ALBERT

Description: Space frame structures satisfy the ever-increasing requirements of societies for providing a variety of structural forms and architectural spaces with special characteristics, such as aesthetic and free-form features, population-wise capacities, and structural performance, among others. Structural behavior of these systems largely depend on the type of joints and their components which are to be considered appropriately in design and analysis. Screws comprise one of the key components of joints in these structures and play a pivotal role in the total cost of the structure, as well as the maximum stress level created in joints. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of screw size on the maximum stress generated in three MERO double-layer ball joints with diameters of 98, 110, and 132 mm as a sample numerical analysis case to pinpoint this fact. Numerical simulations were conducted using ANSYS workbench software. Based on the results, in order to achieve the maximum factor of safety (FOS), the minimum stress, and keeping the total construction cost optimal, it is recommended to use M16, M20, and M24 screws for the ball joints of diameters 98, 110, and 132 mm, respectively.

Description: The management and operation of an electrical switchboard originally was processed by an inspector so only tangible malfunctions could be identified while other intangible ones that can cause severe damages to the switchboard were overlooked. To solve this serious deprivation, this investigation, therefore, implemented an intranet sensors system in the electrical switchboard to create a new channel of communication via smart devices to operate and access it remotely, which will eventually lead to increased safety and efficiency of managing electrical switchboards, as well as manufacturing reliability and stability. All these will also increase competitiveness in business. The findings of this research indicate that the application could solve the deprivation by signaling all security malfunctions, both tangible and intangible, remotely via smartphones and laptops in the real-time operating system, which helps reduce severe damages to the switchboard, on-site inspection, and loss of service time to fix malfunctions and human and related risks, as well as increase manufacturing reliability and stability of the operation. The implemented intranet sensors system was also compatible with the current existing security system. This increased security, therefore, verifies the efficiency and business competitiveness of the intranet sensors system.

Description: Malaria is one of the most infectious diseases in the world, particularly in developing continents such as Africa and Asia. Due to the high number of cases and lack of sufficient diagnostic facilities and experienced medical personnel, there is a need for advanced diagnostic procedures to complement existing methods. For this reason, this study proposes the use of machine-learning models to detect the malaria parasite in blood-smear images. Six different features—VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50, ResNet101, DenseNet121, and DenseNet201 models—were extracted. Then Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, Naïve Bayes, and K-Nearest Neighbour classifiers were trained using these six features. Extensive performance analysis is presented in terms of precision, recall, f-1score, accuracy, and computational time. The results showed that automating the process can effectively detect the malaria parasite in blood samples with an accuracy of over 94% with less complexity than the previous approaches found in the literature.

Description: In this article, the parabolic dense fuzzy set is defined, and its basic arithmetic operations are studied with graphical illustration. The lock set concept is incorporated in a parabolic dense fuzzy set. Then, it is applied to the problems of fishery culture via the modeling of an economic order quantity model. Here, the fingerlings are fed to reach the ideal size to fulfill the customer’s demand. The growth rate of the fingerlings is assumed as a linear function. After the sales of all fish, the pond is cleaned properly for a new cycle. Here, the model is solved in a crisp sense first. Then, we fuzzify the model considering the demand rate as a parabolic dense lock fuzzy number and obtain the result in a fuzzy environment. The main aim of our study was to find the quantity of the ordering items such that the total inventory cost gets a minimum value. Lastly, sensitivity analysis and graphical illustrations were added for better justification of our model.

Description: A decision support system (DSS) was developed to help reduce food waste at traditional food retailers while selling fresh horticultural products, but also to promote food safety and quality. This computational tool includes two major functions: (1) the prediction of the remaining shelf life of fresh horticultural product, namely lettuce, onion, carrot, and cabbage based on its microbial growth status, governed by extrinsic and intrinsic parameters (temperature, water activity and pH, respectively). The remaining shelf life of the studied horticultural products is determined by using the online predictive food microbiology tool— the Combined Database for Predictive Microbiology (Combase). The time to reach the infectious doses of bacteria considered in the study for each of the four horticultural products are predicted; (2) the calculation of the dynamic price of the produce that should be set each day, depending on the predicted end of the marketing period to increase the demand and potential for sale to the final consumer. The proposed dynamic pricing model assumes a linear relation with the remaining shelf life of the analyzed vegetable to set the selling price. The shelf life determined by the DSS for optimal storage conditions is, in general, conservative, ensuring food safety. The automatic dynamic pricing gives new opportunities to small retailers to manage their business, fostering profit and simultaneously contributing to reduce food waste. Thus, this decision support system can contribute to the sustainable value of reducing food waste by providing information to small grocers and retailers on the safety of their perishable status depending on storage conditions and allowing them to suggest a fair price depending on that quality.

Description: The outbreak of COVID-19 is a public health emergency that caused disastrous results in many countries. The global aim is to stop transmission and prevent the spread of the disease. To achieve it, every country needs to scale up emergency response mechanisms, educate and actively communicate with the public, intensify infected case finding, contact tracing, monitoring, quarantine of contacts, and isolation of cases. Responding to an emergency requires efficient collaboration and a multi-skilled approach (medical, information, statistical, political, social, and other expertise), which makes it hard to define one interface for all. As actors from different perspectives and domain backgrounds need to address diverse functions, the possibility to exchange available information quickly would be desirable. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a joint state-level public health institution has not been established, but is covered by entity competencies. In this sense, a geoportal has been developed as an epidemiological location-intelligence system (ELIS) that supports the exchange of such information between the entities and the cantons. For its development, open source software components in the cloud were used as a working platform with all the necessary functionalities. The geoportal provides an entry point for access to geospatial, epidemiological, environmental and statistical data used for analysis, geocoding of confirmed COVID-19 cases, identification of disease dynamics, identification of vulnerable groups, mapping of health capacities, and general modeling of infection spread with application support for communication and collaboration between all institutions and the public. The paper describes the challenges and ways to overcome them in the development and use of ELIS.

Description: This short communication explains the need for a clear method for the selection of COVID-19 quarantine hotels. It also lists available systematic methods that are usable for this aim.

Description: Wind energy is considered one of the most important sources of renewable energy in the world, because it contributes to reducing the negative effects on the environment. The most important types of wind turbines are horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines. This work presents the full details of design for vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) and how to find the optimal values of necessary factors. Additionally, the results shed light on the efficiency and performance of the VAWT under different working conditions. It was taken into consideration the variety of surrounding environmental conditions (such as density and viscosity of fluid, number of elements of the blade, etc.) to simulate the working of vertical wind turbines under different working conditions. Furthermore, the effect of the design factors was investigated such as the number and size of the blades on the behavior and performance of VAWT. It was assumed that the vertical wind blade works in different sites of Iraq. QBlade software (Version 8) was used to achieve the calculations and optimization processes to obtain the optimal design of vertical axis wind turbines that is suitable for the promising sites. The results proved that accurate results can be obtained by using QBlade software.

Description: The alarming rate at which infectious waste is growing was an unsolved problem worldwide before the pandemic, and it has only gotten worse. It is especially prominent in the medical services, owing to the improper use or the lack of high-efficiency waste management systems. To address this issue, this paper presents a modification to the conventional rotary kiln incineration method using add-on ozone (O3) at a concentration of 100–160 g/h in order to enhance its efficiency when treating emitted air pollutants. These pollutants of Hg, HF, TSP, SO2, NO2, CO, and HCl were measured, and their percent opacity concentrations were 0.006 mg/m3, 0.680 mg/m3, 21.900 mg/m3, 5.600 mg/m3, 16.300 mg/m3, 13.700 mg/m3, 0.022 mg/m3, and 6%, respectively. The amounts of these air pollutants were considerably lower than those released from a rotary kiln incinerator without the add-on ozone. Additionally, all the measurements were lower than the emission thresholds established in the US Environmental Protection Agency Emission Standards Reference Guide. Therefore, using the proposed rotary kiln incineration method modified with add-on ozone is suitable for use in the elimination of infectious waste in that it drastically reduces air pollution and improves air quality, resulting in environmental improvements aimed at mitigating the devastating impacts pollution has on human health.

Description: 5G technology is spreading extremely quickly. Many services, including Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), have utilized the features of 5G technology to improve their performance. VoIP service is gradually ruling the telecommunication sector due to its various advantages (e.g., free calls). However, VoIP service wastes a substantial share of the VoIP 5G network’s bandwidth due to its lengthy packet header. For instance, the share of the packet header from bandwidth and channel time reaches 85.7% of VoIP 5G networks when using the IPv6 protocol. VoIP designers are exerting considerable efforts to solve this issue. This paper contributes to these efforts by designing a new technique named Zeroize (zero sizes). The core of the Zeroize technique is based on utilizing the unnecessary fields of the IPv6 protocol header to keep the packet payload (voice data), thereby reducing or “zeroizing” the payload of the VoIP packet. The Zeroize technique substantially reduces the expanded bandwidth of VoIP 5G networks, which is reflected in the wasted channel time. The results show that the Zeroize technique reduces the wasted bandwidth by 20% with the G.723.1 codec. Therefore, this technique successfully reduces the bandwidth and channel time of VoIP 5G networks when using the IPv6 protocol.