Problems: heavy repetitive work in construction work place creates MSD problems and chemicals like cement, fly ash, asbestos dust reacts with skin and creates skin problems. In machinery works like ...Welding harms eye and skin. Carpentry and Machinery work tools are highly risk and gives cuts and wound in hand and leg. Motivation: construction work is full of danger and hazardous. The socioeconomic life of construction site labors are also not good. The mortality rate is also high. As per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019), more than 12,500 workers lost their lives while working on construction sites in the US between 2003 and 2016. Solution: so more research is required to redesign work place and tools of construction site for saving human life. A study is essential to find more risk factors in construction site work. So a survey is conducted by designing a questionnaire with experts suggestion and extensive literature review to find the Occupational health and safety problems of construction site Workers in India and ergonomic analysis is done by OWAS (Ovako Working posture Assessment System) in Ergo fellow 3.0 to find workplace discomfort level in construction site of India followed by MCDM methods like WASPAS(weighted aggregated sum product assessment).
During the last decade, telecommuting has become quite popular whereas, in developing countries like India, this phenomenon is limited to a select group of employees due to various factors. The ...COVID-19 pandemic, the nationwide lockdown and the subsequent new normal scenario, has made the adoption of telecommuting by different type of employees indispensable thus giving us the opportunity to conduct empirical research towards understanding the factors influencing telecommuting adoption, productivity and activity-travel behaviour during telecommuting in India. The data used in this survey has been collected in two phases to capture the evolving situation of the pandemic. The analysis has been done based on revealed preference data considering three time periods i.e., before COVID-19, during COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, after the termination of the lockdown (after first wave) and for the post-COVID 19 scenario where stated preferences are considered. In the first step, telecommuting behaviour, activity-travel pattern during telecommuting and productivity is estimated based on aggregate sample data for various socio-economic groups for the period before and during COVID-19 (1. during lockdown 2. during new normal). Next, factors influencing telecommuting adoption and productivity are determined which has been used in our stated preference survey conducted in the second phase. A logistic regression model has been developed to test the association of existing telecommuting behaviour, activity-travel pattern, factors influencing productivity, socio-economic characteristics and occupation categories with future telecommuting adoption. The findings of this research can not only provide insights to urban planners and policymakers to design sustainable travel demand management strategies but can also help employers to design appropriate telecommuting strategies at the organization level which will help to attain the desired productivity levels. Our empirical analysis reveal two major findings, i.e., a large percentage of employees can achieve their desired productivity by working from home and the ‘rebound’ effect as identified in literature seems to have little impact in the Indian context. The novelty of this research lies in the comprehension of the adoption process, and the behavioural analysis including adoption, productivity, activity, and travel of telecommuters in the context of a developing country for the first time.
•Telecommuting behavioural analysis for different employees in India.•Impact of COVID-19 on telecommuting behaviour.•Identification of multiple factors facilitating and hindering telecommuting.•Impact of telecommuting on the activity-travel pattern.•Determination of potential telecommuters in India.
It is important to understand the behavior within a social network, particularly excessive communications between nodes. Such excessive activities in a network provide an insight into the pattern of ...communication between nodes, which, in some cases, could lead to a fraudulent behavior. Scan statistics have been applied before to detect the excessive communications in email networks. However, they alone are not effective in revealing the dynamic relationships and progression of chatter as the scan statistics relate to the maximum of locality statistics. Here a multivariate time series model, vector autoregressive (VAR) model, has been developed and applied to the metadata of organization e-mails as a case study to detect a group of influential nodes and their dynamic relationship. Furthermore, we devise a new methodology, which utilizes the probabilistic topic model obtained from the e-mail content, scan statistics, and time series of maximum information flow. We demonstrate how the influential vertices obtained from the VAR model are connected with the anomalous topic activities. These methodologies would be highly useful in studying the excessive communications and anomalous topic activities in other dynamic networks, such as, twitter networks, telephone calls, scientific collaborations, and other social networks.
Abstract
Active learning—the field of machine learning (ML) dedicated to optimal experiment design—has played a part in science as far back as the 18th century when Laplace used it to guide his ...discovery of celestial mechanics. In this work, we focus a closed-loop, active learning-driven autonomous system on another major challenge, the discovery of advanced materials against the exceedingly complex synthesis-processes-structure-property landscape. We demonstrate an autonomous materials discovery methodology for functional inorganic compounds which allow scientists to fail smarter, learn faster, and spend less resources in their studies, while simultaneously improving trust in scientific results and machine learning tools. This robot science enables science-over-the-network, reducing the economic impact of scientists being physically separated from their labs. The real-time closed-loop, autonomous system for materials exploration and optimization (CAMEO) is implemented at the synchrotron beamline to accelerate the interconnected tasks of phase mapping and property optimization, with each cycle taking seconds to minutes. We also demonstrate an embodiment of human-machine interaction, where human-in-the-loop is called to play a contributing role within each cycle. This work has resulted in the discovery of a novel epitaxial nanocomposite phase-change memory material.
•Recycling of simulated Polymerized RAP produced using standard laboratory aging techniques.•Mix aging is better to simulate RAP from SBS PMB with 3 to 4% SBS.•Standard aging methods have distinct ...impact on performance of aged recycled PMB.
Researchers have mostly used three artificial aging techniques, namely pressure aging vessel (PAV) binder aging, compacted mix aging (CMA), and loose mix aging (LMA) to simulate recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) binder in the laboratory. RAP binder (RAPB) simulated using different techniques will differ in characteristics and may affect the performance of the base binder differently. Which may affect the parameters used for blending and recycling, such as the selection of base binder, rejuvenator dosage, etc. Therefore, in this study, three RAP binders, namely RAPB-P, RAPB-C, and RAPB-L, were simulated from a polymer modified binder (PMB) with 3.5% SBS content, using PAV aging (100 °C, 20 hrs, 2.1 MPa), CMA (85 °C, 5 days) and LMA (85 °C, 8 days), respectively. These polymerized RAPBs were added to an unmodified binder (AC 30) at three proportions: 15 %, 25 %, and 40 %. These RAPB and AC 30 blends were characterized in terms of their dynamic viscosity, mixing and compaction temperature, and high temperature performance grade (PG). Superpave rutting factor (|G*|/sin δ) and multiple stress creep and recovery (MSCR) test parameters were used to evaluate the rutting performance of the RAPB blended AC 30 binders. Further, resistance to yielding and elastic recovery values were evaluated using the binder yield energy test (BYET). The test results suggested that all three RAP binders affect the performance of the AC 30 binder differently, which was also confirmed by statistical analysis using one-way ANOVA. From MSCR and BYET test results, it may be stated that RAP binder simulated from standard PAV aging may mislead in predicting the high and intermediate temperature performance of AC 30 binder with RAPB. Overall, the present study is helpful for asphalt researchers and practitioners to understand how the selection of different defined aging strategies affects the performance of aged recycled PMB with unmodified base binder.
An 11-year-old male child who presented with increased frequency of urination, thirst and feeling of incomplete void was initially diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (DM) based on elevated blood sugar. ...Polyuria and polydipsia were confirmed even after normalisation of blood sugar. A standardised water deprivation test showed presence of central diabetes insipidus (DI) and patient was started on desmopressin. Presence of DM and DI led to suspicion of DIDMOAD/Wolfram syndrome and ophthalmic examination confirmed bilateral optic atrophy. Despite treatment for DM and DI the urinary complaints persisted, and ultrasound showed persistent bilateral hydronephroureterosis. Bladder workup including voiding cystourethrography (VCUG) and urodynamic study reported thickened trabeculated bladder wall along with overactivity, poor compliance and high bladder pressure. Bladder dysfunction has been documented to be associated with Wolfram syndrome and often may lead to chronic kidney disease which can be prevented by early diagnosis and appropriate management. The case highlights the need for comprehensive evaluation of children with urinary symptoms.
Cu phytoremediation potential of an ornamental plant, Calandula officinalis, was explored in terms of growth responses, photosynthetic activities and antioxidant enzymes such as SOD, CAT and GPX. The ...results showed that this plant had high Cu tolerance of up to 400mg/kg, which is far above the phytotoxic range for non hyperaccumulators. It grew normally in soils at all the doses (150–400mg/kg) without showing external signs of phytotoxicity. At 150mg/kg, flowering was augmented; root and shoot biomass, root lengths and leaf soluble protein contents remained same as that of the control. However, chlorophyll and carotenoid pigment contents declined significantly along with significant elevations in lipid peroxidation, at all the doses. Elevations of antioxidant enzymes reflected stress as well as probable mitigation of reactive oxygen species due to Cu stress. Except for the highest conc. (400mg/kg), leaf accumulation of Cu was higher than root accumulations. The Cu accumulation peaked at 300mg/kg Cu in soil, with leaf and root accumulations to be respectively, 4675 and 3995µg/g dry wt., far more than the minimum of 1000µg/g dry wt. for a Cu hyperaccumulator. The plant root at all the doses tolerated Cu, with the tolerance index ranging from 94–62.7. The soil to plant metal uptake capacity, indicated by extraction coefficient and the root to shoot translocation, indicated by translocation factor, at all the doses of Cu were >1, pointed towards efficient phytoremediation potential.
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•Calandula officinalis tolerated phytotoxic levels of Cu (150–400mg/kg).•It accumulated at least 1244.5µg Cu/g dry wt. in its above ground tissue.•It possessed high extraction coefficient and translocation factor (>1).•It mitigated stress by augmenting antioxidant enzymes.•It could be called an efficient Cu hyperaccumulator.
The study was conducted with an aim to remediate effluent from a pulp and paper mill, after treating it for 28 days with an aquatic fern, Salvinia cucullata. The effluent had high BOD, COD, TS, TSS, ...TDS, P, hardness and chloride, and several heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, Mg, Mn, Fe and Zn) above national limits. However, the plant survived a wide range of effluent concentrations (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, v/v), and flourished well, particularly at 25% (v/v), resisted membrane injury and generation of H2O2 and O2, showed better growth and induced all the major antioxidant enzymes. The plants also induced lipid peroxidation. Most of the elemental profiles were higher than the toxic levels stipulated for plants, indicating tolerance to metal. In fact, barring Fe, for Cr, Cu, Pb, Zn, Mg and P, at all the effluent doses, and for Cd, Ni and Mn, up to 75% (v/v) effluent, greater concentrations were observed in leaf than in root. This plant was more suited for nutrient removal, as it effectively reduced BOD, Zn, Fe, Ni, Mg, P and increased dissolve oxygen. Further, pH, hardness, chloride, TS and Mn was reduced optimally by 25–50% (v/v) treatments. SEM revealed prominent structural damages from 50 to 100% treatments. Presence of Pb as well as Fe in the EDX peaks were observed in the cortex rather than in the root vascular zone. This plant could be suggested to be an effective phytoremediator of multi-contaminant effluent with maximum benefit at low doses (25–50%, v/v).
•Salvinia thrived well in phytotoxic level of metals and suited for nutrient removal.•Best tolerance was observed at 25% (v/v) treatment which improved growth parameters.•Plants triggered augmentation of SOD, CAT, GPx and APx activities to counter stress.•SEM revealed anatomical alterations of root at 50–100% (v/v) treatments.•EDX showed Pb/Fe signals in root plaques.
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