Raspy-Cal: A Genetic Algorithm-Based Automatic Calibration Tool for HEC-RAS Hydraulic Models

While automatic calibration programs exist for many hydraulic models, no user-friendly and broadly reusable automatic calibration system currently exists for steady-state HEC-RAS models. This study highlights development of Raspy-Cal, an automatic HEC-RAS calibration program based on a genetic algorithm and implemented in Python. It includes a graphical user interface and an interactive command-line interface, as well as libraries readily usable by other programs. As a case study, Raspy-Cal was used to calibrate a model of the Los Angeles River in California and its two major tributaries. We found that Raspy-Cal matched the accuracy of manual calibrations in much less time and without manual intervention, producing a Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency of 0.89 or greater within several hours when run for 100 iterations. Our analysis showed that the open-source freeware facilitates fast and precise calibration of HEC-RAS models and could serve as a basis for future software development. Raspy-Cal is available online in source and executable form as well as through the Python Package Index.

Twelve Channel ECG Phantom Based on MEGA2560 and DAC-MCP4921

Electrocardiograph (ECG) is one of the diagnostic sciences that is often studied in modern medicine, one of which is to diagnose and treat diseases caused by the heart. Therefore, it is necessary to check the function of the ECG recorder tool, namely by carrying out the tool calibration procedure using Phantom ECG. The purpose of this research is to design a Phantom ECG for a 12 channel ECG device which includes lead I, lead II, lead III, aVR, aVL, aVF, V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, and V6 and completes it with a sensitivity selector. The contribution of this research is that the tool can be used as a calibration tool for the ECG Recorder and can be used as a learning medium in the world of health. In order to create a signal that matches the original, this tool uses a heart signal formation method using a DAC type MCP4921 with an ATMEGA2560 microcontroller and for display settings using a 2.4 inch TFT Nextion Display. The MCP4921 type DAC converts the digital signal data into analog data which will then be forwarded to the resistor network circuit as a signal formation for each lead. In the measurement results, the error in measurements with sensitivity of 0.5 mV, 1.0 mV, and 2.0 mV using an ECG Recorder at BPM 30 is 0.00%, BPM 60 is 0.00%, BPM 120 is 0.00%, and BPM 180 is 0.56%. The results showed that the biggest error was found in BPM 180, which was 0.56%.

Development Stages of Islamic Movements in the Pashtun Tribal Environment: The Case of the Rawshaniyya and Beyond

The Rawshani movement is the first well-documented example of supra-tribal unification and subsequent successful integration of the movement’s leaders into the alien state structures. But by no means is it an isolated phenomenon in Pashtun history. Similar pattern of religion-motivated supra-tribal unification, which should be considered as a product of historical relationships of power, remerged inter alia during more recent crises in the Afghan history. Due to the volatile nature of the Afghan state fluctuating between tribalism and ethnic pluralistic participation, military and Islamic dimensions have always been of paramount importance for state-community relations where religion, tribalism and ethnicity were often the means of state’s control of social resistance and its vehicles. In the time of crises, religion-inspired militia-type independent military formations were able to challenge the might of the state and occasionally even initiate the incipient state formation opposed to the communal institutions and those of the old regime. When this community-based military activity went beyond the scope of traditional annual cycle of violence it often acquired a supra-tribal or ethnic and regional dimension, which was legitimised by the Islamic ideology and institutions. This article offers some directions towards making a calibration tool or even identifying a pattern that may be used as an epistemological paradigm that may provide a sense of orientation and bearing in the intricacies of a complex historical interaction between Pashtun Islam, tribes and state.

Development of an open source program to identify the size of objects using bright-field microscopy - an automated calibration tool

In light microscopy, eyepiece graticules are commonly used to gauge the size of objects at the micron scale. While this is a relatively simple tool to use, not all microscopes possess this feature. Furthermore, calibrating an eyepiece graticule with a stage micrometer can be time-consuming, particularly for inexperienced microscopists. Similarly, calculating the size of individual objects may also take some time. We present an open-source program to determine the size of objects under a microscope using Python and OpenCV. Taking photos of a stage micrometer under a microscope, we identify gradations on the micrometer and calculate the distance between lines on the micrometer in pixels. From this, we can infer the size of objects from bright-field microscopy images. We believe this will improve access to quantitative microscopy techniques and increase the speed at which samples may be analyzed by light microscopy. Future studies may aim to integrate this with machine learning for object identification