A systematic study of uranium in groundwater and its correlation with other water quality parameters

A parametric investigation was carried out to estimate the Uranium concentration and other associated water quality parameters for the groundwater in Deoghar district, Jharkhand. Total 150 groundwater samples have been collected from dig wells, hand pumps, tube wells, etc. for the pre and post-monsoon seasons. A Quantalase Uranium analyzer was used to measure the uranium concentration. The distribution of pH, TDS, DO, nitrate, sulfate, uranium along with the radiation has been determined. It was found that the uranium concentration in groundwater varies from 0.10 to 11.30ppb in pre-monsoon and 0.15–6.50ppb in the post-monsoon which is well below the normal tolerance limit (i.e.30 μg/l WHO). This low availability of Uranium has been attributed due to the existence of a lesser number of rocks containing uranium as a source in that area. An attempt has been made to correlate the uranium concentration with the water quality parameters for both seasons. The correlation data reveals that ORP, nitrate, phosphate, calcium, and magnesium show a positive correlation with uranium concentration for both seasons on the other hand TDS, EC, temperature, DO, fluoride, and chloride show negative correlation. The positive correlation implies that uranium may be present in groundwater as a dissolved salt of these parameters. Comparative studies for the parameters have been done for both the seasons and various factors have been discussed for the occurrence of the same. The annual effective dose associated with the ingestion of uranium by the population of the region has been estimated using USPEA equations.

Sampling CASE Application for the Quality Control of Published Natural Product Structures

Structure elucidation with NMR correlation data is dicey, as there is no way to tell how ambiguous the data set is and how reliably it will define a constitution. Many different software tools for computer assisted structure elucidation (CASE) have become available over the past decades, all of which could ensure a better quality of the elucidation process, but their use is still not common. Since 2011, WebCocon has integrated the possibility to generate theoretical NMR correlation data, starting from an existing structural proposal, allowing this theoretical data then to be used for CASE. Now, WebCocon can also read the recently presented NMReDATA format, allowing for uncomplicated access to CASE with experimental data. With these capabilities, WebCocon presents itself as an easily accessible Web-Tool for the quality control of proposed new natural products. Results of this application to several molecules from literature are shown and demonstrate how CASE can contribute to improve the reliability of Structure elucidation with NMR correlation data.

Pairing Laser Ablation and Xe Plasma FIB-SEM: An Approach for Precise End-Pointing in Large-Scale Physical Failure Analysis in the Semiconductor Industry

In this work we present a large-volume workflow for fast failure analysis of microelectronic devices that combines a stand-alone ps-laser ablation tool with a SEM/Xe Plasma FIB system. In this synergy, the ps-laser is used to quickly remove large volumes of bulk material while the SEM/Xe Plasma FIB is used for precise end-pointing to the feature of interest and fine surface polishing after laser. The concept of having a stand-alone laser tool obeys the logic of maximizing productivity as both systems can work simultaneously and continuously. As application examples we first present a full workflow to prepare an artefact-free, delamination-free cross-section in an AMOLED mobile display. We also present applications examples that require cm-sized long cuts to cut through whole microelectronic devices, or removal of cubic-mm of material to prepare mm-sized cross-sections in packages. We discuss a way how to implement correlation data across the laser and FIBSEM platforms through SYNOPSYS Avalon SW allowing precise navigation to the area of interest using layout circuit overlays. We also show an example of image bitmap overlay to navigate across platforms and end-pointing.

Le Petit Prince: A multilingual fMRI corpus using ecological stimuli

ABSTRACTNeuroimaging using more ecologically valid stimuli such as audiobooks has advanced our understanding of natural language comprehension in the brain. However, prior naturalistic stimuli have typically been restricted to a single language, which limited generalizability beyond small typological domains. Here we present the Le Petit Prince fMRI Corpus (LPPC–fMRI), a multilingual resource for research in the cognitive neuroscience of speech and language during naturalistic listening (Open-Neuro: ds003643). 49 English speakers, 35 Chinese speakers and 28 French speakers listened to the same audiobook The Little Prince in their native language while multi-echo functional magnetic resonance imaging was acquired. We also provide time-aligned speech annotation and word-by-word predictors obtained using natural language processing tools. The resulting timeseries data are shown to be of high quality with good temporal signal-to-noise ratio and high inter-subject correlation. Data-driven functional analyses provide further evidence of data quality. This annotated, multilingual fMRI dataset facilitates future re-analysis that addresses cross-linguistic commonalities and differences in the neural substrate of language processing on multiple perceptual and linguistic levels.

Non-Melanoma Facial Skin Tumors—The Correspondence between Clinical and Histological Diagnosis

This paper consists of a retrospective study that includes a total of 186 cases with facial skin tumors diagnosed and treated between January 2015 and December 2017. Our aim was to correlate the initial clinical diagnosis with the histological results, in order to observe the success rate of our clinical experience, but also to underline that certain clinical tumor aspects can be misleading as the histological findings can result in different final diagnostics. From the total number of cases, we counted a total of 226 tumors (both benign and malignant), from which 194 had the clinical diagnosis confirmed by the anatomopathological exam and 34 had a different laboratory result from the clinical presumption: 10 benign tumors and 22 malignant tumors (eight BCC and 14 SCC, 12 of the latter being confused with ulcerovegetant BCC). Detailed correlation data were presented, as well as different situations of incongruence between the clinical and the histological diagnosis. The long-term goal of the study was to use our experience of correlating the clinical and the histological diagnosis, in order to improve the existing knowledge on the clinical differential diagnosis of both malignant and benign facial skin tumors.

A Survey of Spoofer Detection Techniques via Radio Frequency Fingerprinting with Focus on the GNSS Pre-Correlation Sampled Data

Radio frequency fingerprinting (RFF) methods are becoming more and more popular in the context of identifying genuine transmitters and distinguishing them from malicious or non-authorized transmitters, such as spoofers and jammers. RFF approaches have been studied to a moderate-to-great extent in the context of non-GNSS transmitters, such as WiFi, IoT, or cellular transmitters, but they have not yet been addressed much in the context of GNSS transmitters. In addition, the few RFF-related works in GNSS context are based on post-correlation or navigation data and no author has yet addressed the RFF problem in GNSS with pre-correlation data. Moreover, RFF methods in any of the three domains (pre-correlation, post-correlation, or navigation) are still hard to be found in the context of GNSS. The goal of this paper was two-fold: first, to provide a comprehensive survey of the RFF methods applicable in the GNSS context; and secondly, to propose a novel RFF methodology for spoofing detection, with a focus on GNSS pre-correlation data, but also applicable in a wider context. In order to support our proposed methodology, we qualitatively investigated the capability of different methods to be used in the context of pre-correlation sampled GNSS data, and we present a simulation-based example, under ideal noise conditions, of how the feature down selection can be done. We are also pointing out which of the transmitter features are likely to play the biggest roles in the RFF in GNSS, and which features are likely to fail in helping RFF-based spoofing detection.

Performance Evaluation of Biozentech Malaria Scanner in Plasmodium knowlesi and P. falciparum as a New Diagnostic Tool

The computer vision diagnostic approach currently generates several malaria diagnostic tools. It enhances the accessible and straightforward diagnostics that necessary for clinics and health centers in malaria-endemic areas. A new computer malaria diagnostics tool called the malaria scanner was used to investigate living malaria parasites with easy sample preparation, fast and user-friendly. The cultured <i>Plasmodium</i> parasites were used to confirm the sensitivity of this technique then compared to fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis and light microscopic examination. The measured percentage of parasitemia by the malaria scanner revealed higher precision than microscopy and was similar to FACS. The coefficients of variation of this technique were 1.2-6.7% for <i>Plasmodium knowlesi</i> and 0.3-4.8% for <i>P. falciparum</i>. It allowed determining parasitemia levels of 0.1% or higher, with coefficient of variation smaller than 10%. In terms of the precision range of parasitemia, both high and low ranges showed similar precision results. Pearson’s correlation test was used to evaluate the correlation data coming from all methods. A strong correlation of measured parasitemia (<i>r²</i>=0.99, <i>P</i><0.05) was observed between each method. The parasitemia analysis using this new diagnostic tool needs technical improvement, particularly in the differentiation of malaria species.

ANALISIS PERSEPSI PENGUNJUNG TERHADAP ATRIBUT EKONOMI PADA WISATA HUTAN MADAPI TNKS

This study was to determine the visitor's perception of the economic attributes of the TNKS Madapi Forest tourism in Rejang Lebong Regency. This research was conducted in February-March 2020, the research location was determined purposively. Respondents in this study were visitors who were doing camping, outbound activities, research, environmental education, and forest exploration (tracking) in the TNKS Madapi Forest. The method of determining respondents is done by survey or observation methods. The data collection methods are primary data and secondary data, while the data analysis method uses Spearman Rank Correlation data analysis. Based on the results and discussion, it is known that the average visitor is satisfied with the tourism attributes that have been provided by the management of the TNKS Madapi Forest. The attraction or attribute that most visitors like is the view of the trees in the TNKS Madapi Forest. Based on the analysis, it is known that there is no influence between tourism attributes and the number of visitors in the TNKS Madapi Forest.