A literature survey was conducted to appraise the recent applications of artifical intelligence (AI)-based modeling studies in the environmental engineering field. A number of studies on artificial neural networks (ANN), fuzzy logic and adaptive neuro-fuzzy systems (ANFIS) were reviewed and important aspects of these models were highlighted. The results of the extensive literature survey showed that most AI-based prediction models were implemented for the solution of water/wastewater (55.7%) and air pollution (30.8%) related environmental problems compared to solid waste (13.5%) management studies. The present literature review indicated that among the many types of ANNs, the three-layer feed-forward and back-propagation (FFBP) networks were considered as one of the simplest and the most widely used network type. In general, the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (LMA) was found as the best-suited training algorithm for several complex and nonlinear real-life problems of environmental engineering. The literature survey showed that for water and wastewater treatment processes, most of AI-based prediction models were introduced to estimate the performance of various biological and chemical treatment processes, and to control effluent pollutant loads and flowrates from a specific system. In air polution related environmental problems, forecasting of ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, daily and/or hourly particulate matter (PM2.5) and PM10) emissions, and sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations were found to be widely modeled. For solid waste management applications, reseachers conducted studies to model weight of waste generation, solid waste composition, and total rate of waste generation.
In the present study, an alternative promising evaluation method was recommended for dead leaves of Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile as an adsorbent for biosorption of Methylene Blue (MB). The data from batch experiments were modeled by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The optimal operation conditions for biosorption of MB by P. oceanica dead leaves were found for pH, adsorbent dosage, temperature and initial dye concentration as 6, 0.3 g, 303 K and 50 mg/L, respectively. The adsorption reached equilibrium after 30 minutes. According to the results of sensitivity analysis, relative importance of temperature, dye concentration, pH, adsorbent dosage and process time on the biosorption of MB were 33%, 27%, 21%, 10% and 8%, respectively. Minimum mean square error (MSE) was found as 0.0169 by ANN modeling. The present study reveals a novel strategy for adsorption studies to utilize the highly accumulated biomass of dead leaves of P. oceanica in Turkish coastlines instead of burning these dead leaves.
Objective: The anxiety of Alzheimer's disease (AD) contributes significantly to decreased quality of life, increased morbidity, higher levels of caregiver distress, and the decision to institutionalize a patient. However, the incidence of anxiety in AD patients hasn't been discussed. In this study, artificial neural networks were used to predict the incidence of anxiety inAD patients.
Methods: A large randomized controlled clinical trial was analyzed in this study, which involved AD patients and caregivers from 6 different sites in the United States. The incidence of anxiety in AD patients was predicted by backpropagation artificial neural networks with one and hidden layers. After cross validation, the Predictive Accuracy (PA) of the models was measured to select the best structure of artificial neural networks.
Results: Among all models for predicting the incidence of anxiety in AD patients, the artificial neural network with respectively 6 and 3 neurons in the first and second hidden layers achieved the highest predictive accuracy of 85.56%.
Conclusions: The incidence of anxiety in AD patients can be predicted by an accuracy of over 80%. When used for anxiety prediction, neural networks with two hidden layers perform better than those with one hidden layer. These findings will benefit the prevention and early intervention of anxiety in Alzheimer's patients.
This contribution presents a review of resonance phenomena associated with the orbital motion of artificial satellites. Following an outline of the principal features of satellite motion and tracking
methods the topic of passage through high-order resonances is discussed. Next, a brief description of geostationary and other
low-order resonant orbits is presented. The paper is concluded with an historie account of the well-known critical inclination problem.
Let $(R,\mathfrak {m})$ be a complete Noetherian local ring, $I$ an ideal of $R$ and $M$ a nonzero Artinian $R$-module. In this paper it is shown that if $\mathfrak p$ is a prime ideal of $R$ such that $\dim R/\mathfrak p=1$ and $(0:_M\mathfrak p)$ is not finitely generated and for each $i\geq 2$ the $R$-module ${\rm Ext}^i_R(M,R/\mathfrak p)$ is of finite length, then the $R$-module ${\rm Ext}^1_R(M,R/\mathfrak p)$ is not of finite length. Using this result, it is shown that for all finitely generated $R$-modules $N$ with $\operatorname {Supp}(N)\subseteq V(I)$ and for all integers $i\geq 0$, the $R$-modules ${\rm Ext}^i_R(N,M)$ are of finite length, if and only if, for all finitely generated $R$-modules $N$ with $\operatorname {Supp}(N)\subseteq V(I)$ and for all integers $i\geq 0$, the $R$-modules ${\rm Ext}^i_R(M,N)$ are of finite length.
Low temperature has a negative impact on plant cells and results in the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In order to study the role of ascorbate under chilling stress, the response of an ascorbate-deficient Arabidopsis thaliana mutant vtc2-1 to low temperature (2°C) was investigated. After chilling stress, vtc2-1 mutants exhibited oxidative damage. An increase in the H2O2 generation and the production of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and a decrease in chlorophyll content, the maximal photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm) and oxidizable P700 were also noted. The ratio of ascorbate/dehydroascorbate and reduced glutathione/oxidzed glutathione in the vtc2-1 mutants were reduced, compared with the wild type (WT) plants. The activities of antioxidant enzymes, such as catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and soluble antioxidants were lower in the vtc2-1 mutants than those in WT plants. These results suggested that the ascorbate-deficient mutant vtc2-1 was more sensitive to chilling treatment than WT plants. The low temperature-induced oxidative stress was the major cause of the decrease of PSII and PSI function in the vtc2-1 mutants. Ascorbate plays a critical role of defense without which the rest of the ROS defense network is unable to react effectively., L. Y. Wang ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The theory of third-order aberrations of the system rotary symmetrical aspheric thin lenses and the relations for calculation of the shape rotary symmetrical aspheric spectacle lenses with zero astigmatism are stated. A comparison the possibility of the aspheric and spherical spectacle lenses is presented. and Je uvedena teorie aberací 3. řádu soustavy tenkých rotačně symetrických asférických čoček. Jsou odvozeny vztahy pro výpočet tvaru rotačně symetrické asférické brýlové čočky s korigovaným astigmatismem a je provedeno srovnání se sférickou brýlovou čočkou.
Samples of bottom ash and fly ash coming from the combustion of lignite with the addition of limestone, from the cocombustion of lignite and wood residue with limestone and from co-combustion of lignite, wood residue, biological sludges from the waste water treatment plant and municipal waste as well with the addition of limestone were examined. Scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalyser were used for study of morphology and chemical composition of ash particles. The results were compared with average composition of bottom ashes, fly ashes and input materials found by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and with phase composition found by X-ray diffraction method. There were proved no significant differences in the character and the structure of individual samples coming from various regimes of combustion., Vladimír Tomášek, Ondřej Šustai, Jana Seidlerová, Zdeněk Klika, Martin Stach, Zdeněk Weiss and Václav Roubíček., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Osteosarcoma (OS), a severe malignant bone tumour, usually occurs in adolescents and children and has a poor prognosis. Asiatic acid (AA), an active component isolated from Centella asiatica (L.) Urb., exhibits appreciable anti-oxidant and anti-tumour activities. So far, the effects and underlying mechanisms of AA against OS have not been clarified. Here, we explored the anti-tumour effects of AA against human OS and the involved mechanism mediating its actions. To evaluate effects of AA on the cell proliferation of human OS cells, cell viability and colony formation assays were performed. Flow cytometry was used to evaluate apoptosis in OS cells exposed to AA and mitochondrial membrane potential. Western blotting and RT-PCR were applied to determine expression of the relevant proteins and their mRNA levels. Our explorations showed that AA inhibits proliferation of human OS cells in a concentration- and time-dependent manner, and induces apoptosis of OS cells by the intrinsic (mitochondrial) pathway. Importantly, we found that inhibition of the AA-induced phosphorylation of JAK2/STAT3 signalling molecules and the decrease in MCL-1 contributed to the anti-tumour efficacy of AA. Collectively, our results suggest that AA could evoke mitochondrial- induced apoptosis in human OS cells by suppression of the JAK2/STAT3 pathway and MCL-1 expression. These results strongly demonstrate that AA could be a potential anti-tumour agent for OS treatment.