Comparative Ultrasonographic Imaging of Spleen and Liver in Healthy Crossbred Cows

The present study was undertaken to conduct a comparative ultrasonographic study of the normal bovine spleen and liver. This study was carried out in two phases using 3.5 MHz curvilinear transducer. In first phase of water bath study, bovine spleens and livers were obtained from 3 healthy cadavers and subjected to repeated ultrasonography to study the echotexture. The splenic parenchyma was isoechogenic with greater echogenicity as compared to the liver. Water bath study provided a good learning experience for the comparative analysis of echotexture of the spleen and liver. In second phase, 10 healthy Jersey/Red Sindhi adult nonpregnant cows were subjected to detailed abdominal ultrasonography a number of times to develop the baseline topographical data of the spleen and liver. The dorsal end of the spleen in the cranial intercostal spaces could be clearly seen at the peak of inspiration when the lungs retracted to uncover the parietal surface of the spleen. The ventral end of the spleen, portion of the left lung, and the reticular wall could be scanned in the left 7th to 6th ICS in all the cows, and in the left 5th ICS in 5 cows. The liver was imaged from just behind the 12th to 6th ICS in all the cows easily. The gallbladder was imaged as a tear drop or pear shaped anechogenic structure with a hyperechogenic wall. The location of the gallbladder varied from the 12th to 9th ICS. It was most consistently observed in the 11th ICS (in 7 cows) at a mean distance of 46.3 cm from the dorsal midline. In 3 cows, the gallbladder was also seen ventral to the costal arch. The caudal vena cava was imaged as a triangular anechogenic structure on the dorsal border of the liver in the last 2 intercostal spaces in all the cows. The portal vein was imaged characteristically as a star shaped anechogenic structure with a hyperechogenic wall, ventral to the caudal vena cava, in the last 2 intercostal spaces in all the cows and in the 10th ICS in only 8 cows. It was concluded that a systematic ultrasonography formed a basis for a reliable noninvasive determination of positions and sizes of the normal spleen and liver and their vessels in the bovines.

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Accurate Detection and Quantization of Leaf- Diseases through Soft Computing

International Journal of Computational Physics Series ◽

10.29167/a1i1p236-247 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 236-247

Author(s):

Divya Srivastava ◽

Rajitha B. ◽

Suneeta Agarwal

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Image Processing ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Bacterial Blight ◽

Early Stage ◽

Second Phase ◽

Computationally Efficient ◽

Stage Of Disease ◽

Accurate Detection ◽

Two Phases

Diseases in leaves can cause the significant reduction in both quality and quantity of agricultural production. If early and accurate detection of disease/diseases in leaves can be automated, then the proper remedy can be taken timely. A simple and computationally efficient approach is presented in this paper for disease/diseases detection on leaves. Only detecting the disease is not beneficial without knowing the stage of disease thus the paper also determine the stage of disease/diseases by quantizing the affected of the leaves by using digital image processing and machine learning. Though there exists a variety of diseases on leaves, but the bacterial and fungal spots (Early Scorch, Late Scorch, and Leaf Spot) are the most prominent diseases found on leaves. Keeping this in mind the paper deals with the detection of Bacterial Blight and Fungal Spot both at an early stage (Early Scorch) and late stage (Late Scorch) on the variety of leaves. The proposed approach is divided into two phases, in the first phase, it identifies one or more disease/diseases existing on leaves. In the second phase, amount of area affected by the disease/diseases is calculated. The experimental results obtained showed 97% accuracy using the proposed approach.

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Representação e simbolismo: artes visuais na fronteira Brasil/Bolívia

MOTRICIDADES Revista da Sociedade de Pesquisa Qualitativa em Motricidade Humana ◽

10.29181/2594-6463.2020.v4.n3.p286-296 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 286

Author(s):

Paulo César Antonini de Souza ◽

Derick Trindade Bezerra

Keyword(s):

Visual Arts ◽

Social Order ◽

Research Field ◽

Border Region ◽

Second Phase ◽

Two Dimensional ◽

Santa Cruz ◽

Cultural Conditions ◽

Two Phases ◽

America Latina

ResumoTendo por campo de investigação o Festival da América do Sul Pantanal (FASP) em 2018, na cidade de Corumbá (Brasil), objetiva-se identificar a materialidade e conceitos que permeiam as manifestações artísticas bidimensionais nesta região de fronteira, a partir da percepção de artistas da Bolívia. A pesquisa se organizou em duas fases: na primeira foi realizado um levantamento em plataformas online de produções acadêmicas em artes visuais, com foco no trabalho bidimensional, utilizando os descritores “arte popular” e “estética latina” resultando em três artigos. Na segunda fase foram selecionados dois trabalhos de uma artista da Bolívia, participante da mostra “Conexão Santa Cruz”, realizada durante o FASP 2018, que foram analisados em seus níveis representacional e simbólico. Pela interpretação das imagens foi possível construir uma leitura sobre a perspectiva da artista a respeito de suas condições culturais dentro da ordenação social em que se encontra situada.Palavras-chave: Artes Visuais. Arte Popular. Arte Regional. América Latina. Representation and symbolism: visual arts on the Brazil/Bolivia frontierAbstractHaving as research field the Festival da América do Sul Pantanal (FASP) in 2018, in the city of Corumbá (Brazil), the objective is to identify the materiality and concepts that permeate the two-dimensional artistic manifestations in this border region, from the perception of artists from Bolivia. The research was organized in two phases: in the first, a survey was carried out on online platforms of academic productions in visual arts, focusing on two-dimensional work, using the descriptors “arte popular” and “estética latina” resulting in three articles. In the second phase, two works were selected by an artist from Bolivia, participating in the exhibition “Conexão Santa Cruz”, held during FASP 2018, which were analyzed at their representational and symbolic levels. Through the interpretation of the images, it was possible to construct a reading on the artist’s perspective regarding her cultural conditions within the social order in which she is located.Keywords: Visual Arts. Folk Art. Regional Art. Latin America.Representación y simbolismo: artes visuales en la frontera de Brasil/BoliviaResumenTeniendo como campo de investigación el Festival de Sudamérica Pantanal (FASP) en 2018, en la ciudad de Corumbá (Brasil), el objetivo es identificar la materialidad y conceptos que permean las manifestaciones artísticas bidimensionales en esta región fronteriza, desde la percepción de artistas de Bolivia. La investigación se organizó en dos fases: en la primera, se realizó una encuesta en plataformas online de producciones académicas en artes visuales, con foco en el trabajo bidimensional, utilizando los descriptores “arte popular” y “estética latina” dando como resultado tres artículos. En la segunda fase, dos obras fueron seleccionadas por un artista de Bolivia, participante de la exposición “Conexão Santa Cruz”, realizada durante FASP 2018, que fueron analizadas en sus niveles representativos y simbólicos. A través de la interpretación de las imágenes, fue posible construir una lectura sobre la perspectiva de la artista sobre sus condiciones culturales dentro del orden social en el que se ubica.Palabras clave: Artes Visuales. Arte Popular. Arte Regional. América Latina.

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Development and validation of a short version of the Sarcopenia Quality of Life questionnaire: the SF-SarQoL

Quality of Life Research ◽

10.1007/s11136-021-02823-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

A. Geerinck ◽

C. Beaudart ◽

J.-Y. Reginster ◽

M. Locquet ◽

C. Monseur ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Short Form ◽

Reduction Process ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Short Version ◽

Second Phase ◽

Life Questionnaire ◽

Quality Of Life Questionnaire ◽

Two Phases

Abstract Purpose To facilitate the measurement of quality of life in sarcopenia, we set out to reduce the number of items in the previously validated Sarcopenia Quality of Life (SarQoL®) questionnaire, and to evaluate the clinimetric properties of this new short form. Methods The item reduction process was carried out in two phases. First, information was gathered through item-impact scores from older people (n = 1950), a Delphi method with sarcopenia experts, and previously published clinimetric data. In the second phase, this information was presented to an expert panel that decided which of the items to include in the short form. The newly created SFSarQoL was then administered to older, community-dwelling participants who previously participated in the SarcoPhAge study. We examined discriminative power, internal consistency, construct validity, test–retest reliability, structural validity and examined item parameters with a graded response model (IRT). Results The questionnaire was reduced from 55 to 14 items, a 75% reduction. A total of 214 older, community-dwelling people were recruited for the validation study. The clinimetric evaluation showed that the SF-SarQoL® can discriminate on sarcopenia status [EWGSOP2 criteria; 34.52 (18.59–43.45) vs. 42.86 (26.56–63.69); p = 0.043], is internally consistent (α = 0.915, ω = 0.917) and reliable [ICC = 0.912 (0.847–0.942)]. A unidimensional model was fitted (CFI = 0.978; TLI = 0.975; RMSEA = 0.108, 90% CI 0.094–0.123; SRMR = 0.055) with no misfitting items and good response category separation. Conclusions A new, 14-item, short form version of the Sarcopenia Quality of Life questionnaire has been developed and shows good clinimetric properties.

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SWIPT in mMIMO system with non-linear energy-harvesting terminals: protocol design and performance optimization

EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking ◽

10.1186/s13638-019-1378-4 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kui Xu ◽

Ming Zhang ◽

Jie Liu ◽

Nan Sha ◽

Wei Xie ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Energy Harvesting ◽

Performance Optimization ◽

Power Transmission ◽

Base Station ◽

Second Phase ◽

Wireless Power ◽

Half Duplex ◽

Non Linear ◽

Two Phases ◽

And Performance

Abstract In this paper, we design the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) protocol for massive multi-input multi-output (mMIMO) system with non-linear energy-harvesting (EH) terminals. In this system, the base station (BS) serves a set of uplink fixed half-duplex (HD) terminals with non-linear energy harvester. Considering the non-linearity of practical energy-harvesting circuits, we adopt the realistic non-linear EH model rather than the idealistic linear EH model. The proposed SWIPT protocol can be divided into two phases. The first phase is designed for terminals EH and downlink training. A beam domain energy beamforming method is employed for the wireless power transmission. In the second phase, the BS forms the two-layer receive beamformers for the reception of signals transmitted by terminals. In order to improve the spectral efficiency (SE) of the system, the BS transmit power- and time-switching ratios are optimized. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed beam-domain SWIPT protocol on SE performance compared with the conventional mMIMO SWIPT protocols.

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Development and Evaluation of Direct Paddy Seeder in Puddled Field

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13052745 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 2745

Author(s):

Manoj Kumar ◽

Ritu Dogra ◽

Mahesh Narang ◽

Manjit Singh ◽

Sushant Mehan

Keyword(s):

Laboratory Testing ◽

Field Evaluation ◽

Row Spacing ◽

Second Phase ◽

Cell Type ◽

Inclined Plate ◽

Seed Damage ◽

Two Phases ◽

Almost All ◽

Different Soils

Manual transplanting, a pre-dominant practice in almost all the paddy growing areas in India, is laborious, burdensome, and has many expenses on raising, settling, and transplanting nursery. The transplanting process’s limitations motivated the replacement of conventional paddy transplanting methods. The study was divided into two phases. The first phase included laboratory testing of three levels of metering mechanisms, namely cell type (M1) with 10 cells grooved around a circular plate having a 13 cm diameter, inclined plate (M2) containing 24 U shaped cells provided on an 18 cm diameter plate, and fluted roller (M3) with 10 flutes on a 5 cm diameter shaft. The testing matrix included a missing index, multiple index, and seed damage with forward speeds (2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 km/h), and pre-germination levels of 24 h soaked (P1), 24 h pre-germinated (P2), and 36 h pre-germinated paddy seeds (P3)). The second phase included selecting the best combination obtained from the laboratory study and developing a new efficient planter for the puddled field. The inclined plate metering mechanism operating at 2.5 km/h for 24 h pre-germinated seeds was reported most efficient from the first phase. Therefore, a self-propelled 8-row planter equipped with an inclined plate metering mechanism having a row-to-row spacing of 22.5 cm was developed, fabricated, and evaluated in the puddled field. The designed planter was assessed on two different soils: sandy loom (ST1) and clay loom (ST2) and at two different hopper fill levels as ½ filled hopper (F1) and ¾ filled hopper (F2). The number of plants per square meter and hill-to-hill spacing was measured. The on-field evaluation revealed that the number of plants per square meter was non-significantly affected by the type of soil but was significantly affected by hopper fill.

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XCOVNet: Chest X-ray Image Classification for COVID-19 Early Detection Using Convolutional Neural Networks

New Generation Computing ◽

10.1007/s00354-021-00121-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Vishu Madaan ◽

Aditya Roy ◽

Charu Gupta ◽

Prateek Agrawal ◽

Anand Sharma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Image Classification ◽

Second Phase ◽

Two Phase ◽

X Ray ◽

The Neural Network ◽

Rapid Spread ◽

Chest X Ray ◽

Polymerase Chain ◽

Two Phases ◽

Active Patients

AbstractCOVID-19 (also known as SARS-COV-2) pandemic has spread in the entire world. It is a contagious disease that easily spreads from one person in direct contact to another, classified by experts in five categories: asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical. Already more than 66 million people got infected worldwide with more than 22 million active patients as of 5 December 2020 and the rate is accelerating. More than 1.5 million patients (approximately 2.5% of total reported cases) across the world lost their life. In many places, the COVID-19 detection takes place through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests which may take longer than 48 h. This is one major reason of its severity and rapid spread. We propose in this paper a two-phase X-ray image classification called XCOVNet for early COVID-19 detection using convolutional neural Networks model. XCOVNet detects COVID-19 infections in chest X-ray patient images in two phases. The first phase pre-processes a dataset of 392 chest X-ray images of which half are COVID-19 positive and half are negative. The second phase trains and tunes the neural network model to achieve a 98.44% accuracy in patient classification.

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A Separated Reset Waveform Design for Suppressing Oil Backflow in Active Matrix Electrowetting Displays

Micromachines ◽

10.3390/mi12050491 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 491

Author(s):

Linwei Liu ◽

Pengfei Bai ◽

Zichuan Yi ◽

Guofu Zhou

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Dielectric Layer ◽

Waveform Design ◽

Second Phase ◽

Active Matrix ◽

Two Phases ◽

Back Stage ◽

A Charge ◽

Electric Field Force ◽

Driving Waveform

The electrowetting display (EWD) is a kind of reflective paper-like display. Flicker and grayscale distortion are caused by oil backflow, which is one of the important factors restricting the wide application of EWDs. The charge embedding caused by the electric field force in the dielectric layer is the cause of oil backflow. To suppress oil backflow, a separated reset waveform based on the study of oil movement is proposed in this paper. The driving waveform is divided into two parts: a reset waveform and a grayscale waveform. The reset waveform generated by a reset circuit can be used to output various voltages. The grayscale waveform is set as a traditional PWM waveform. The reset waveform is composed of a charge-releasing stage and oil-moving back stage. Two phases are contained in the charge releasing stage. The overdriving voltage is used during the first phase to reverse the voltage of all pixels. The trapped charges can then be released from the dielectric layer during the second phase. A higher voltage is used during the oil-moving back stage to drive the oil faster in the pixel. By comparing the experimental data, the oil backflow time is extended 761 times by the reset waveform. The four grayscales can be maintained by the reset waveform after driving for 300 s.

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Success factors in the realization of large ice projects in education

International Journal of Space Structures ◽

10.1177/0956059921990996 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 4-12

Author(s):

Arno Pronk ◽

Peng Luo ◽

Qingpeng Li ◽

Fred Sanders ◽

Marjolein overtoom ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Success Factors ◽

Learning Experience ◽

Learning By Doing ◽

University Of Alberta ◽

The North ◽

3D Printed ◽

Good Learning ◽

The University ◽

Ice Shell ◽

Motivation And Learning

There has been a long tradition in making ice structures, but the development of technical improvements for making ice buildings is a new field with just a handful of researchers. Most of the projects were realized by professors in cooperation with their students as part of their education in architecture and civil engineering. The following professors have realized ice projects in this setting: Heinz Isler realized some experiments since the 1950s; Tsutomu Kokawa created in the past three decades several ice domes in the north of Japan with a span up to 25 m; Lancelot Coar realized a number of fabric formed ice shell structures including fiberglass bars and hanging fabric as a mold for an ice shell in 2011 and in 2015 he produced an fabric-formed ice origami structure in cooperation with MIT (Caitlin Mueller) and VUB (Lars de Laet). Arno Pronk realized several ice projects such as the 2004 artificially cooled igloo, in 2014 and 2015 dome structures with an inflatable mold in Finland and in 2016–2019, an ice dome, several ice towers and a 3D printed gridshell of ice in Harbin (China) as a cooperation between the Universities of Eindhoven & Leuven (Pronk) and Harbin (Wu and Luo). In cooperation between the University of Alberta and Eindhoven two ice beams were realized during a workshop in 2020. In this paper we will present the motivation and learning experiences of students involved in learning-by-doing by realizing one large project in ice. The 2014–2016 projects were evaluated by Sanders and Overtoom; using questionnaires among the participants by mixed cultural teams under extreme conditions. By comparing the results in different situations and cultures we have found common rules for the success of those kinds of educational projects. In this paper we suggest that the synergy among students participating in one main project without a clear individual goal can be very large. The paper will present the success factors for projects to be perceived as a good learning experience.

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Specific airway management for SVC replacement during giant anterior mediastinal tumor resection

JA Clinical Reports ◽

10.1186/s40981-020-00377-w ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Izumi Kawagoe ◽

Daizoh Satoh ◽

Chieko Mitaka ◽

Masataka Fukuda ◽

Tsukasa Kochiyama ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mediastinal Tumor ◽

Main Bronchus ◽

Superior Vena ◽

Tumor Resection ◽

Left Lung ◽

Vena Cava ◽

Double Lumen Tube ◽

Lower Airway ◽

Tumor Spread ◽

Anterior Mediastinal Tumor

Abstract Background Giant anterior mediastinal tumor (GAMT) resection is a challenging procedure, for which anesthesiologist might take to need special precautions. Case presentation A 48-year-old male patient had been scheduled to undergo GAMT resection and superior vena cava (SVC) replacement. The tumor spread surrounding SVC and left main bronchus (LMB), resulting in small volume of his left lung. A soft left-sided double lumen tube (DLT) was selected to keep the patency of LMB during left one lung ventilation (OLV) against the tumor weight. Semi-awake intubation with spontaneous breathing was selected for DLT insertion to avoid lower airway occlusion. During left OLV after right open thoracotomy, his SPO2 decreased below to 90%. We performed selective right upper lobe bronchial blockade using the combination of DLT and bronchial blocker. The surgery was successfully completed with this strategy. Conclusions Although such cases are rare, they are informative for anesthesiologists, providing optional strategies.

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Application of the MEMS Accelerometer as the Position Sensor in Linear Electrohydraulic Drive

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21041479 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 1479 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dominik Rybarczyk

Keyword(s):

High Price ◽

Second Phase ◽

Position Sensor ◽

Microelectromechanical System ◽

Mems Accelerometer ◽

Drive Control ◽

Electrohydraulic Drive ◽

Preliminary Research ◽

Two Phases ◽

Correction Phase

Various distance sensors are used as measuring elements for positioning linear electrohydraulic drives. The most common are magnetostrictive transducers or linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) sensors mounted inside the cylinder. The displacement of the actuator’s piston rod is proportional to the change in the value of the current or voltage at the output from the sensor. They are characterized by relatively low measurement noise. The disadvantage of presented sensors is the need to mount them inside the cylinders and the high price. The article presents preliminary research on the replacement of following sensors and the use of a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) accelerometer as a measuring element in the electrohydraulic drive control system. The control consisted of two phases: at first, the signal from the acceleration sensor was analyzed during the actuator movement, based on the value determined from the simplified model implemented on the controller. In the range of motion in which the dynamics were the lowest, the signal was integrated and the obtained value was used in the second phase of motion. In the correction phase, a new set point was determined. Conducting the research required building a dedicated research stand. The author conducted the simulation and experimental research.

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