Abstract
Stable and flexible super-hydrophilic nanotubular-based titanium oxide electrode has been utilized as the active electrode of self-powered humidity sensor. TiO
2
nanotubular electrodes ...fabricated through anodization method and utilized in combination with Kapton electrode as the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). Vertical contact-separation mode TENG performance has been examined in various range of frequencies and the maximum output voltage and current more than 300 V and 40 μA respectively with maximum power of 1.25 ± 0.67 mW has been achieved at 4 Hz. The fabricated TENG has been employed as the active self-powered humidity sensor. Super-hydrophilic feature of TiO
2
nanotubes resulted in full absorption of water molecules, and noticeable decrease in charge transfer across two triboelectric materials upon increasing humidity. The TiO
2
-based TENG sensor was exposed to various relative humidity (RH) and the results showed that by increasing the humidity the output voltage and output current decreased from 162.24 ± 35.99 V and 20.4 ± 4.93 μA at RH = 20% to 37.92 ± 1.54 V at RH = 79% and 40.87 88 6.88 ± 1.7 μA at RH = 84%, respectively, Which shows the responsivity more than 300%. This method of measuring humidity has a simple and cost-effective fabrication that has various applications in many fields such as industry and medicine.
The aim of the Software Product Line (SPL) approach is to improve the software development process by producing software products that match the stakeholders’ requirements. One of the important ...topics in SPLs is the feature model (FM) configuration process. The purpose of configuration here is to select and remove specific features from the FM in order to produce the required software product. At the same time, detection of differences between application’s requirements and the available capabilities of the implementation platform is a major concern of application requirements engineering. It is possible that the implementation of the selected features of FM needs certain software and hardware infrastructures such as database, operating system and hardware that cannot be made available by stakeholders. We address the FM configuration problem by proposing a method, which employs a two-layer FM comprising the application and infrastructure layers. We also show this method in the context of a case study in the SPL of a sample E-Shop website. The results demonstrate that this method can support both functional and non-functional requirements and can solve the problems arising from lack of attention to implementation requirements in SPL FM selection phase.
This study investigated the impact of monovalent cations on clay dispersion, aggregate stability, soil pore size distribution, and saturated hydraulic conductivity on agricultural soil in Iran. The ...soil was incubated with treatment solutions containing different concentrations (0-54.4 mmol l
) of potassium and sodium cations. The treatment solutions included two levels of electrical conductivity (EC=3 or 6 dS m
) and six K:Na ratios per electrical conductivity level. At both electrical conductivity levels, spontaneously dispersible clay increased with increasing K concentration, and with increasing K:Na ratio. A negative linear relationship between percentage of water-stable aggregates and spontaneously dispersible clay was observed. Clay dispersion generally reduced the mean pore size, presumably due to clogging of pores, resulting in increased water retention. At both electrical conductivity levels, hydraulic conductivity increased with increasing exchangeable potassium percentage at low exchangeable potassium percentage values, but decreased with further increases in exchangeable potassium percentage at higher exchangeable potassium percentage. This is in agreement with earlier studies, but seems in conflict with our data showing increasing spontaneously dispersible clay with increasing exchangeable potassium percentage. Our findings show that clay dispersion increased with increasing K concentration and increasing K:Na ratio, demonstrating that K can have negative impacts on soil structure.
Every year, the health of millions of people around the world is compromised by misdiagnosis, which sometimes could even lead to death. In addition, it entails huge financial costs for patients, ...insurance companies, and governments. Furthermore, many physicians' professional life is adversely affected by unintended errors in prescribing medication or misdiagnosing a disease. Our aim in this paper is to use data mining methods to find knowledge in a dataset of medical prescriptions that can be effective in improving the diagnostic process. In this study, using 4 single classification algorithms including decision tree, random forest, simple Bayes, and K-nearest neighbors, the disease and its category were predicted. Then, in order to improve the performance of these algorithms, we used an Ensemble Learning methodology to present our proposed model. In the final step, a number of experiments were performed to compare the performance of different data mining techniques. The final model proposed in this study has an accuracy and kappa score of 62.86% and 0.620 for disease prediction and 74.39% and 0.720 for prediction of the disease category, respectively, which has better performance than other studies in this field.In general, the results of this study can be used to help maintain the health of patients, and prevent the wastage of the financial resources of patients, insurance companies, and governments. In addition, it can aid physicians and help their careers by providing timely information on diagnostic errors. Finally, these results can be used as a basis for future research in this field.
Data about the prevalence of biopsy-proven kidney diseases in Iran are rare, and none of the previous studies used electron microscopy for diagnosis. This study aimed to analyze the prevalence of ...biopsy-proven kidney diseases in Iran's primary referral center. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most extensive study carried out in Iran. Reports of kidney biopsy samples from patients referred to our center in 2007-2018 were reviewed for demographic data, clinical presentation, and final diagnosis. Statistical analyses were performed. Among the 3455 samples received, 2975 were analyzed. Nephrotic syndrome (39%) was the most common cause of biopsy, followed by subnephrotic proteinuria (18%), hematuria in association with proteinuria (15%), renal failure (9%), isolated hematuria (6%), and lupus nephritis (LN) (4%). The most common diagnoses were membranous glomerulonephritis (17.9%), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) (15.9%), LN (13.7%), minimal histopathological findings (unsampled FSGS vs. minimal change disease, 12.1%), Immunoglobin A nephropathy (IgAN) (6.5%) and Alport syndrome (6.1%). NS and proteinuria were the most common indications for a kidney biopsy. IgAN and LN were the most common causes of primary and secondary glomerulonephritis, presenting with hematuria and proteinuria, respectively. Although membranous glomerulonephritis was the most common disease, it has been replaced by FSGS in recent years.
Background. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a leading cause of death in the world in the last few years. This study has investigated various causes and risk factors that may ...lead to death due to this disease. Methods. From June to October 2020, 98 expired and 196 recovered patients were studied for risk factors, underlying diseases, and laboratory findings that could lead to disease progression and mortality. Results. There was a significant relationship in terms of blood pressure, age, oxygen saturation, tachycardia, tachypnea, the interval between the onset of symptoms and hospitalization, diabetes mellitus, lung disease, cardiovascular disease, history of opium abuse, C-reactive protein, white blood cell, lymphocytes, hemoglobin, creatinine elevation, elevated liver enzyme, creatine phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase, ferritin, D-dimer, troponin, prothrombin time, international normalized ratio, intensive care unit admission days, arrhythmia, sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury (AKI), and the type of antiviral and antibiotic therapy between the two groups of patients. Conclusions. Mortality due to COVID-19 is affected by various causes such as age, underlying diseases, and complications that may occur in the course of the disease (e.g., arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, and AKI). By accurately identifying these causes and risk factors, we can prevent these complications and the mortality from COVID-19.
For examining the effect of an electrical field (DC) on pea seed, we exposed the pea seeds to electric fields with intensities 1, 4 and 7 kV/cm for 30, 230, 430 and 630 seconds. The tests were ...repeated three times, and each iteration had 5 seeds. Then, the seeds were moved to packaged plates. Finally, microscopic observation of the pea stem tissue showed that the application of a DC electrical field caused a deformation in the pea stem tissue. The results led us to examine the deformation of the tissue theoretically and to address that deformation as an electrostatic problem. In this regard, we modeled the pea stem based on the formation of electric dipoles. Then, theoretically, we calculated the force acting on each xylem section by coding, and the results were consistent with the experimental data.
The acute coronary syndrome due to the left main coronary artery (LMCA) thrombosis is a clinically rare and catastrophic event. We describe a young man (smoker, alcoholic, and drug abuser) with a ...history of recent surgery and typical chest pain who had non-occlusive LMCA thrombosis in coronary angiography. The thrombosis was successfully treated with two 180 μ/kg intracoronary boluses of eptifibatide, which was continued through an intravenous infusion at 2 μ/kg/min for 48 hours postprocedurally. Control angiography, performed 3 days later, revealed that the LMCA was free of thrombosis. The patient had no complaints, including chest pain, and remained completely asymptomatic during the next 30 days' follow-up.
Application of organic and inorganic fertilizers to agricultural soils could affect the status of phosphorus (P) and heavy metals (HMs). To examine the availability of P and HMs in soils, ten ...agricultural soils were treated with monopotassium phosphate (KH
2
PO
4
) or poultry manure at a rate of 200 mg P kg
−1
. Different extractants were used to extract various forms of P and HMs from different treatments. The various P and HMs species and saturation indices were also studied using the Visual MINTEQ software. The highest percentage of P extractability was observed for KH
2
PO
4
-treated soils with 54.6, 7.6, and 2.4% for Olsen, water-extractable P, and calcium chloride-extractable P extractants, respectively. The application of fertilizers increased the percentage of degree of P saturation (DPS) in treated soils. The mean DPS of poultry manure-treated soils was 70.7%, which is 46.7% higher than the threshold (24%), and the mean DPS of KH
2
PO
4
-treated soils was 109.3%, which is 85.3% higher than the threshold. The results from correlation analysis revealed that soil texture, pH, and organic matter are generally important factors affecting HMs availability in soils. The Cd
2+
was the highest Cd species in all three treatments. The application of poultry manure or KH
2
PO
4
resulted in a decrease of Cd
2+
species and an increase of CdHPO
4
species. The findings indicated that increasing the P extractability by applying poultry manure or KH
2
PO
4
at the rate of 200 mg P kg
−1
increased the risk of P leaching; however, the application of poultry manure or KH
2
PO
4
did not significantly affect the availability of Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, and Zn in soils, with the exception of available Zn in poultry manure-treated soils, extracted by DTPA.
•Application of treatments included different K:Na ratios created clay dispersion.•Pore size decreased due to migration of dispersed clay particles toward the pores.•Increase in plant available water ...because of increase in small pores.
The effect of K:Na ratio on plant available water (PAW), least limiting water range (LLWR), integral water capacity (IWC), penetration resistance and plant growth was assessed in this study. Treatment solutions including different K:Na ratios at two electrical conductivity levels (EC = 3 and 6dSm−1) were applied into an agricultural loamy soil in pots using capillary rise from the bottom, and the soil in the pots were kept at a water content close to field capacity for one month. In addition, maize was planted into the treated soils in three replicates. PAW, LLWR and IWC were calculated by soil available water calculator (SAWCal) software based on measurements of soil water retention and penetration resistance. In our study, LLWR was limited by PAW. The results showed that PAW of the treated soils increased significantly with increasing K:Na ratio in comparison with the control soil at both EC levels, due to increasing clay dispersion with increasing K:Na ratio. A reduction in the soil pore size due to migration of dispersed clay particles into soil pores could be a possible reason for the increase in PAW. Positive relations were found between PAW and meso-porosity and micro-porosity at both EC. Maize growth significantly increased with increasing PAW at EC = 6dSm−1. It can be concluded that the application of different K:Na ratios induced different degrees of dispersion of clay particles, which presumably migrated into soil pores, changing the soil pore size distribution towards smaller pores. This increased PAW in our studied soil, with positive effects on plant growth.
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