Search results for: tissue specific genes

Authors: Mai M. Farid, Ximeng Yang, Tomoharu Kuboyama, Chihiro Tohda

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Trigonelline is a major alkaloid component derived from Trigonella foenum-graecum L. (fenugreek) and has been reported before as a potential neuroprotective agent, especially in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the previous data were unclear and used model mice were not well established. In the present study, the effect of trigonelline on memory function was investigated in Alzheimer’s disease transgenic model mouse, 5XFAD which overexpresses the mutated APP and PS1 genes. Oral administration of trigonelline for 14 days significantly enhanced object recognition and object location memories. Plasma and cerebral cortex were isolated at 30 min, 1h, 3h, and 6 h after oral administration of trigonelline. LC-MS/MS analysis indicated that trigonelline was detected in both plasma and cortex from 30 min after, suggesting good penetration of trigonelline into the brain. In addition, trigonelline significantly ameliorated axonal and dendrite atrophy in Amyloid β-treated cortical neurons. These results suggest that trigonelline could be a promising therapeutic candidate for AD.

Keywords: alzheimer’s disease, cortical neurons, LC-MS/MS analysis, trigonelline

Procedia PDF Downloads 147

Authors: Valentina Colonnello, Paolo Maria Russo

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Studies indicate a link between individual differences in affective disposition and depression, as well as between emotion dysregulation and depression. However, the specific role of emotion dysregulation domains in mediating the relationship between affective disposition and depression remains largely unexplored. In three cross-sectional quantitative studies (total n = 1350), we explored the extent to which specific emotion regulation difficulties mediate the relationship between personal distress disposition (Study 1), separation distress as a primary emotional trait (Study 2), and an insecure, anxious attachment style (Study 3) and depression. Across all studies, we found that the relationship between affective disposition and depression was mediated by difficulties in accessing adaptive emotion regulation strategies. These findings underscore the potential for modifiable abilities that could be targeted through preventive interventions.

Keywords: emotions, mental health, individual traits, personality

Procedia PDF Downloads 67

Authors: Laura Kahn, Paul Rodrigues, Onur Savas, Shannon Hahn

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An empirical understanding of an individual's personality expression can have a profound impact on organizations seeking to strengthen team performance and improve employee retention. A team's personality composition can impact overall performance. Creating a tiered information framework that leverages proxies for a user's social context and lexical and linguistic content provides insight into location-specific personality expression. We leverage the layered framework to examine domain-specific, psychological, and lexical cues within social media posts. We apply DistilBERT natural language transfer learning models with real world data to examine the relationship between Big Five personality expressions of people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.

Keywords: big five, personality expression, social media analysis, workforce development

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Jan Ceselsky

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Construction and reconstruction of settlements and individual municipalities, environmental management and the creation, deployment of the forces of production and building transport and technical equipment requires a large expenditure of material and human resources. That is why the economic aspects of the majority decision in these planes built in the foreground and are often decisive. Thereby but more serious is that the economic aspects of the settlement, the creation and function remain in their whole, unprocessed, and can not speak of a set of individual techniques and methods traditional indicators and experiments with new approaches. This is true both at the level of the national economy, and in their own urban designs. Still a few remain identified specific economic shaping patterns of settlement and the less it is possible to speak of their control. Also practical assessing economics of specific solutions are often used non-apt indicators in addition to economics usually identifies with the lowest acquisition cost or high-intensity land use with little regard for functional efficiency and little studied much higher operating and maintenance costs.

Keywords: investment, municipal engineering, value for money, construction

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Panpan Fan, Bo Ming, Niels Anten, Jochem Evers, Yaoyao Li, Shaokun Li, Ruizhi xie

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Nitrogen (N) utilization for crop production under N deficiency conditions is subject to a trade-off between maintaining specific leaf N content (SLN), important for radiation-use efficiency (RUE), versus maintaining leaf area (LA) development, important for light capture. This paper aims to explore how maize deals with this trade-off through responses in SLN, LA and their underlying traits during the vegetative and reproductive growth stages. In a ten-year N fertilization trial in Jilin province, Northeast China, three N fertilizer levels have been maintained: N-deficiency (N0), low N supply (N1), and high N supply (N2). We analyzed data from years 8 and 10 of this experiment for two common hybrids. Under N deficiency, maize plants maintained LA and decreased SLN during vegetative stages, while both LA and SLN decreased comparably during reproductive stages. Canopy-average specific leaf area (SLA) decreased sharply during vegetative stages and slightly during reproductive stages, mainly because senesced leaves in the lower canopy had a higher SLA. In the vegetative stage, maize maintained leaf area at low N by maintaining leaf biomass (albeit hence having N content/mass) and slightly increasing SLA. These responses to N deficiency were stronger in maize hybrid XY335 than in ZD958. We conclude the main strategy of maize to cope with low N is to maintain plant growth, mainly by increasing SLA throughout the plant during early growth. N was too limiting for either strategy to be followed during later growth stages.

Keywords: leaf N content per unit leaf area, N deficiency, specific leaf area, maize strateg

Procedia PDF Downloads 94

Authors: Abdulsalam. I. Rafida, Marwa. F. Elalem, Hasna. E. Alemam

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This study aimed at testing the various types of water in some areas of the city of Tripoli, Libya for the presence of Heterotrophic Aerobic Bacteria (HAB), and anaerobic Sulphate Reducing Bacteria (SRB). The water samples under investigation included rainwater accumulating on the ground, sewage water (from the city sewage treatment station, sulphate water from natural therapy swimming sites), and sea water (i.e. sea water exposed to pollution by untreated sewage water, and unpolluted sea water from specific locations). A total of 20 samples have been collected distributed as follows: rain water (8 samples), sewage water (6 samples), and sea water (6 samples). An up-to-date method for estimation has been used featuring readymade solutions i.e. (BARTTM test for HAB and BARTTM test for SRB). However, with the exception of one rain water sample, the results have indicated that the target bacteria have been present in all samples. Regarding HAB bacteria the samples have shown a maximum average of 7.0 x 106 cfu/ml featuring sewage and rain water and a minimum average of 1.8 x 104 cuf/ml featuring unpolluted sea water collected from a specific location. As for SRB bacteria; a maximum average of 7.0 x 105 cfu/ml has been shown by sewage and rain water and a minimum average of 1.8 x 104 cfu/ml by sewage and sea water. The above results highlight the relationship between pollution and the presence of bacteria in water particularly water collected from specific locations, and also the presence of bacteria as the result of the use of water provided that a suitable environment exists for its growth.

Keywords: heterotrophic aerobic bacteria (HAB), sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB), water, environmental sciences

Procedia PDF Downloads 491

Authors: V. E. Messerle, A. B. Ustimenko, O. A. Lavrichshev

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A large amount of manure and its irrational use negatively affect the environment. As compared with biomass fermentation, plasma processing of manure enhances makes it possible to intensify the process of obtaining fuel gas, which consists mainly of synthesis gas (CO + H₂), and increase plant productivity by 150–200 times. This is achieved due to the high temperature in the plasma reactor and a multiple reduction in waste processing time. This paper examines the plasma processing of biomass using the example of dried mixed animal manure (dung with a moisture content of 30%). Characteristic composition of dung, wt.%: Н₂О – 30, С – 29.07, Н – 4.06, О – 32.08, S – 0.26, N – 1.22, P₂O₅ – 0.61, K₂O – 1.47, СаО – 0.86, MgO – 0.37. The thermodynamic code TERRA was used to numerically analyze dung plasma gasification and pyrolysis. Plasma gasification and pyrolysis of dung were analyzed in the temperature range 300–3,000 K and pressure 0.1 MPa for the following thermodynamic systems: 100% dung + 25% air (plasma gasification) and 100% dung + 25% nitrogen (plasma pyrolysis). Calculations were conducted to determine the composition of the gas phase, the degree of carbon gasification, and the specific energy consumption of the processes. At an optimum temperature of 1,500 K, which provides both complete gasification of dung carbon and the maximum yield of combustible components (99.4 vol.% during dung gasification and 99.5 vol.% during pyrolysis), and decomposition of toxic compounds of furan, dioxin, and benz(a)pyrene, the following composition of combustible gas was obtained, vol.%: СО – 29.6, Н₂ – 35.6, СО₂ – 5.7, N₂ – 10.6, H₂O – 17.9 (gasification) and СО – 30.2, Н₂ – 38.3, СО₂ – 4.1, N₂ – 13.3, H₂O – 13.6 (pyrolysis). The specific energy consumption of gasification and pyrolysis of dung at 1,500 K is 1.28 and 1.33 kWh/kg, respectively. An installation with a DC plasma torch with a rated power of 100 kW and a plasma reactor with a dung capacity of 50 kg/h was used for dung processing experiments. The dung was gasified in an air (or nitrogen during pyrolysis) plasma jet, which provided a mass-average temperature in the reactor volume of at least 1,600 K. The organic part of the dung was gasified, and the inorganic part of the waste was melted. For pyrolysis and gasification of dung, the specific energy consumption was 1.5 kWh/kg and 1.4 kWh/kg, respectively. The maximum temperature in the reactor reached 1,887 K. At the outlet of the reactor, a gas of the following composition was obtained, vol.%: СO – 25.9, H₂ – 32.9, СO₂ – 3.5, N₂ – 37.3 (pyrolysis in nitrogen plasma); СO – 32.6, H₂ – 24.1, СO₂ – 5.7, N₂ – 35.8 (air plasma gasification). The specific heat of combustion of the combustible gas formed during pyrolysis and plasma-air gasification of agricultural waste is 10,500 and 10,340 kJ/kg, respectively. Comparison of the integral indicators of dung plasma processing showed satisfactory agreement between the calculation and experiment.

Keywords: agricultural waste, experiment, plasma gasification, thermodynamic calculation

Procedia PDF Downloads 42

Authors: Alex Hughes

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Patients with advanced heart failure develop specific palliative care needs due to the progressive symptom burden and unpredictable disease trajectory. NICE guidance advises that palliative care should be provided to patients with both cancer and non-cancer conditions as and when required. However, there is some way to go before this guidance is consistently and effectively implemented nationwide in conditions such as heart failure. The Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A national framework for local action in England provides a set of foundations and ambitions which outline a vision for what high-quality palliative and end-of-life care look like in England. This poster aims to critically consider how to improve access to palliative care for heart failure patients in England by analysing the foundations taken from this framework to generate specific recommendations using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). The eight foundations analysed are: ‘Personalised care planning’, ‘Shared records’, ‘Evidence and information’, ‘Involving, supporting and caring for those important to the dying Person’, ‘Education and training’, ‘24/7 access’, ‘Co-design’ and ‘Leadership.’ A number of specific recommendations have been generated which highlight a need to close the evidence-policy gap and implement policy with sufficient evidence. These recommendations, alongside the creation of an evidence-based national strategy for palliative care and heart failure, should improve access to palliative care for heart failure patients in England. Once implemented, it will be necessary to evaluate the effect of these proposals to understand if access to palliative care for heart failure patients actually improves.

Keywords: access, health systems, heart failure, palliative care

Procedia PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Parham Bakhtiari

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The aesthetic characteristics of French keyboard music created during different time periods are examined through the utilization of compositional methods and the nurturing of specific musical styles. This article investigates the changes in style of keyboard compositions created by French musicians, starting from the initial stages from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s. It explores connections from the past and comparing the keyboard compositions of François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau in the Baroque era to those of Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel in the Impressionist era. The evolution of keyboard music in France, particularly for the piano which was a new instrument at the time, was greatly influenced by the French revolution. Hence, we will delve into this topic further. The article examines the development of a specific French fashion trend of keyboard music that were composed during this time when there was an increasing emphasis on technical proficiency and expression of a fresh group of young French music creators.

Keywords: music, keyboard, baroque, impressionism, performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 46

Authors: L. Ramirez, E. Guillén, J. Sánchez

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Some of the main goals about telecare such as monitoring, treatment, telediagnostic are deployed with the integration of applications with specific appliances. In order to achieve a coherent model to integrate software, hardware, and healthcare systems, different telehealth models with Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. have been implemented, and their advantages are still under analysis. In this paper, we propose an integrated model based on IoT architecture and cloud computing telehealth center. Analytics module is presented as a solution to control an ideal diagnostic about some diseases. Specific features are then compared with the recently deployed conventional models in telemedicine. The main advantage of this model is the availability of controlling the security and privacy about patient information and the optimization on processing and acquiring clinical parameters according to technical characteristics.

Keywords: analytics, telemedicine, internet of things, cloud computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 325

Authors: Youssef. K. A. Abdalhafid, Ezaldin A. M. Mohammed, Masoud M. M. Zatout

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This study described the changes in the liver of Uromastyx acanthinura (Bell, 1825) males and females during hibernation and activity seasons. The results revealed that, hibernation causes increase fatty liver and pigment cells with abundant damage, comparing with nearly normal structure and less fatty liver after the hibernation with almost normal pattern. Genomic DNA showed apparent separation during hibernation. Also, caspase 3 and caspase 7 activity reached a high level in the liver tissue during hibernation comparing with activity season.

Keywords: histological liver, DNA fragmentation, hibernation, caspase 3 and caspase 7

Procedia PDF Downloads 319

Authors: Hussein Abbas Jebur, Yasir Abd Ulrazzaq

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This study was carried out at the farm of El-Gemmaiza Agriculture Research Station, El-Garbia Governorate Egypt, to determine the performance characteristics of an agricultural transport. The performance of this transportation was compared between three surfaces (asphalt, dusty and field). The study was concentrated on the rate of drawbar pull, slip ratio, tractive efficiency and specific energy per unit area. The comparison was made under three different surfaces (asphalt, dusty and field), different traveling speeds from (3.38 to 6.55 km/h) and variable weights (0 and 300 kg). The results showed that the highest value of the tractive efficiency 60.20% was obtained at traveling speed 4.00 km/h with weight on the rear wheel on the asphalt surface. The highest value of specific energy 1.93 kW.h/ton during use of ballast on rear tractor wheels at traveling speed 3.38 km/h on the field surface.

Keywords: tractor, energy, transportation, weight, power

Procedia PDF Downloads 288

Authors: Xiquan Weng, Chaoge Wang, Guoqin Xu, Wentao Lin

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Objective: Cold exposure and exercise serve as two powerful physiological stimuli to launch the conversion of fat-accumulating white adipose tissue (WAT) into energy-dissipating brown adipose tissue (BAT). So far, it remains to be elucidated whether exercise plus cold exposure can produce an addictive effect on promoting WAT browning. Methods: 64 SD rats were subjected to high-fat and high-sugar diets for 9-week and successfully established an obesity model. They were randomly divided into 8 groups: normal control group (NC), normal exercise group (NE), continuous cold control group (CC), continuous cold exercise group (CE), intermittent cold control group (IC) and intermittent cold exercise group (IE). For continuous cold exposure, the rats stayed in a cold environment all day; For intermittent cold exposure, the rats were exposed to cold for only 4h per day. The protocol for treadmill exercises were as follows: 25m/min (speed), 0°C (slope), 30mins each time, an interval for 10 mins between two exercises, twice/two days, lasting for 5 weeks. Sampling were conducted on the 5th weekend. The body length and weight of the rats were measured, and the Lee's index was calculated. The visceral fat rate (VFR), subcutaneous fat rate (SFR), brown fat rate (BrFR) and body fat rate (BoFR) were measured by Micro-CT LCT200, and the expression of UCP1 protein in inguinal fat was examined by Western-blot. SPSS 22.0 was used for statistical analysis of the experimental results, and the ANOVA analysis was performed between groups (P < 0.05 was significant). Results: (1) Compared with the NC group, the weight of obese rats was significantly declined in the NE, CE and IE groups (P < 0.05), the Lee's index of obese rats significantly declined in the CE group (P < 0.05). Compared with the NE group, the weight of obese rats was significantly declined in the CE and IE groups (P < 0.05). (2)Compared with the NC group, the VFR and BoFR of the rats significantly declined in the NE, CE and IE groups (P < 0.05), the SFR of the rats significantly declined in the CE and IE groups (P < 0.05), and the BFR of the rats was significantly higher in the CC and IC groups (P < 0.05), respectively. Compared with the NE group, the VFR and BoFR of the rats significantly declined in the CE group (P < 0.05), the SFR of the rats was significantly higher in the CC and IS groups (P < 0.05), and the BrFR of the rats was significantly higher in the IC group (P < 0.05). (3)Compared with the NC group, the up-regulation of UCP1 protein expression in the inguinal fat of the rats was significant in the NE, CC, CE, IC and IE groups (P < 0.05). Compared with the NE group, the up-regulation of UCP1 protein expression in the inguinal fat of the rats was significant in the CC, CE and IE groups (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Exercise in the continuous and intermittent cold, especially in the former, can effectively decline the weight and body fat rate of obese rats. This is related to the effect of cold and exercise on the browning of white fat in rats.

Keywords: cold, browning of white fat, exercise, obesity

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: Razieh Karimi Aghcheh, Christian Kubicek, Joseph Strauss, Gerhard Braus

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Filamentous fungi are of considerable economic and social significance for human health, nutrition and in white biotechnology. These organisms are dominant producers of a range of primary metabolites such as citric acid, microbial lipids (biodiesel) and higher unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs). In particular, they produce also important but structurally complex secondary metabolites with enormous therapeutic applications in pharmaceutical industry, for example: cephalosporin, penicillin, taxol, zeranol and ergot alkaloids. Several fungal secondary metabolites, which are significantly relevant to human health do not only include antibiotics, but also e.g. lovastatin, a well-known antihypercholesterolemic agent produced by Aspergillus. terreus, or aflatoxin, a carcinogen produced by A. flavus. In addition to their roles for human health and agriculture, some fungi are industrially and commercially important: Species of the ascomycete genus Hypocrea spp. (teleomorph of Trichoderma) have been demonstrated as efficient producer of highly active cellulolytic enzymes. This trait makes them effective in disrupting and depolymerization of lignocellulosic materials and thus applicable tools in number of biotechnological areas as diverse as clothes-washing detergent, animal feed, and pulp and fuel productions. Fungal LaeA/LAE1 (Loss of aflR Expression A) homologs their gene products act at the interphase between secondary metabolisms, cellulase production and development. Lack of the corresponding genes results in significant physiological changes including loss of secondary metabolite and lignocellulose degrading enzymes production. At the molecular level, the encoded proteins are presumably methyltransferases or demethylases which act directly or indirectly at heterochromatin and interact with velvet domain proteins. Velvet proteins bind to DNA and affect expression of secondary metabolites (SMs) genes and cellulases. The dynamic interplay between LaeA/LAE1, velvet proteins and additional interaction partners is the key for an understanding of the coordination of metabolic and morphological functions of fungi and is required for a biotechnological control of the formation of desired bioactive products. Aspergilli and Trichoderma represent different biotechnologically significant species with significant differences in the LaeA/LAE1-Velvet protein machinery and their target proteins. We, therefore, performed a comparative study of the interaction partners of this machinery and the dynamics of the various protein-protein interactions using our robust proteomic and mass spectrometry techniques. This enhances our knowledge about the fungal coordination of secondary metabolism, cellulase production and development and thereby will certainly improve recombinant fungal strain construction for the production of industrial secondary metabolite or lignocellulose hydrolytic enzymes.

Keywords: cellulases, LaeA/1, proteomics, secondary metabolites

Procedia PDF Downloads 272

Authors: Uchenna Egwu, Paul Jonathan Sallis

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Perennial ryegrass is an abundant renewable lignocellulosic biofuel feedstock for biomethane production through anaerobic digestion (AD). In this study, six anaerobic continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) were set up in three pairs. Each pair of the CSTRs was then used to study the effects of operating temperatures – psychrophilic, mesophilic, and thermophilic, and optimum pH on the specific methane production (SMP) of the ryegrass during AD under discontinuous daily feeding conditions. The reactors were fed at an organic loading rate (OLR) ranging from 1-1.5 kgVS.L⁻¹d⁻¹ and hydraulic residence time, HRT=20 days for 140 days. The pH of the digesters was maintained at the range of 6.8-7.2 using 1 M NH₄HCO₃ solution, but this was replaced with biomass ash-extracts from day 105-140. The results obtained showed that the mean SMP of ryegrass measured between HRT 3 and 4 were 318.4, 425.4 and 335 N L CH₄ kg⁻¹VS.d⁻¹ for the psychrophilic (25 ± 2°C), mesophilic (40 ± 1°C) and thermophilic (60 ± 1°C) temperatures respectively. It was also observed that the buffering ability of the reactors increased with operating temperature, probably due to an increase in the solubility of ammonium bicarbonate (NH₄HCO₃) with temperature. The reactors also achieved a mean VS destruction of 61.9, 68.5 and 63.5%, respectively, which signifies that the mesophilic reactors achieved the highest specific methane production (SMP), while the psychrophilic reactors achieved the lowest. None of the reactors attained steady-state condition due to the discontinuous daily feeding times, and therefore, such feeding practice may not be the most effective for maximum biogas production over long periods of time. The addition of NH₄HCO₃ as supplement provided a good buffering condition in these AD digesters, but the digesters failed in the long run due to inhibition from the accumulation of free ammonia, which later led to decrease in pH, acidification, and souring of the digesters. However, the addition of biomass ash extracts was shown to potentially revive failed AD reactors by providing an adequate buffering and essential trace nutrient supplements necessary for optimal bacterial growth.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion, discontinuous feeding, perennial ryegrass, specific methane production, supplements, temperature

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Shashi Sharma, V. K. Katiyar, Uaday Singh

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The ability to manipulate magnetic particles in fluid flows by means of inhomogeneous magnetic fields is used in a wide range of biomedical applications including magnetic drug targeting (MDT). In MDT, magnetic carrier particles bounded with drug molecules are injected into the vascular system up-stream from the malignant tissue and attracted or retained at the specific region in the body with the help of an external magnetic field. Although the concept of MDT has been around for many years, however, wide spread acceptance of the technique is still looming despite the fact that it has shown some promise in both in vivo and clinical studies. This is because traditional MDT has some inherent limitations. Typically, the magnetic force is not very strong and it is also very short ranged. Since the magnetic force must overcome rather large hydrodynamic forces in the body, MDT applications have been limited to sites located close to the surface of the skin. Even in this most favorable situation, studies have shown that it is difficult to collect appreciable amounts of the MDCPs at the target site. To overcome these limitations of the traditional MDT approach, Ritter and co-workers reported the implant assisted magnetic drug targeting (IA-MDT). In IA-MDT, the magnetic implants are placed strategically at the target site to greatly and locally increase the magnetic force on MDCPs and help to attract and retain the MDCPs at the targeted region. In the present work, we develop a mathematical model to study the capturing of magnetic nanoparticles flowing in a fluid in an implant assisted cylindrical channel under the magnetic field. A coil of ferromagnetic SS 430 has been implanted inside the cylindrical channel to enhance the capturing of magnetic nanoparticles under the magnetic field. The dominant magnetic and drag forces, which significantly affect the capturing of nanoparticles, are incorporated in the model. It is observed through model results that capture efficiency increases from 23 to 51 % as we increase the magnetic field from 0.1 to 0.5 T, respectively. The increase in capture efficiency by increase in magnetic field is because as the magnetic field increases, the magnetization force, which is attractive in nature and responsible to attract or capture the magnetic particles, increases and results the capturing of large number of magnetic particles due to high strength of attractive magnetic force.

Keywords: capture efficiency, implant assisted-magnetic drug targeting (IA-MDT), magnetic nanoparticles, modelling

Procedia PDF Downloads 463

Authors: Levan Sabauri

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The purpose of this article is an examination of the meaning of theoretic aspects of audit in the context of solving of specific problems of the audit. The audit’s aim is the estimation of financial statements by the auditor, i.e. if they are prepared according to the basic requirements of current financial statements. By examination of concrete examples, we can clearly see problems created in an audit and in often cases, those contradictions which can be caused by incompliance of matters regulated by legislation and by reality. An important part of this work is the analysis of reform in the direction of business accounting, statements and audit in Georgia and its comparison with EU countries. In the article, attention is concentrated on the analysis of specific problems of auditing practice and ways of their solving by taking into consideration theoretical aspects of the audit are proposed.

Keywords: audit, auditor, auditors’ ethic code, auditor’s risk, financial statement, objectivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 358

Authors: Brahmia Nadjet

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The growing needs of displacements led advanced countries in this field install new specific transport systems, able to palliate any deficiencies, especially when regular public transport does not adequately meet the requests of users. In this context, on-demand transport systems (ODT) are very efficient; they rely on techniques based on the location of trip generators which should be assured effectively with the use of operators responsible of the advance reservation, planning and organization, and studying the different ODT criteria (organizational, technical, geographical, etc.). As the advanced countries in the field of transport, some developing countries are involved in the adaptation of the new technologies to reduce the deficit in their communication system. This communication presents the study of an ODT implementation in the west of Algeria, by developing the Geomatics side of the study. This part requires the use of specific systems (such as GIS, RDBMS), so we developed the process through an application in an environment of mobility by using the computer tools dedicated to the management of the entities related to the transport field.

Keywords: ODT, geomatics, GIS, transport systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 504

Authors: Mariann Veresne Somosi, Zoltan Nagy, Krisztina Varga

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Innovation is the key element of economic development and a key factor in social processes. Technical innovations can be identified as prerequisites and causes of social change and cannot be created without the renewal of society. The study of social innovation can be characterised as one of the significant research areas of our day. The study’s aim is to identify the process of social innovation, which can be defined by input, transformation, and output factors. This approach divides the social innovation process into three parts: situation analysis, implementation, follow-up. The methods associated with each stage of the process are illustrated by the chronological line of social innovation. In this study, we have sought to present methodologies that support long- and short-term decision-making that is easy to apply, have different complementary content, and are well visualised for different user groups. When applying the methods, the reference objects are different: county, district, settlement, specific organisation. The solution proposed by the study supports the development of a methodological combination adapted to different situations. Having reviewed metric and conceptualisation issues, we wanted to develop a methodological combination along with a change management logic suitable for structured support to the generation of social innovation in the case of a locality or a specific organisation. In addition to a theoretical summary, in the second part of the study, we want to give a non-exhaustive picture of the two counties located in the north-eastern part of Hungary through specific analyses and case descriptions.

Keywords: factors of social innovation, methodological combination, social innovation process, supporting decision-making

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Authors: Qin Long, Li Xiaoge

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The Knowledge Graphs have now become a new form of knowledge representation. However, there is no consensus in regard to a plausible and definition of entities and relationships in the domain-specific knowledge graph. Further, in conjunction with several limitations and deficiencies, various domain-specific entities and relationships recognition approaches are far from perfect. Specifically, named entity recognition in Chinese domain is a critical task for the natural language process applications. However, a bottleneck problem with Chinese named entity recognition in new domains is the lack of annotated data. To address this challenge, a domain distant supervised named entity recognition framework is proposed. The framework is divided into two stages: first, the distant supervised corpus is generated based on the entity linking model of graph attention neural network; secondly, the generated corpus is trained as the input of the distant supervised named entity recognition model to train to obtain named entities. The link model is verified in the ccks2019 entity link corpus, and the F1 value is 2% higher than that of the benchmark method. The re-pre-trained BERT language model is added to the benchmark method, and the results show that it is more suitable for distant supervised named entity recognition tasks. Finally, it is applied in the computer field, and the results show that this framework can obtain domain named entities.

Keywords: distant named entity recognition, entity linking, knowledge graph, graph attention neural network

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Authors: Muhammad Yasir Latif

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Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) is a continuous, adaptable, and dynamic branch of engineering. The purpose of this study is to use a knowledge-based course classification method to investigate four IEM educational programs in Europe. Furthermore, the relative weight of each sector was determined using the credit value of the courses. IEM-specific locations and pooled areas were the two related kinds of areas that were used. The results show that, among the four program curricula, Production Management is the specific area with the largest weight, while the specialism field of IEM has a similar weight. This method has proved to be useful for curriculum analysis. The results show that one characteristic of IEM curriculum programs is diversity in the knowledge domains related to IEM specialism. The research also highlights the importance of an organized structure for defining IEM applications, allowing benchmarking efforts, and promoting communication between academics and the IEM community.

Keywords: industrial engineering and management, knowledge areas, curriculum analysis, community

Procedia PDF Downloads 23

Authors: Nicholas Abdilmasih, Habib Rezanejad

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This study investigates the gene expression induction efficiency of single versus multiple guide RNAs (gRNAs) targeting the NGN3 gene using the CRISPR activation system in HEK293 cells. Our study aimed to contribute to optimizing the use of gRNAs in gene therapy applications, particularly in treating diseases like diabetes, where precise gene regulation is essential. The experimental design involves culturing HEK293 cells, and once they reach approximately 70-80% confluence, cells were transfected with specific gRNAs targeting the NGN3 gene promoter. Specific gRNAs targeting the NGN3 promoter that was previously designed, incorporated into plasmid clone cassettes and introduced into HEK293 cells through co-transfection using pCAG-DDdCas9-VP192-EGFP transactivator. Post-transfection, cell viability, and fluorescence were monitored to assess transfection efficiency. RNA was extracted, converted to cDNA, and analyzed via qPCR to measure NGN3 expression levels. Results indicated that specific combinations of fewer gRNAs led to higher NGN3 activation compared to multiple gRNAs, challenging the assumption that more gRNAs result in synergistic gene activation. These findings suggest that optimized gRNA combinations can enhance gene therapy efficiency, potentially leading to more effective treatments for conditions like diabetes.

Keywords: CRISPR activation, Diabetes mellitus, gene therapy, guide RNA, Neurogenin3

Procedia PDF Downloads 26

Authors: Eszter Repasi, Akos Koller

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Our genetic information determines our look, physiology, sports performance and all our features. Maximizing the performances of athletes have adopted a science-based approach to the nutritional support. Nowadays genetics studies have blended with nutritional sciences, and a dynamically evolving, new research field have appeared. Nutritional genomics is needed to be used by nutritional experts. This is a recent field of nutritional science, which can provide a solution to reach the best sport performance using correlations between the athlete’s genome, nutritions, molecules, included human microbiome (links between food, microbiome and epigenetics), nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. Nutritional genomics has a tremendous potential to change the future of dietary guidelines and personal recommendations. Experts need to use new technology to get information about the athletes, like nutritional genomics profile (included the determination of the oral and gut microbiome and DNA coded reaction for food components), which can modify the preparation term and sports performance. The influence of nutrients on the genes expression is called Nutrigenomics. The heterogeneous response of gene variants to nutrients, dietary components is called Nutrigenetics. The human microbiome plays a critical role in the state of health and well-being, and there are more links between food or nutrition and the human microbiome composition, which can develop diseases and epigenetic changes as well. A nutritional genomics-based profile of athletes can be the best technic for a dietitian to make a unique sports nutrition diet plan. Using functional food and the right food components can be effected on health state, thus sports performance. Scientists need to determine the best response, due to the effect of nutrients on health, through altering genome promote metabolites and result changes in physiology. Nutritional biochemistry explains why polymorphisms in genes for the absorption, circulation, or metabolism of essential nutrients (such as n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids or epigallocatechin-3-gallate), would affect the efficacy of that nutrient. Controlled nutritional deficiencies and failures, prevented the change of health state or a newly discovered food intolerance are observed by a proper medical team, can support better sports performance. It is important that the dietetics profession informed on gene-diet interactions, that may be leading to optimal health, reduced risk of injury or disease. A special medical application for documentation and monitoring of data of health state and risk factors can uphold and warn the medical team for an early action and help to be able to do a proper health service in time. This model can set up a personalized nutrition advice from the status control, through the recovery, to the monitoring. But more studies are needed to understand the mechanisms and to be able to change the composition of the microbiome, environmental and genetic risk factors in cases of athletes.

Keywords: gene-diet interaction, multidisciplinary team, microbiome, diet plan

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Authors: Suehyun Cho, Darrell Harrington, Florent Cros, Olin Palmer, John Caputo, Michael Kardosh, Eran Oren, William Loudon, Alex Kiselyov, Michael Shpigelmacher

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Bionaut Labs, LLC is developing a minimally invasive robotic microdevice designed to treat non-communicating hydrocephalus in both adult and pediatric patients. The device utilizes biocompatible microsurgical particles (Bionaut™) that are specifically designed to safely and reliably perform accurate fenestration(s) in the 3rd ventricle, aqueduct of Sylvius, and/or trapped intraventricular cysts of the brain in order to re-establish normal cerebrospinal fluid flow dynamics and thereby balance and/or normalize intra/intercompartmental pressure. The Bionaut™ is navigated to the target via CSF or brain tissue in a minimally invasive fashion with precise control using real-time imaging. Upon reaching the pre-defined anatomical target, the external driver allows for directing the specific microsurgical action defined to achieve the surgical goal. Notable features of the proposed protocol are i) Bionaut™ access to the intraventricular target follows a clinically validated endoscopy trajectory which may not be feasible via ‘traditional’ rigid endoscopy: ii) the treatment is microsurgical, there are no foreign materials left behind post-procedure; iii) Bionaut™ is an untethered device that is navigated through the subarachnoid and intraventricular compartments of the brain, following pre-designated non-linear trajectories as determined by the safest anatomical and physiological path; iv) Overall protocol involves minimally invasive delivery and post-operational retrieval of the surgical Bionaut™. The approach is expected to be suitable to treat pediatric patients 0-12 months old as well as adult patients with obstructive hydrocephalus who fail traditional shunts or are eligible for endoscopy. Current progress, including platform optimization, Bionaut™ control, and real-time imaging and in vivo safety studies of the Bionauts™ in large animals, specifically the spine and the brain of ovine models, will be discussed.

Keywords: Bionaut™, cerebrospinal fluid, CSF, fenestration, hydrocephalus, micro-robot, microsurgery

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Authors: D. M. Bassuney, W. A. Ibrahim, Medhat A. E. Moustafa

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Appropriate start-up of an anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) is considered to be the most delicate and important issue in the anaerobic process, and depends on several factors such as wastewater composition, reactor configuration, inoculum and operating conditions. In this work, the start-up performance of an ABR with working volume of 30 liters, fed continuously with synthetic food industrial wastewater along with semi-batch study to measure the methangenic activity by specific methanogenic activity (SMA) test were carried out at various organic loading rates (OLRs) to determine the best OLR used to start up the reactor. The comparison was based on COD removal efficiencies, start-up time, pH stability and methane production. An OLR of 1.8 Kg COD/m3d (5400 gCOD/m3 and 3 days HRT) showed best overall performance with COD removal efficiency of 94.44% after four days from the feeding and methane production of 3802 ml/L with an overall SMA of 0.36 gCH4-COD/gVS.d

Keywords: anaerobic baffled reactor, anaerobic reactor start-up, food industrial wastewater, specific methanogenic activity

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Authors: Michael Zhang, Nicholas Marriage, Valerie Astle, Marie-Louise Ratican, Jonathan Ash, Haddijatou Hughes

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Objective: Young infants are often brought to the Emergency Department (ED) with a variety of complaints, some of them are non-specific and present as a diagnostic challenge to the attending clinician. Whilst invasive investigations such as blood tests and lumbar puncture are necessary in some cases to exclude serious infections, some basic clinical tools in additional to thorough clinical history can be useful to assess the risks of serious conditions in these young infants. This study aimed to examine the utilization of one of clinical tools in this regard. Methods: This retrospective observational study examined the medical records of infants under 6 months presenting to a mixed urban ED between January 2013 and December 2014. The infants deemed to have non-specific complaints or diagnoses by the emergency clinicians were selected for analysis. The ones with clear systemic diagnoses were excluded. Among all relevant clinical information and investigation results, utilization of Standard Paediatric Observation Chart (SPOC) was particularly scrutinized in these medical records. This specific chart was developed by the expert clinicians in local health department. It categorizes important clinical signs into some color-coded zones as a visual cue for serious implication of some abnormalities. An infant is regarded as SPOC positive when fulfills 1 red zone or 2 yellow zones criteria, and the attending clinician would be prompted to investigate and treat for potential serious conditions accordingly. Results: Eight hundred and thirty-five infants met the inclusion criteria for this project. The ones admitted to the hospital for further management were more likely to have SPOC positive criteria than the discharged infants (Odds ratio: 12.26, 95% CI: 8.04 – 18.69). Similarly, Sepsis alert criteria on SPOC were positive in a higher percentage of patients with serious infections (56.52%) in comparison to those with mild conditions (15.89%) (p < 0.001). The SPOC sepsis criteria had a sensitivity of 56.5% (95% CI: 47.0% - 65.7%) and a moderate specificity of 84.1% (95% CI: 80.8% - 87.0%) to identify serious infections. Applying to this infant population, with a 17.4% prevalence of serious infection, the positive predictive value was only 42.8% (95% CI: 36.9% - 49.0%). However, the negative predictive value was high at 90.2% (95% CI: 88.1% - 91.9%). Conclusions: Standard Paediatric Observation Chart has been applied as a useful clinical tool in the clinical practice to help identify and manage young sick infants in ED effectively.

Keywords: clinical tool, infants, non-specific complaints, Standard Paediatric Observation Chart

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Authors: Nadjet Brahmia

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The growing needs of displacements led advanced countries in this field install new specific transport systems, able to palliate any deficiencies, especially when regular public transport does not adequately meet the requests of users. In this context, on-demand transportation (ODT) are very efficient; they rely on techniques based on the location of trip generators which should be assured effectively with the use of operators responsible of the advance reservation, planning and organization, and studying the different ODT criteria (organizational, technical, geographical, etc.). As the advanced countries in the field of transport, some developing countries are involved in the adaptation of the new technologies to reduce the deficit in their communication system. This communication presents the study of an ODT implementation in the west of Algeria, by developing the Geomatics side of the study. This part requires the use of specific systems (such as GIS, RDBMS…), so we developed the process through an application in an environment of mobility by using the computer tools dedicated to the management of the entities related to the transport field.

Keywords: ODT, geomatics, GIS, transport systems

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Authors: Natalia Sypion-Dutkowska

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Abstract — The main research objective of the paper is to discover the relationship between the age groups of residents and crime in particular districts of a large city. The basic analytical tool is specific crime rates, calculated not in relation to the total population, but for age groups in a different social situation - property, housing, work, and representing different generations with different behavior patterns. They are the communities from which criminals and victims of crimes come. The analysis of literature and national police reports gives rise to hypotheses about the ability of a given age group to generate crime as a source of offenders and as a group of victims. These specific indicators are spatially differentiated, which makes it possible to detect socio-demographic determinants of spatial patterns of urban crime. A multi-feature classification of districts was also carried out, in which specific crime rates are the diagnostic features. In this way, areas with a similar structure of socio-demographic determinants of spatial patterns on urban crime were designated. The case study is the city of Szczecin in Poland. It has about 400,000 inhabitants and its area is about 300 sq km. Szczecin is located in the immediate vicinity of Germany and is the economic, academic and cultural capital of the region. It also has a seaport and an airport. Moreover, according to ESPON 2007, Szczecin is the Transnational and National Functional Urban Area. Szczecin is divided into 37 districts - auxiliary administrative units of the municipal government. The population of each of them in 2015-17 was divided into 8 age groups: babes (0-2 yrs.), children (3-11 yrs.), teens (12-17 yrs.), younger adults (18-30 yrs.), middle-age adults (31-45 yrs.), older adults (46-65 yrs.), early older (66-80) and late older (from 81 yrs.). The crimes reported in 2015-17 in each of the districts were divided into 10 groups: fights and beatings, other theft, car theft, robbery offenses, burglary into an apartment, break-in into a commercial facility, car break-in, break-in into other facilities, drug offenses, property damage. In total, 80 specific crime rates have been calculated for each of the districts. The analysis was carried out on an intra-city scale, this is a novel approach as this type of analysis is usually carried out at the national or regional level. Another innovative research approach is the use of specific crime rates in relation to age groups instead of standard crime rates. Acknowledgments: This research was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, registration number 2019/35/D/HS4/02942.

Keywords: age groups, determinants of crime, spatial crime pattern, urban crime

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Authors: Genady Shlomper

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During the process of language teaching, each teacher faces some general and some specific problems. Some of these problems are mutual to all languages because they yield to the rules of cognition, conscience, perception, understanding and memory; to the physiological and psychological principles pertaining to the human race irrespective of origin and nationality. Still, every language is a distinctive system, possessing individual properties and an obvious identity, as a result of a development in specific natural, geographical, cultural and historical conditions. The individual properties emerge in the script, in the phonetics, morphology and syntax. All these problems can and should be a subject of a detailed research and scientific analysis, mainly from practical considerations and language teaching requirements. There are some formidable obstacles in the language acquisition process. Among the first to be mentioned is the existence of concepts and entire categories in foreign languages, which are absent in the language of the students. Such phenomena reflect specific ways of thinking and the world-outlook, which were shaped during the evolution. Hindi is the national language of India, which belongs to the group of Indo-Iranian languages from the Indo-European family of languages. The lecturer has gained experience in teaching Hindi language to native speakers of Uzbek, Russian and Hebrew languages. He will show the difficulties in the field of phonetics, morphology and syntax, which the students have to deal with during the acquisition of the language. In the proposed lecture the lecturer will share his experience in making the process of language teaching more efficient by using non-formal semantic approach.

Keywords: applied linguistics, foreign language teaching, language teaching methodology, semantics

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Authors: Tuba Zahra, Aakash Parekh

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Hyperspectral remote sensing refers to imaging of objects or materials in narrow conspicuous spectral bands. Hyperspectral images (HSI) enable the extraction of spectral signatures for objects or materials observed. These images contain information about the reflectance of each pixel across the electromagnetic spectrum. It enables the acquisition of data simultaneously in hundreds of spectral bands with narrow bandwidths and can provide detailed contiguous spectral curves that traditional multispectral sensors cannot offer. The contiguous, narrow bandwidth of hyperspectral data facilitates the detailed surveying of Earth's surface features. This would otherwise not be possible with the relatively coarse bandwidths acquired by other types of imaging sensors. Hyperspectral imaging provides significantly higher spectral and spatial resolution. There are several use cases that represent the commercial applications of hyperspectral remote sensing. Each use case represents just one of the ways that hyperspectral satellite imagery can support operational efficiency in the respective vertical. There are some use cases that are specific to VNIR bands, while others are specific to SWIR bands. This paper discusses the different commercially viable use cases that are significant for HSI application areas, such as agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment, and climate, to name a few. Theoretically, there is n number of use cases for each of the application areas, but an attempt has been made to streamline the use cases depending upon economic feasibility and commercial viability and present a review of literature from this perspective. Some of the specific use cases with respect to agriculture are crop species (sub variety) detection, soil health mapping, pre-symptomatic crop disease detection, invasive species detection, crop condition optimization, yield estimation, and supply chain monitoring at scale. Similarly, each of the industry verticals has a specific commercially viable use case that is discussed in the paper in detail.

Keywords: agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment and climate, hyperspectral, VNIR, SWIR

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