Improving Maize Shelling Operation Using Motorized Mobile Shellers: A Step towards Reducing Postharvest Losses in Low Developing Countries

Maize shelling is still a challenge in low developing countries with more efforts required to advance this operation. In Uganda, motorized immobile maize shellers have been fabricated locally to enhance the shelling operation. However, their performance has not elated the farmers. The unsatisfactory performance is a result of these shellers being fabricated by local artisan with finite understanding of the maize grain characteristics and operation factors to optimize maize shelling. In addition, farmers in these countries have a deficiency of power to operate the motorized maize shellers available. Transportation of these motorized maize shellers is also still a challenge and it imposes an extra cost to the farmers hence reducing their profits from maize growing. In this chapter, we reviewed maize shelling process in low developing countries particularly the categories of maize shelling, maize sheller design requirements, use of equations to design sheller parts, modification of the motorized maize shellers and case studies on the mobile maize shellers, comparing them with immobile maize shellers. The study concluded that on addition to other sheller performance attributes, motorized mobile maize shellers can solve transportation challenges associated with motorized immobile maize shellers.

Income and conversion handicaps: estimating the impact of child chronic illness/disability on family income and the extra cost of child chronic illness/child disability in Ireland using a standard of living approach

Child chronic illness/ disability can present significant challenges for children, families and society that require appropriate policy responses; yet little is known about the demands placed on families resources from an economics perspective in terms of its impact on household income and the extra income required to achieve the same standard of living as families who do not have a child with a chronic illness/disability. The paper uses data from the Growing Up in Ireland National survey dataset for nine year olds. It is the first study to empirically investigate the impact of child chronic illness/disability on earnings, standard of living and the extra cost of disability together. It is also the first study to explicitly address endogeneity in the standard of living model by using a two-stage process where residuals were harvested to provide efficient estimates. The findings show that families experience significant disadvantage and economic hardship due to reduced household income and a lower standard of living due to the extra cost of disability that would require considerable income to compensate. Policy implications of these findings suggest that a tiered approach to disability support payments which encompass broader criteria for inclusion based on varying severity levels be introduced to alleviate the financial hardship and compromised economic wellbeing of families affected. In addition, more innovative policies are required to implement appropriate timely access to health and social care services and flexi parental employment, which in turn requires the provision of adequate access to high quality educational and care facilities.

Design and Fabrication of Bladeless Windmill for Power Generation

The world is heading towards maximum utilization of non-conventional energy resources like solar, Biofuel, Biogas and wind energy is also a part of it. The world has set a goal of 2030 up to which use of carbon emitting fuels is to be eliminated. The method of producing wind energy is Windmill. The windmills around us nowadays are of conventional type, means, they make use of Blades and rotor to convert wind energy into power. If we the structure of conventional windmill, we came to know that it is quite expensive and also carries additional cost of it’s maintenance, handling, transportation, and storage with it. Due to rotating parts and the metal property to get corroded with time makes it more expensive. We are trying to eradicate this drawbacks with our concept of Bladeless windmill. Our project will completely eliminate the blades and will give power without the extra cost carrying with it.

AB0806 THE JOURNEY OF AXIAL SPONDYLOARTHRITIS IN SPAIN: FROM THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER TO THE RHEUMATOLOGIST

Background:The delay in the diagnosis of axial spondyloarthropathies (AxSp), with the morbidity and economic burden that this entails, is well known1,2. According to the 2017 Atlas of axial spondyloarthritis in Spain3, the mean diagnostic delay was 8,5 years, with an average total cost per patient of 659,8€ including medical consultations and complementary tests until diagnosis. However, nowadays there are still many patients who are incorrectly referred from the general practitioner (GP) despite showing typical features of AxSp.Objectives:To describe the AxSp journey until diagnosis and treatment. To analyze additional costs of either a wrong or a delayed referral of the patients with AxSp to rheumatologists.Methods:Type of study: observational, retrospective, descriptive. We included all the patients who were referred to our Department of Rheumatology from Jan-2019 to Dec-2020 and whose final diagnosis was AxSp. All the data since the first contact to the GP until the final diagnosis and initiation of treatment in Rheumatology were collected, including consultations to our emergency department (EmD) and other specialists. The number of consultations, complementary tests (analytical and imaging), as well as the direct costs of all of them were also collected4. A descriptive and associative analysis of these data was carried out using the SPSS software. We used median and interquartile range (IQR) for descriptive analysis and a significant p value < 0,05.Results:From Jan-2019 to Dec-2020, 15 patients with AxSp and a median age of 43 (Interquartile range (IQR) 34-51) years were diagnosed, 10 women and 5 men. The main reason for referral was inflammatory low back pain (66.7%). The 60% of the patients were referred from the GP, followed by the EmD (20%). Despite typical symptoms, 4 patients (26,7%) were initially referred to Traumatology, and 3 out of them returned to the GP without the right diagnosis.The median delay for referral from the GP to the rheumatologist was 47 (IQR 20-173) days. A wrong referral of the patient was associated with a delayed diagnosis (p 0, 018) and higher direct costs of management (p 0, 018). The average cost (including medical consultation and complementary tests) of the patient referred directly to Rheumatology was 267,71 (IQR 193,7-462,3) €, while the average cost of patients referred to other specialists was 578,83 (IQR 368,32-898,7) €. The extra cost of a wrong referral of a patient with AxSp was 311€ on average per patient in our sample (Table 1).Table 1.Women/men10/5Median age (years; IQR)43; 34-51Median diagnostic delay (days; IQR)45; 20-173Median cost of patient referred initially to Rheumatology (€; IQR)267,71; 193,7-462,3Median cost of patient referred initially to another specialist (€; IQR)578,83; 368,32-898,7Extra cost of wrong referral per patient(€)311Conclusion:AxSp is still a disease with a not negligible diagnostic delay, but it seems to be lower than previously reported. A wrong referral of the patient to other specialists, mainly Traumatology, is associated with this delay and can double the cost of managing these patients. This demonstrates the still unmet need of improving the management and referral of the patients with AxSp from the GP to the rheumatologist, ensuring an early diagnosis and treatment at the lowest cost for the system. Our study has limitations due to its small sample size, but preliminary results indicate that a larger-scale study would be necessary to correctly assess the magnitude of this problem.References:[1]Fernández Carballido C. Diagnosing early spondyloarthritis in Spain: the ESPeranza program. Reumatol Clin. 2010;6(SUPPL. 1):6-10[2]Muñoz-Fernández S et al. A model for the development and implementation of a national plan for the optimal management of early spondyloarthritis: The Esperanza Program. Ann Rheum Dis. 2011;70(5):827-830[3]Garrido Cumbrera M et al. Atlas de Espondilartritis Axial En España 2017. Vol 45.; 2017.[4]Generalitat Valenciana. LEY 20/2017, de 28 de diciembre, de la Generalitat, de tasas. [2017/12159]:96-222.Acknowledgements:We would like to thank Novartis for its support.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

Why we need to face up to the ageing population?

Dr Anna Dixon, Chief Executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, examines the issues around an ageing population, how we have reached this stage and offers potential solutions to the problems it presents. Her book, The Age of Ageing Better? turns the misleading and depressing narrative of burden and massive extra cost of people living longer on its head and shows how our society could thrive if we started thinking differently. She presents a refreshingly optimistic vision for the future that could change the way we value later life in every sense.

NUCLEAR: An Efficient Methods for Mining Frequent Itemsets and Generators from Closed Frequent Itemsets

Frequent itemset (FI) mining is an interesting data mining task. Instead of directly mining the FIs from data it is preferred to mine only the closed frequent itemsets (CFIs) first and then extract the FIs for each CFI. However, some algorithms require the generators for each CFI in order to extract the FIs, leading to an extra cost. In this paper, we introduce an effective algorithm, called NUCLEAR, which can induce the FIs from the lattice of CFIs without the need of the generators. It can enumerate generators as well by similar fashion. Experimental results showed that NUCLEAR is effective as compared to previous studies, especially, the time for extracting the FIs is usually much smaller than that for mining the CFIs.