• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제31권6호
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• pp.586-594
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• 1999

To limit both the large displacement and acceleration response of the structure efficiently, the relationships between acceleration and displacement responses of the structure under several earthquakes are investigated for various horizontal stiffness of the base isolation system to determine the effective stiffness of the base isolation system in this paper. An example structure is a five-storey steel frame building as the primary structure and the secondary structures are assumed to be located on the fifth floor of the primary structure. Input motions used in the structural analysis are El Centre 1940, Taft 1952, Mexico 1985, San Fernando 1971 Pacoima Dam, and artificially generated earthquakes. The relationships of the absolute peak acceleration and the displacement at the top of the structure are calculated for various natural periods of base isolators under various earthquakes. The peak acceleration response of the fifth floor in the base isolated structure is significantly reduced by a factor of 2.1 through 6.25. Also, the relative displacement response of the floor to the base of the superstructure is very small. The results of this study can be utilized to determine the effective stiffness of the base isolation system.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.223-239
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• 2014

New IIR digital differintegrators (differentiator and integrator) with very minor absolute relative errors are presented in this paper. The digital integrator is designed by interpolating some of the existing integrators. The optimum value of the interpolation ratio is obtained through linear programming optimization. Subsequently, by modifying the transfer function of the proposed integrator appropriately, new digital differentiator is obtained. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed differintegrator are a more accurate approximation of ideal ones, than the existing differintegrators. Furthermore, the proposed differentiator has been tested in an image processing application. Edges characterize boundaries and are, therefore, a problem of fundamental importance in image processing. For comparison purpose Prewitt, Sobel, Roberts, Canny, Laplacian of Gaussian (LOG), Zerocross operators were used and their results are displayed. The results of edge detection by some of the existing differentiators are also provided. The simulation results have shown the superiority of the proposed approach over existing ones.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.281-287
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• 2016

Earlier studies conducted on lead-exposed workers have determined the reticulocyte count (RC) (%), but the parameters of Absolute Reticulocyte Count (ARC), Reticulocyte Index (RI), and Reticulocyte Production Index (RPI) were not reported. This study assessed the effect of lead (Pb) exposure on the status of reticulocyte count indices in workers occupied in lead battery plants. The present cross-sectional study was carried out on 391 male lead battery workers. The blood lead levels (BLL) were determined by using an Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The RC (%) was estimated by using the supravital staining method. The parameters, such as ARC, RI, and RPI, were calculated by using the RC (%) with the red cell indices (RBC count and hematocrit). The levels of RBC count and hematocrit were determined by using an ABX Micros ES-60 hematology analyzer. The levels of reticulocyte count indices - RC (%), ARC, RI, and RPI significantly increased with elevated BLL. The association between BLL and reticulocyte count indices was positive and significant. The results of linear multiple regression analysis showed that the reticulocyte count (${\beta}=0.212$, P < 0.001), ARC (${\beta}=0.217$, P < 0.001), RI (${\beta}=0.194$, P < 0.001), and RPI (${\beta}=0.208$, P < 0.001) were positively associated with BLL. The variable, smoking habits, showed a significant positive association with reticulocyte count indices: RC (%) (${\beta}=0.188$, P < 0.001), ARC (${\beta}=0.174$, P < 0.001), RI (${\beta}=0.200$, P < 0.001), and RPI (${\beta}=0.151$, P < 0.005). The study results revealed that lead exposure may cause reticulocytosis with an increase of reticulocyte count indices.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권4호
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• pp.1449-1453
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• 2015

Background: Oral capecitabine is increasingly replacing intravenous 5-fluorouracil in many chemotherapy regimens. However, data on the risk of febrile neutropaenia (FN) and treatment related death (TRD) with the drug remain sparse outside of clinical trial settings despite its widespread usage. This study aimed to determine these rates in a large cohort of patients treated in the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). Materials and Methods: We reviewed the clinical notes of all patients prescribed with oral capecitabine chemotherapy for any tumour sites in University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) from $1^{st}$ January 2009 till $31^{st}$ June 2010. Information collected included patient demographics, histopathological features, treatment received including the different chemotherapy regimens and intent of treatment whether the chemotherapy was given for neoadjuvant, concurrent with radiation, adjuvant or palliative intent. The aim of this study is to establish the pattern of usage, FN and TRD rates with capecitabine in clinical practice outside of clinical trial setting. FN is defined as an oral temperature > $38.5^{\circ}C$ or two consecutive readings of > $38.0^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours and an absolute neutrophil count < $0.5{\times}10^9/L$, or expected to fall below $0.5{\times}10^9/L$ (de Naurois et al., 2010). Treatment related death was defined as death occurring during or within 30 days of last chemotherapy treatment. Results: Between $1^{st}$ January 2009 and $30^{th}$ June 2010, 274 patients were treated with capecitabine chemotherapy in UMMC. The mean age was 58 years (range 22 to 82 years). Capecitabine was used in 14 different tumour sites with the colorectal site predominating with a total of 128 cases (46.7%), followed by breast cancer (35.8%). Capecitabine was most commonly used in the palliative setting accounting for 63.9% of the cases, followed by the adjuvant setting (19.7%). The most common regimen was single agent capecitabine with 129 cases (47.1%). The other common regimens were XELOX (21.5%) and ECX (10.2%). The main result of this study showed an overall FN rate of 2.2% (6/274). The overall TRD rate was 5.1% (14/274). The FN rate for the single agent capecitabine regimen was 1.6% (2/129) and the TRD rate was 5.4% (7/129). All the TRDs were with single agent capecitabine regimen were used for palliative intent. Conclusions: Oral capecitabine is used widely in clinical practice in a myriad of tumour sites and bears a low risk of febrile neutropaenia. However, capecitabine like any other intravenous chemotherapeutic agent carries a significant risk of treatment related death.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권6호
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• pp.2523-2526
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• 2012

Introduction: Febrile neutropenia is a relatively frequent event in cancer patients treated with chemotherapy and improvement in absolute neutrophil count (ANC) has been linked directly to improved outcome. Evaluation of granulocyte colony stimulating factors (GCSFs) for treatment has shown reduced incidences of episodes of prolonged neutropenia and protracted hospitalization. To determine absolute neutrophil counts with GCSF in febrile neutropenic cancer patients admitted to a tertiary care centre and to co-relate the improvement in ANC with mortality and hospital discharge. Methods: A prospective cross sectional study was carried at an oncology ward at Aga Khan University hospital from January 2010 to June 2011. All adult patients who were admitted and treated with GCSF for chemotherapy induced febrile neutropenia were included. Multivariable regression was conducted to identify the factors related with poor outcomes. Results: A total of 131 patients with febrile neutropenia were identified with mean age of 43.2 (18-85) years, 79 (60%) being ${\leq}50$. Seventy-five (57%) had solid tumors and 56 (43%) hematological malignancies, including lymphoma. Fifty seven (43.5%) had an ANC less 100 cells/$mm^3$, 34 (26%) one between 100-300 cells/$mm^3$ and 40 (31%) an ANC greater than 300 cells/$mm^3$. Thirty (23%) patients showed ANC recovery in 1-3 days, and 74(56%) within 4-7 days. Thirteen (10%) patients showed no recovery. The overall mortality was 18 (13.7%) patients. The mean time for ANC recovery seen in hematological malignancies was 6.34 days whereas for solid tumors it was 4.88 days. Patients with ANC <100 cells/$mm^3$ were more likely to die than patients with ANC >300 cells/$mm^3$ by a factor of 4.3. Similarly patients >50 years of age were 2.7 times more likely to die than younger patients. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that use of GCSF, in addition to intravenous antibiotics, in treatment of patients with chemotherapy induced febrile neutropenia accelerates neutrophil recovery, and shortens antibiotic therapy and hospitalization. We propose to risk classify the patients at the time of admission to evaluate the cost effectiveness of this approach in a resource constrained setup.

• International Journal of Reliability and Applications
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.37-47
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• 2012

In this article we attempted reliability analysis of a component under the stress-strength pattern with both classical as well as Bayesian techniques. The main focus is made to develop the theory for dealing the reliability problems in various circumstances for bivariate environmental set up in context of Bayesian paradigm. A stress-strength based model describes the life of a component which has strength (Y) and is subjected to stress(X). We develop the Bayes and moment estimators of reliability of a component for each of the three possible conditions, under the assumption that the two stresses (i.e. $X_1$ and $X_2$) on a component are dependent and follow a Bivariate exponential (BVE) of Marshall-Olkin distribution, the strength of a component (Y) following exponential distribution is independent of the stresses. The simulation study is performed with Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique via Gibbs sampler to obtain the estimates of Bayes estimators of reliability, are compared with moment estimators of reliabilities on the basis of absolute biases.

• 한국수자원학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국수자원학회 2019년도 학술발표회
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• pp.123-123
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• 2019

최근 기후변화로 인해 중국, 한국, 일본, 몽골 등을 포함한 동아시아 지역은 태풍, 가뭄, 홍수와 같은 자연재해의 발생 빈도가 증가하고 있는 추세이다. 중국의 경우 2017년 극심한 가뭄으로 1,850만 (ha)의 농작물 피해가 발생하였으며, 몽골 또한 2017년 4월 이후 극심한 가뭄으로 사막화가 급속도로 진행되고 있다. 위성 기반의 강우 자료는 공간과 시간 해상도가 높아짐에 따라 지상관측소 강수량 자료의 대체 수단으로 이용되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 Climate Hazards Groups InfraRed Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS), Precipitation Estimation From Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR), Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) 강우 위성 자료를 활용하여 기상학적 가뭄지수인 표준강수지수 (Standardized Precipitation Index, SPI)를 산정하였다. 시간 해상도는 월별 영상을 기준으로 2008년부터 2017년까지 지난 10년간의 데이터를 이용하였으며, 각각 격자가 다른 위성영상을 기존 기상관측소와 비교하였다. 피어슨 상관계수 (Pearson Correlation Coefficient, R)를 활용하여 강우 위성 영상과 지상관측소의 상관관계를 분석하고, 평균절대오차 (Mean Absolute Error, MAE), 평균제곱근오차 (Root Mean Square Error, RMSE)를 통해 통계적으로 정확도를 분석하였다. 인공위성 강수량 자료는 미계측 지역이 많은 곳이나 측정이 불가능한 지역에 효율성 측면에서 중요한 이점을 제공할 것으로 판단된다.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제26권6호
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• pp.533-546
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• 2020

The prediction of spall response of reinforced concrete members like columns and slabs have been attempted by earlier researchers with analytical solutions, as well as with empirical models developed from data generated from physical or numerical experiments, with different degrees of success. In this article, compared to the empirical models, more versatile and accurate models are developed based on model-free approach of artificial neural network (ANN). Synthetic data extracted from the results of numerical experiments from literature have been utilized for the purpose of training and testing of the ANN models. For two concrete members, namely, slabs and columns, different sets of ANN models were developed, each of which proved to have definite advantages over the corresponding empirical model reported in literature. In case of slabs, for all three categories of spall, the ANN model results were superior to the empirical models as evaluated by the various performance metrics, such as correlation, root mean square error, mean absolute error, maximum overestimation and maximum underestimation. The ANN models for each category of column spall could handle three variables together: namely, depth, spacing of longitudinal and transverse reinforcement, as contrasted to the empirical models that handled one variable at a time, and at the same time yielded comparable performance. The application of the ANN models for spall prediction of concrete slabs and columns developed in this study has been discussed along with their limitations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제39권1호
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• pp.81-93
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• 2021

Splitting tensile strength (STS) is an important mechanical parameter of concrete. This study offers novel methodologies for the early prediction of this parameter. Artificial neural network (ANN), which is a leading predictive method, is synthesized with two metaheuristic algorithms, namely atom search optimization (ASO) and equilibrium optimizer (EO) to achieve an optimal tuning of the weights and biases. The models are applied to data collected from the published literature. The sensitivity of the ASO and EO to the population size is first investigated, and then, proper configurations of the ASO-NN and EO-NN are compared to the conventional ANN. Evaluating the prediction results revealed the excellent efficiency of EO in optimizing the ANN. Accuracy improvements attained by this algorithm were 13.26 and 11.41% in terms of root mean square error and mean absolute error, respectively. Moreover, it raised the correlation from 0.89958 to 0.92722. This is while the results of the conventional ANN were slightly better than ASO-NN. The EO was also a faster optimizer than ASO. Based on these findings, the combination of the ANN and EO can be an efficient non-destructive tool for predicting the STS.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제34권4호
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• pp.325-332
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• 2018

The mechanism of the previously reported antidiabetic effect of Basella alba is unknown. This study investigated the role of B. alba aqueous leaf extract in the modulation of inflammatory cytokines and islet morphology in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Forty male Wistar rats, between 8 and 10 weeks old, were randomly divided into four groups (n = 10) and administered the following treatments: Healthy control (H-c) and Diabetic control (D-c) animals received normal saline 0.5 mL/100 g body weight daily, while Healthy Treatment (H-Ba) and Diabetic Treatment (D-Ba) rats received the plant extract 200 mg/kg body weight daily. All treatments were administered by oral gavage. Diabetes was induced in D-c and D-Ba rats by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (55 mg/kg body). The body weight and fasting blood sugar (FBS) levels were recorded every week for 4 weeks, after which the rats were euthanized and samples collected for further analysis. After the experiment, FBS level was significantly reduced (p < 0.0001) in rats in the D-Ba group, but increased (p < 0.001) in rats in the D-c group. The absolute (H-c and H-Ba vs D-c, p < 0.05) and relative (D-Ba vs H-c, p < 0.05; D-Ba vs H-Ba, p < 0.005) weights of the pancreases were significantly higher after the experiment. The rats in the D-c group had significantly higher levels of serum interleukin-$1{\beta}$ (p < 0.001 vs H-c; p < 0.05 vs H-Ba and D-Ba) and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (p < 0.0001), but lower levels of interleukin-10 (p < 0.05) in comparison with the other groups. Histopathological examination revealed severe interstitial congestion, reduced islet area (p < 0.0001), and increased islet cell density in the D-c group compared with those in the D-Ba group. From these findings, it was concluded that the aqueous extract of B. alba stimulates the recovery of beta-islet morphology in streptozotocininduced diabetic rats by modulating the peripheral production of inflammatory cytokines.