Search results for: opportunistic budget cycle

Authors: Pauline Nyssen, Ange Mouithys-Mickalad, Maryse Hoebeke

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Inflammation is a complex physiological phenomenon involving chemical and enzymatic mechanisms. Polymorphonuclear neutrophil leukocytes (PMNs) play an important role by producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) and releasing myeloperoxidase (MPO), a pro-oxidant enzyme. Released both in the phagolysosome and the extracellular medium, MPO produces during its peroxidase and halogenation cycles oxidant species, including hypochlorous acid, involved in the destruction of pathogen agents, like bacteria or viruses. Inflammatory pathologies, like rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis induce an excessive stimulation of the PMNs and, therefore, an uncontrolled release of ROS and MPO in the extracellular medium, causing severe damages to the surrounding tissues and biomolecules such as proteins, lipids, and DNA. The treatment of chronic inflammatory pathologies remains a challenge. For many years, MPO has been used as a target for the development of effective treatments. Numerous studies have been focused on the design of new drugs presenting more efficient MPO inhibitory properties. However, some designed inhibitors can be toxic. An alternative consists of assessing the potential inhibitory action of clinically-known molecules, having antioxidant activity. Propofol, 2,6-diisopropyl phenol, which is used as an intravenous anesthetic agent, meets these requirements. Besides its anesthetic action employed to induce a sedative state during surgery or in intensive care units, propofol and its injectable form Diprivan indeed present antioxidant properties and act as ROS and free radical scavengers. A study has also evidenced the ability of propofol to inhibit the formation of the neutrophil extracellular traps fibers, which are important to trap pathogen microorganisms during the inflammation process. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential inhibitory action mechanism of propofol and Diprivan on MPO activity. To go into the anti-inflammatory action of propofol in-depth, two of its oxidative derivatives, 2,6-diisopropyl-1,4-p-benzoquinone (PPFQ) and 3,5,3’,5’-tetra isopropyl-(4,4’)-diphenoquinone (PPFDQ), were studied regarding their inhibitory action. Specific immunological extraction followed by enzyme detection (SIEFED) and molecular modeling have evidenced the low anti-catalytic action of propofol. Stopped-flow absorption spectroscopy and direct MPO activity analysis have proved that propofol acts as a reversible MPO inhibitor by interacting as a reductive substrate in the peroxidase cycle and promoting the accumulation of redox compound II. Overall, Diprivan exhibited a weaker inhibitory action than the active molecule propofol. In contrast, PPFQ seemed to bind and obstruct the enzyme active site, preventing the trigger of the MPO oxidant cycles. PPFQ induced a better chlorination cycle inhibition at basic and neutral pH in comparison to propofol. PPFDQ did not show any MPO inhibition activity. The three interest molecules have also demonstrated their inhibition ability on an important step of the inflammation pathway, the PMNs superoxide anions production, thanks to EPR spectroscopy and chemiluminescence. In conclusion, propofol presents an interesting immunomodulatory activity by acting as a reductive substrate in the peroxidase cycle of MPO, slowing down its activity, whereas PPFQ acts more as an anti-catalytic substrate. Although PPFDQ has no impact on MPO, it can act on the inflammation process by inhibiting the superoxide anions production by PMNs.

Keywords: Diprivan, inhibitor, myeloperoxidase, propofol, spectroscopy

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Authors: Dauda Ibrahim Adagye

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Effective internal control system in the bursary unit of tertiary educational institutions is geared toward achieving quality teaching, learning, and research environment and as well assist the management of the institutions, particularly when decisions are to be made. While internal control system exists in all institutions, the outlined objectives above are far from being achieved. The paper; therefore, assesses the effectiveness of internal control system in tertiary educational institutions in Nasarawa State, Nigeria with the specific focus on the Nasarawa state Polytechnic, Lafia. The study is survey; hence, a simple closed-ended questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of twenty-seven (27) member staff from the Bursary and the internal audit unit of the Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia to obtain data for analysis purposes and to test the study hypothesis. Responses from the questionnaire were analyzed using a simple percentage and chi-square. Findings shows that the right people are not assigned to the right job in the department, budget, and management accounting were never used in the institution’s operations and checking of subordinate by their superior officers is not regular. This renders the current internal control structure of the Polytechnic as ineffective and weak. The paper therefore, recommends that: transparency should be seen as significant, as the institution work toward meeting its objectives, therefore, it means that the right staff is assigned to the right job and regular checking of the subordinates by their ensued superiors.

Keywords: internal control, tertiary educational intuitions, efficiency

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Authors: Moulay Youssef El Hafidi

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In this research, an enhanced room-temperature magnetic refrigerator based on nanofluid, consisting of permanent magnets as a magnetism source, gadolinium as magnetocaloric material, water as base liquid, and carbon nanotubes (CNT) as nanoparticles, has been designed. The magnetic field is supplied by NdFeB permanent magnets and is about 1.3 Tesla. Two similar heat exchangers are employed to absorb and expel heat. The cycle performance of this self-designed device is analyzed theoretically. The results provide useful data for future optimization of room-temperature magnetic refrigeration using nanofluids.

Keywords: magnetic cooling, nanofluid, gadolinium, permanent magnets, heat exchange

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Authors: Lukas Reznak, Maria Reznakova

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Recession of an economy has a profound negative effect on all involved stakeholders. It follows that timely prediction of recessions has been of utmost interest both in the theoretical research and in practical macroeconomic modelling. Current mainstream of recession prediction is based on standard OLS models of continuous GDP using macroeconomic data. This approach is not suitable for two reasons: the standard continuous models are proving to be obsolete and the macroeconomic data are unreliable, often revised many years retroactively. The aim of the paper is to explore a different branch of recession forecasting research theory and verify the findings on real data of the Czech Republic and Germany. In the paper, the authors present a family of discrete choice probit models with parameters estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. In the basic form, the probits model a univariate series of recessions and expansions in the economic cycle for a given country. The majority of the paper deals with more complex model structures, namely dynamic and bivariate extensions. The dynamic structure models the autoregressive nature of recessions, taking into consideration previous economic activity to predict the development in subsequent periods. Bivariate extensions utilize information from a foreign economy by incorporating correlation of error terms and thus modelling the dependencies of the two countries. Bivariate models predict a bivariate time series of economic states in both economies and thus enhance the predictive performance. A vital enabler of timely and successful recession forecasting are reliable and readily available data. Leading indicators, namely the yield curve and the stock market indices, represent an ideal data base, as the pieces of information is available in advance and do not undergo any retroactive revisions. As importantly, the combination of yield curve and stock market indices reflect a range of macroeconomic and financial market investors’ trends which influence the economic cycle. These theoretical approaches are applied on real data of Czech Republic and Germany. Two models for each country were identified – each for in-sample and out-of-sample predictive purposes. All four followed a bivariate structure, while three contained a dynamic component.

Keywords: bivariate probit, leading indicators, recession forecasting, Czech Republic, Germany

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Authors: Garry Gorman, Nigel McKelvey, James Connolly

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This study will evaluate a growth mindset intervention with Junior Cycle Coding and Senior Cycle Computer Science students in Ireland, where gamification will be used to incentivise growth mindset behaviour. An artificial intelligence (AI) driven personalised learning system will be developed to present computer programming learning tasks in a manner that is best suited to the individuals’ own learning preferences while incentivising and rewarding growth mindset behaviour of persistence, mastery response to challenge, and challenge seeking. This research endeavours to measure mindset with before and after surveys (conducted nationally) and by recording growth mindset behaviour whilst playing a digital game. This study will harness the capabilities of AI and aims to determine how a personalised learning (PL) experience can impact the mindset of a broad range of students. The focus of this study will be to determine how personalising the learning experience influences female and disadvantaged students' sense of belonging in the computer science classroom when tasks are presented in a manner that is best suited to the individual. Whole Brain Learning will underpin this research and will be used as a framework to guide the research in identifying key areas such as thinking and learning styles, cognitive potential, motivators and fears, and emotional intelligence. This research will be conducted in multiple school types over one academic year. Digital games will be played multiple times over this period, and the data gathered will be used to inform the AI algorithm. The three data sets are described as follows: (i) Before and after survey data to determine the grit scores and mindsets of the participants, (ii) The Growth Mind-Set data from the game, which will measure multiple growth mindset behaviours, such as persistence, response to challenge and use of strategy, (iii) The AI data to guide PL. This study will highlight the effectiveness of an AI-driven personalised learning experience. The data will position AI within the Irish educational landscape, with a specific focus on the teaching of CS. These findings will benefit coding and computer science teachers by providing a clear pedagogy for the effective delivery of personalised learning strategies for computer science education. This pedagogy will help prevent students from developing a fixed mindset while helping pupils to exhibit persistence of effort, use of strategy, and a mastery response to challenges.

Keywords: computer science education, artificial intelligence, growth mindset, pedagogy

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Authors: Mfaniseni Wiseman Mbatha

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The extension officers are regarded as the key role players in the provision of agricultural facilities to farmers across the world. The government of South Africa has shown a commitment to provide extensive support to farmers by the means of disseminating information and other agricultural facilities. This qualitative study on the experiences of extension officers on the provision of agricultural facilities to rural farmers towards improving agricultural practice was conducted in Msinga Local Municipality. The data was collected through the use of semi-structured interviews with extension officers who were sampled using the purposive sampling method. The qualitative data was analysed through the use of content analysis. The critical part of the findings reveals that the availability of arable land for agricultural practice, availability of agricultural schemes and availability of proper functioning community gardens were indicators of the high level of agricultural practice in the Msinga area. Therefore, the extension officers from the municipality department have shown to provide the agricultural budget to support rural farmers. Whereas, the department of agriculture provides well knowledgeable staff to train farmers about the process of farming and how they can address issues of livestock and crop diseases and also adapting to issues of climate change. The rural farmers, however, find it very difficult to learn and put into practice things that were thought by extension officers during training. There is, therefore, a need for recruitment of more extension staff and the involvement of Non-Government Organizations to increase access to extension facilities to the farmers.

Keywords: agricultural facilities, agricultural practice, extension officers, rural farmers

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Authors: Huiru Chen, Xuran Zhang

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At present, the residential architecture in China are still causing high energy consumption and high pollution during their whole life cycle, which can be backward compared with the developed countries. The aim of this paper is to discuss the application of green technology to residential architecture in Hangzhou. This article will start with the development of green buildings, then analyzes the use status of green technology in Hangzhou from several specific measures. Analysis of the typical existing green residential buildings in Hangzhou is an attempt to form a preliminary Hangzhou’s green technology application strategy system. Through research, it has been found that the application of green technology in Hangzhou has changed from putting green to the facade, to the combination of the preservation of the traditional green concept and the modern green technology.

Keywords: application, green technology, Hangzhou, residential architecture

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Authors: Jui-Hung Hung, Ching-Liang Hsieh, Yi-Wen Lin

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Modern medicine highly emphasizes the importance of palliative treatment. The inception of palliative and hospice care recently developed into the concept of caring for the patients’ and families’ physical, psychological and spiritual problems. There are several benefits related to palliative care such as reducing medical expenses, decreasing patients’ suffer, and supporting patient go through the finale of the life. Nowadays, in Taiwan, over 60-70% terminal cancer patients were covered in hospice care, and the coverage rate increased annually. Acupuncture is a well-known therapy used more than thousand years to relieve symptoms of cancer patient. Many reports showed that, even in the Western society, many reputable medical centers can provide Acupuncture therapy for patients. Accordingly, using Acupuncture for cancer patient care is a global trend. There are increased evidences indicate that Acupuncture can relieve the symptoms for cancer patients including pain, reduce the dosage of anesthetic, improve the cancer-related fatigue, relieve the chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting, ease anxiety mood and even improving the quality of life. Furthermore, some trials show that Acupuncture may help relieve xerostomia, hot flash, sleep disorders, and some GI discomfort and so on. Acupuncture therapy has many advantages for clinical use with effective, low-cost, minimal side effect, suitable for cancer patients and even for elderly population. Especially in nowadays, there are more diversified challenges in modern medicine, all of them will make the higher medical budget. We suggest that Acupuncture will be one of methods for palliative care for cancer patients.

Keywords: Acupuncture, cancer, integrative medicine, palliative care

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Authors: Veena Chaudhary, Rakesh P. Gakkhar

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In this study, energy and exergy analysis are applied to the experimental data of an internal combustion engine operating on conventional diesel cycle. The experimental data are collected using an engine unit which enables accurate measurements of fuel flow rate, combustion air flow rate, engine load, engine speed and all relevant temperatures. First and second law efficiencies are calculated for different engine speed and compared. Results indicate that the first law (energy) efficiency is maximum at 1700 rpm whereas exergy efficiency is maximum and exergy destruction is minimum at 1900 rpm.

Keywords: diesel engine, exergy destruction, exergy efficiency, second law of thermodynamics

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Authors: Dongjae Kang, Sokho Son, Jinmee Kim

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Cloud service brokering is a new service paradigm that provides interoperability and portability of application across multiple Cloud providers. In this paper, we designed cloud service brokerage system, any broker, supporting integrated service provisioning and SLA based service life cycle management. For the system design, we introduce the system concept and whole architecture, details of main components and use cases of primary operations in the system. These features ease the Cloud service provider and customer’s concern and support new Cloud service open market to increase cloud service profit and prompt Cloud service echo system in cloud computing related area.

Keywords: cloud service brokerage, multiple Clouds, Integrated service provisioning, SLA, network service

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Authors: Zavkiddin Mirtoshev, Mirabbos Mirkamalov

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We have analyzed the time series of full disk integrated soft X-ray (SXR) and hard X-ray (HXR) emission from the solar corona during 2004 January 1 to 2009 December 31, covering the descending phase of solar cycle 23. We employed the daily X-ray index (DXI) derived from X-ray observations from the Solar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS) mission in four different energy bands: 4-5.5; 5.5-7.5 keV (SXR) and 15-20; 20-25 keV (HXR). The application of Lomb-Scargle periodogram technique to the DXI time series observed by the Silicium detector in the energy bands reveals several short and intermediate periodicities of the X-ray corona. The DXI explicitly show the periods of 13.6 days, 26.7 days, 128.5 days, 151 days, 180 days, 220 days, 270 days, 1.24 year and 1.54 year periods in SXR as well as in HXR energy bands. Although all periods are above 70% confidence level in all energy bands, they show strong power in HXR emission in comparison to SXR emission. These periods are distinctly clear in three bands but somehow not unambiguously clear in 5.5-7.5 keV band. This might be due to the presence of Ferrum and Ferrum/Niccolum line features, which frequently vary with small scale flares like micro-flares. The regular 27-day rotation and 13.5 day period of sunspots from the invisible side of the Sun are found stronger in HXR band relative to SXR band. However, flare activity Rieger periods (150 and 180 days) and near Rieger period 220 days are very strong in HXR emission which is very much expected. On the other hand, our current study reveals strong 270 day periodicity in SXR emission which may be connected with tachocline, similar to a fundamental rotation period of the Sun. The 1.24 year and 1.54 year periodicities, represented from the present research work, are well observable in both SXR as well as in HXR channels. These long-term periodicities must also have connection with tachocline and should be regarded as a consequence of variation in rotational modulation over long time scales. The 1.24 year and 1.54 year periods are also found great importance and significance in the life formation and it evolution on the Earth, and therefore they also have great astro-biological importance. We gratefully acknowledge support by the Indian Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP, the Centre is affiliated to the United Nations), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) at Ahmedabad, India. This work has done under the supervision of Prof. Rajmal Jain and paper consist materials of pilot project and research part of the M. Tech program which was made during Space and Atmospheric Science Course.

Keywords: corona, flares, solar activity, X-ray emission

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Authors: Martin Alexander Eder, Sergei Semenov

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Many glass-epoxy composite structures, such as large utility wind turbine rotor blades (WTBs), comprise of adhesive joints with typically thick bond lines used to connect the different components during assembly. Performance optimization of rotor blades to increase power output by simultaneously maintaining high stiffness-to-low-mass ratios entails intricate geometries in conjunction with complex anisotropic material behavior. Consequently, adhesive joints in WTBs are subject to multiaxial stress states with significant stress gradients depending on the local joint geometry. Moreover, the dynamic aero-elastic interaction of the WTB with the airflow generates non-proportional, variable amplitude stress histories in the material. Empiricism shows that a prominent failure type in WTBs is high cycle fatigue failure of adhesive bond line interfaces, which in fact over time developed into a design driver as WTB sizes increase rapidly. Structural optimization employed at an early design stage, therefore, sets high demands on computationally efficient interface fatigue models capable of predicting the critical locations prone for interface failure. The numerical stress-based interface fatigue model presented in this work uses the Drucker-Prager criterion to compute three different damage indices corresponding to the two interface shear tractions and the outward normal traction. The two-parameter Drucker-Prager model was chosen because of its ability to consider shear strength enhancement under compression and shear strength reduction under tension. The governing interface damage index is taken as the maximum of the triple. The damage indices are computed through the well-known linear Palmgren-Miner rule after separate rain flow-counting of the equivalent shear stress history and the equivalent pure normal stress history. The equivalent stress signals are obtained by self-similar scaling of the Drucker-Prager surface whose shape is defined by the uniaxial tensile strength and the shear strength such that it intersects with the stress point at every time step. This approach implicitly assumes that the damage caused by the prevailing multiaxial stress state is the same as the damage caused by an amplified equivalent uniaxial stress state in the three interface directions. The model was implemented as Python plug-in for the commercially available finite element code Abaqus for its use with solid elements. The model was used to predict the interface damage of an adhesively bonded, tapered glass-epoxy composite cantilever I-beam tested by LM Wind Power under constant amplitude compression-compression tip load in the high cycle fatigue regime. Results show that the model was able to predict the location of debonding in the adhesive interface between the webfoot and the cap. Moreover, with a set of two different constant life diagrams namely in shear and tension, it was possible to predict both the fatigue lifetime and the failure mode of the sub-component with reasonable accuracy. It can be concluded that the fidelity, robustness and computational efficiency of the proposed model make it especially suitable for rapid fatigue damage screening of large 3D finite element models subject to complex dynamic load histories.

Keywords: adhesive, fatigue, interface, multiaxial stress

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Authors: J. Otegui, M. Agirre, M. A. Cestau, H. Erauskin

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The increasing accessibility of mid-priced additive manufacturing (AM) systems offers a chance to incorporate this technology into engineering instruction. Furthermore, AM facilitates the creation of manufacturing designs, enhancing the efficiency of various machines. One example of these machines is the Stirling cycle engine. It encompasses complex thermodynamic machinery, revealing various aspects of mechanical engineering expertise upon closer inspection. In this publication, the application of Stirling Engines fabricated via additive manufacturing techniques will be showcased for the purpose of instructive design and product enhancement. The performance of a Stirling engine's conventional displacer and piston is contrasted. The outcomes of utilizing this instructional tool in teaching are demonstrated.

Keywords: 3D printing, additive manufacturing, mechanical design, stirling engine.

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Authors: Liping Qiu, Xiaofeng Zhang

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In its long history, precious tomb murals suffered from various diseases due to natural and man-made destruction. The key to how to protect tomb murals is how to strengthen and protect the tomb murals. In order to maximize the life of the tomb murals, the artistic, historic, and scientific values of the tomb murals can be continued. In this paper, four kinds of traditional reinforcement materials (silicone acrylic lotion, pure acrylic lotion, polyvinyl acetate lotion, and B72) are selected to reinforce the ground support layer of tomb murals, and the reinforcement effect of each reinforcement material on the ground support layer of murals is compared and analyzed, and the best protection material is obtained.

Keywords: mural, destruction cycle, reinforcement material, disease

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Authors: Rida Akzar, Risti Permani, Wahida , Wendy Umberger

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Adoption of farm innovations may increase farm productivity, and therefore improve market access and farm incomes. However, most studies that look at the level and drivers of innovation adoption only focus on a specific type of innovation. Farmers may consider multiple innovation options, and constraints such as budget, environment, scarcity of labour supply, and the cost of learning. There have been some studies proposing different methods to combine a broad variety of innovations into a single measurable index. However, little has been done to compare these methods and assess whether they provide similar information about farmer segmentation by their ‘innovativeness’. Using data from a recent survey of 220 dairy farm households in West Java, Indonesia, this study compares and considers different methods of deriving an innovation index, including expert-weighted innovation index; an index derived from the total number of adopted technologies; and an index of the extent of adoption of innovation taking into account both adoption and disadoption of multiple innovations. Second, it examines the distribution of different farming systems taking into account their innovativeness and farm characteristics. Results from this study will inform policy makers and stakeholders in the dairy industry on how to better design, target and deliver programs to improve and encourage farm innovation, and therefore improve farm productivity and the performance of the dairy industry in Indonesia.

Keywords: adoption, dairy, household survey, innovation index, Indonesia, multiple innovations dairy, West Java

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Authors: Aya Effat, Ossama A. Hosny, Elkhayam M. Dorra

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Estimating costs is a crucial step in construction management and should be completed at the beginning of every project to establish the project's budget. The precision of the cost estimate plays a significant role in the success of construction projects as it allows project managers to effectively manage the project's costs. Site overhead costs constitute a significant portion of construction project budgets, necessitating accurate prediction and management. These costs are influenced by a multitude of factors, requiring a thorough examination and analysis to understand their relative importance and impact. Thus, the main aim of this research is to enhance the contractor’s ability to predict and manage site overheads by identifying and analyzing the main factors influencing the site overheads costs in the Egyptian construction industry. Through a comprehensive literature review, key factors were first identified and subsequently validated using a thorough comparative analysis of data from 55 real-life construction projects. Through this comparative analysis, the relationship between each factor and site overheads percentage as well as each site overheads subcategory and each project construction phase was identified and examined. Furthermore, correlation analysis was done to check for multicollinearity and identify factors with the highest impact. The findings of this research offer valuable insights into the key drivers of site overhead costs in the Egyptian construction industry. By understanding these factors, construction professionals can make informed decisions regarding the estimation and management of site overhead costs.

Keywords: comparative analysis, cost estimation, construction management, site overheads

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Authors: Nazanin Forouz

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The textile industry faces increasing criticism due to its resource-intensive nature and the negative environmental and societal impacts associated with the manufacturing, use, and disposal of clothes. To address these concerns, there is a growing desire to transition towards a circular economy for textiles, implementing recycling concepts and technologies to protect resources, the environment, and people. While existing recycling processes have focused on chemical and mechanical reuse of textile fibers, bio-based processes have received limited attention beyond end-of-life composting. However, bio-based technologies hold great promise for circularizing the textile life cycle and reducing environmental impacts.

Keywords: textile industry, circular economy, bio-based processes, recycling, environmental impacts

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Authors: Nigatu Tadesse, Li Juan, Liuhong Ming

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Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common and fourth deadly cancer in the world with limited treatment options at late advanced stage in which surgical therapy is not recommended with chemotherapy remain as the mainstay of treatment. However, the occurrence of chemoresistance as well as intera-tumoral and inter-tumoral heterogeneity of response to targeted and immunotherapy underlined a clear unmet treatment need in gastroenterology. Several molecular and cellular alterations ascribed for chemo resistance in GC including cancer stem cells (CSC) and tumor microenvironment (TME) remodeling. Cancer cells including CSC bears higher metabolic demand and major changes in TME involves alterations of gut microbiota interacting with nutrients metabolism. Metabolic upregulation in lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, fatty acids biosynthesis pathways identified as a common hall mark in GC. Metabolic addiction to methionine metabolism occurs in many cancer cells to promote the biosynthesis of S-Adenosylmethionine (SAM), a universal methyl donor molecule for high rate of transmethylation in GC and promote cell proliferation. Targeting methionine metabolism found to promotes chemo-sensitivity with treatment non-heterogeneity. Methionine restriction (MR) promoted the arrest of cell cycle at S/G2 phase and enhanced downregulation of GC cells resistance to apoptosis (including ferroptosis), which suggests the potential of synergy with chemotherapies acting at S-phase of the cell cycle as well as inducing cell apoptosis. Accumulated evidences showed both the biogenesis as well as intracellular metabolism of exogenous methionine could be safe and effective target for therapy either alone or in combination with chemotherapies. This review article provides an over view of the upregulation in methionine biosynthesis pathway and the molecular signaling through the PI3K/Akt/mTOR-c-MYC axis to promote metabolic reprograming through activating the expression of L-type aminoacid-1 (LAT1) transporter and overexpression of Methionine adenosyltransferase 2A(MAT2A) for intercellular metabolic conversion of exogenous methionine to SAM in GC, and the potential of targeting with novel therapeutic agents such as methioninase (METase), Methionine adenosyltransferase 2A (MAT2A), c-MYC, methyl like transferase 16 (METTL16) inhibitors that are currently under clinical trial development stages and future perspectives.

Keywords: gastric cancer, methionine metabolism, pi3k/akt/mtorc1-c-myc axis, gut microbiota, MAT2A, c-MYC, METTL16, methioninase

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Authors: Debbarma Asis, Guha Chandan

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Tumor Protein-53 (P53) is one of the tumor suppressor proteins. P53 regulates the cell cycle that conserves stability by preventing genome mutation. It is named so as it runs as 53-kilodalton (kDa) protein on Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis although the actual mass is 43.7 kDa. Experimental evidence has indicated that P53 cancer mutants loses tumor suppression activity and subsequently gain oncogenic activities to promote tumourigenesis. Tumor-specific DNA has recently been detected in the plasma of breast cancer patients. Detection of tumor-specific genetic materials in cancer patients may provide a unique and valuable tumor marker for diagnosis and prognosis. Commercially available MDA-468 breast cancer cell line was used for the proposed study.

Keywords: tumor protein (P53), cancer mutants, MDA-468, tumor suppressor gene

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Authors: Mukul Anand

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Quality oriented affordable shelter for all has always been the key issue in the housing sector of our country. Homelessness is the acute form of housing need. It is a paradox that in spite of innumerable government initiated programmes for affordable housing, certain section of society is still devoid of shelter. About nineteen million (18.78 million) households grapple with housing shortage in Urban India in 2012. In Indian scenario there is major mismatch between the people for whom the houses are being built and those who need them. The prime force faced by public authorities in facilitation of quality housing for all is high cost of construction. The present paper will comprehend executable techniques for dilution of cost factor in housing the homeless. The key actors responsible for delivery of cheap housing stock such as capacity building, resource optimization, innovative low cost building material and indigenous skeleton housing system will also be incorporated in developing these techniques. Time performance, which is an important angle of above actors, will also be explored so as to increase the effectiveness of low cost housing. Along with this best practices will be taken up as case studies where both conventional techniques of housing and innovative low cost housing techniques would be cited. Transportation consists of approximately 30% of total construction budget. Thus use of alternative local solutions depending upon the region would be covered so as to highlight major components of low cost housing. Government is laid back regarding base line information on use of innovative low cost method and technique of resource optimization. Therefore, the paper would be an attempt to bring to light simpler solutions for achieving low cost housing.

Keywords: construction, cost, housing, optimization, shelter

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Authors: Recep Keşli, Gülşah Aşık, Cengiz Demir, Onur Türkyılmaz

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Objective: Serratia species are identified as aerobic, motile Gram negative rods. The species Serratia marcescens (S. marcescens) causes both opportunistic and nosocomial infections. The genus Providencia is Gram-negative bacilli and includes urease-producing that is responsible for a wide range of human infections. Although most Providencia infections involve the urinary tract, they are also associated with gastroenteritis, wound infections, and bacteremia. The aim of this study was evaluate the antimicrobial resistance rates of S. marcescens and Providencia spp. strains which had been isolated from various clinical materials obtained from different patients who belongs to intensive care units (ICU) and inpatient clinics. Methods: A total of 35 S. marcescens and Providencia spp. strains isolated from various clinical samples admitted to Medical Microbiology Laboratory, ANS Research and Practice Hospital, Afyon Kocatepe University between October 2013 and September 2015 were included in the study. Identification of the bacteria was determined by conventional methods and VITEK 2 system (bio-Merieux, Marcy l’etoile, France) was used additionally. Antibacterial resistance tests were performed by using Kirby Bauer disc (Oxoid, Hampshire, England) diffusion method following the recommendations of CLSI. Results: The distribution of clinical samples were as follows: upper and lower respiratory tract samples 26, 74.2 % wound specimen 6, 17.1 % blood cultures 3, 8.5%. Of the 35 S. marcescens and Providencia spp. strains; 28, 80% were isolated from clinical samples sent from ICU. The resistance rates of S. marcescens strains against trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, piperacillin-tazobactam, imipenem, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime, cefepime and amikacin were found to be 8.5 %, 22.8 %, 11.4 %, 2.8 %, 17.1 %, 40 %, 28.5 % and 5.7 % respectively. Resistance rates of Providencia spp. strains against trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, piperacillin-tazobactam, imipenem, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime, cefepime and amikacin were found to be 10.2 %, 33,3 %, 18.7 %, 8.7 %, 13.2 %, 38.6 %, 26.7%, and 11.8 % respectively. Conclusion: S. marcescens is usually resistant to ampicillin, amoxicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanate, ampicillin/sulbactam, cefuroxime, cephamycins, nitrofurantoin, and colistin. The most effective antibiotic on the total of S. marcescens strains was found to be gentamicin 2.8 %, of the totally tested strains the highest resistance rate found against to ceftazidime 40 %. The lowest and highest resistance rates were found against gentamiycin and ceftazidime with the rates of 8.7 % and 38.6 % for Providencia spp.

Keywords: Serratia marcescens, Providencia spp., antibiotic resistance, intensive care unit

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Authors: Adriano Bessa Albuquerque, Francisco Jose Barreto Nunes

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Software vulnerabilities are increasing and not only impact services and processes availability as well as information confidentiality, integrity and privacy, but also cause changes that interfere in the development process. Security test could be a solution to reduce vulnerabilities. However, the variety of test techniques with the lack of real case studies of applying tests focusing on software development life cycle compromise its effective use. This paper offers an overview of how a Systematic Mapping Study (MS) about security verification, validation and test (VVT) was performed, besides presenting general results about this study.

Keywords: software test, software security verification validation and test, security test institutionalization, systematic mapping study

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Authors: U. Paniveni

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A few parameters of supergranular cells are studied using intensity patterns from the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory and Dopplergrams from SOHO. The turbulent aspect of the solar supergranulation is established by examining the interrelationships amongst the parameters characterizing a supergranular cell, namely size, lifetime, area, perimeter, fractal dimension, and horizontal flow velocity. The complexity of supergranular cells depicted by their fractal dimension is indicative of their non-laminar characteristics. The findings corroborate Kolmogorov’s theory of turbulence. Some parameters of supergranular cells also show a latitudinal dependence. Supergranulation is a synonym of convective phenomenon and hence can shed light on the physical conditions in the convection zone of the Sun. It plays a major role in the transport and dispersal of magnetic fields that may have a relation to the phases of the solar cycle.

Keywords: sun, granulation, convection, turbulence

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Authors: Annette Joseph

Abstract:

Background: The construction industry is dynamic in nature owing to the increasing uncertainties in technology, budgets, and development processes making projects more complex. Thus, predicting project performance and chances of its likely success has become difficult. The goal of all parties involved in construction projects is to successfully complete it on schedule, within planned budget and with the highest quality and in the safest manner. However, the concept of project success has remained ambiguously defined in the mind of the construction professionals. Purpose: This paper aims to study the analysis of a project in terms of its performance and measure the success. Methodology: The parameters for evaluating project success and the indices to measure success/performance of a project are identified through literature study. Through questionnaire surveys aimed at the stakeholders in the projects, data is collected from two live case studies (an ongoing and completed project) on the overall performance in terms of its success/failure. Finally, with the help of SPSS tool, the data collected from the surveys are analyzed and applied on the selected performance indices. Findings: The score calculated by using the indices and models helps in assessing the overall performance of the project and interpreting it to find out whether the project will be a success or failure. This study acts as a reference for firms to carry out performance evaluation and success measurement on a regular basis helping projects to identify the areas which are performing well and those that require improvement. Originality & Value: The study signifies that by measuring project performance; a project’s deviation towards success/failure can be assessed thus helping in suggesting early remedial measures to bring it on track ensuring that a project will be completed successfully.

Keywords: project, performance, indices, success

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Mona Misfer Alshardan, Djamal Ziani

Abstract:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are the organizations tickets to the global market. With the implementation of ERP, organizations can manage and coordinate all functions, processes, resources and data from different departments by a single software. However, many organizations consider the cost of traditional ERP to be expensive and look for alternative affordable solutions within their budget. One of these alternative solutions is providing ERP over a software as a service (SaaS) model. This alternative could be considered as a cost effective solution compared to the traditional ERP system. A key feature of any SaaS system is the multi-tenancy architecture where multiple customers (tenants) share the system software. However, different organizations have different requirements. Thus, the SaaS developers accommodate each tenant’s unique requirements by allowing tenant-level customization or configuration. While customization requires source code changes and in most cases a programming experience, the configuration process allows users to change many features within a predefined scope in an easy and controlled manner. The literature provides many techniques to accomplish the configuration process in different SaaS systems. However, the nature and complexity of SaaS ERP needs more attention to the details regarding the configuration process which is merely described in previous researches. Thus, this research is built on strong knowledge regarding the configuration in SaaS to define specifically the configuration borders in SaaS ERP and to design a configuration service with the consideration of the different configuration aspects. The proposed architecture will ensure the easiness of the configuration process by using wizard technology. Also, the privacy and performance are guaranteed by adopting the databases isolation technique.

Keywords: configuration, software as a service, multi-tenancy, ERP

Procedia PDF Downloads 393

Authors: Adedayo Jeremiah Adeyekun, Samuel Oluwagbemiga Ishola,

Abstract:

This paper is an assessment of factors influencing the cost and time performance of subcontractors and the need for effective performance of subcontractors at the project sites. The factors influencing the performance of subcontractors are grouped, similar to those identified with the project or an organization and on another hand, there are significant factors influencing the performance of the subcontractors. These factors incorporate management level leadership, time required to complete the project, profit, staff capability/expertise, reputation, installment method, organization history, and project procurement method strategy, security, bidding technique, insurance, bond and relationship with the major contractors. The factors influencing the management of subcontractors in building development projects includes performance of significant past projects, standard of workmanship, consistence with guidelines, regular payment to labourers, adherence to program, regularity and viability of communication with main contractor, adherence to subcontract necessities. Other factors comprise adherence to statutory environmental regulations, number of experienced sites administrative staff, inspection and maintenance of good workplace, number of artisans and workers, quality of as-built and shop drawings and ability to carry out the quantity of work and so on. This study also aimed to suggest a way forward to improve the performance of subcontractors which is the reason for exceeding budget at the project sites. To carry out this study, a questionnaire was drafted to derive information on the causes of low performance of subcontractors and the implication to cost.

Keywords: performance, contractor, subcontractors, construction

Procedia PDF Downloads 76

Authors: Chanhyuck Jeon, Jongho Park, Jinwoong Choi, Sungnam Hong, Sun-Kyu Park

Abstract:

Many industries put emphasis on environmentally-friendliness as environmental problems are on the rise all over the world. Among themselves, the Modular Bridge research is going on. Also performing cross-section optimization and duration reducing, this research aims at developing the modular bridge with Environment-Friendliness and economic feasibility. However, the difficulty lies in verifying environmental effectiveness because there are no field applications of the modular bridge until now. Therefore, this thesis is categorized according to the form of the modular bridge superstructure and assessed CO₂ emission quantification per work types and materials according to each form to verify the environmental effectiveness of the modular bridge.

Keywords: modular bridge, CO2 emission, environmentally friendly, quantification, carbon emission factor, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)

Procedia PDF Downloads 555

Authors: Behnaz Pahlousay, Farshad Kazemnejad, Elisa Palezzato, Michele Torielli

Abstract:

In this paper, we study the notions of connected domination number and of outer-connected domination number for middle graphs. Indeed, we obtain tight bounds for these numbers in terms of the order of the middle graph M(G). We also compute the outer-connected domination number of some families of graphs such as star graphs, cycle graphs, wheel graphs, complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs and some operation on graphs, explicitly. Moreover, some Nordhaus-Gaddum-like relations are presented for the outer-connected domination number of middle graphs.

Keywords: connected domination number, outer-connected dom- ination number, domination number, middle graph, nordhaus- gaddum-like relation.

Procedia PDF Downloads 37

Authors: Jamil Khalil Izraqi

Abstract:

This paper investigates the transition of a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle from an internal combustion engine (ICE) to an EV using Matlab/Simulink modeling and simulation. The performance of the EV drivetrain system was simulated under various operating conditions, including standard and custom driving cycles in Turkey and Jordan (Amman), respectively. The results of this paper indicate that the transition is viable and that modeling and simulation can help in understanding the performance and efficiency of the electric drivetrain system, including battery pack, power electronics, and brushless direct current (BLDC) Motor.

Keywords: BLDC, buck-boost, inverter, SOC, drive-cycle

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: S. Arpit, P. K. Das, S. K. Dash

Abstract:

In this paper, a comparative study is done between two fuels, naphtha and natural gas (NG), for a gas turbine (GT) plant of 32.5 MW with the same thermodynamic configuration. From the energy analysis, it is confirmed that the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of the gas turbine in the case of natural gas is higher as compared to naphtha, and hence the isentropic efficiency of the turbine is better. The result from the exergy analysis also confirms that due to high turbine inlet temperature in the case of natural gas, exergy destruction in combustion chamber is less. But comparing two fuels for overall analysis, naphtha has higher energy and exergetic efficiency as compared to natural gas.

Keywords: exergy analysis, gas turbine, naphtha, natural gas

Procedia PDF Downloads 208