This review deals with exploitation of some natural products such as flavour compounds, acetic acid, jasmonates, glucosinolates, propolis, fusapyrone and deoxyfusapyrone, chitosan, essential oils and plant extracts for the management of fungal rotting of fruit and vegetables, thereby prolonging shelf life.
The standardization and validation of a one-step, single-tube, accelerated, quantitative reverse transcription (RT) loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay targeting the E1 gene for ...the rapid and real-time detection of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) are reported. A linear relationship between the amount of template and time of positivity value over a range of 2 x 10⁸ to 2 x 10² copies was obtained. The feasibility of CHIKV RT-LAMP for clinical diagnosis was validated with patient serum samples from an ongoing epidemic in Southern India. Optimal assay conditions with zero background were established for the detection of low levels of CHIKV in acute-phase patient serum samples. The comparative evaluation of the RT-LAMP assay with acute-phase patient serum samples demonstrated exceptionally higher sensitivity by correctly identifying 21 additional positive borderline cases that were missed by conventional RT-PCR (P < 0.0001) with a detection limit of 20 copies. The quantification of virus load in patient serum samples was also determined from the standard curve based on their time of positivity and was found to be in the range of 2 x 10⁸ to 2 x 10¹ copies. In addition, the field applicability of the RT-LAMP assay was also demonstrated by standardizing SYBR Green I-based RT-LAMP wherein the amplification was carried out in a water bath at 63°C for 60 min, which was followed by monitoring gene amplification with the naked eye through color changes. These findings demonstrated that the RT-LAMP assay is a valuable tool for rapid, real-time detection as well as quantification of CHIKV in acute-phase serum samples without requiring any sophisticated equipment and has potential usefulness for clinical diagnosis and surveillance of CHIKV in developing countries.
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