Search results for: total protein albumin

Authors: Yose Rizal, Maria Endo Mahata, Mira Andriani, Guoyao Wu

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An experiment was conducted with 80 unsexed broilers of the Arbor Acress strain to determine the capability of a carrot and fruit juice wastes mixture (carrot, apple, manggo, avocado, orange, melon and Dutch egg plant) in the same proportion for replacing corn in broiler diet. This study involved a completely randomized design (CRD) with 5 treatments (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% of juice wastes mixture in diets) and 4 replicates per treatment. Diets were isonitrogenous (22% crude protein) and isocaloric (3000 kcal/kg diet). Measured variables were feed consumption, average daily gain, feed conversion, as well as percentages of abdominal fat pad, carcass, digestive organs (liver, pancreas and gizzard), and heart. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance for CRD. Increasing juice wastes mixture levels in diets increased feed consumption (P<0.05) and average daily gain (P<0.01), while improving feed utilization efficiency (P<0.05). These treatments also affected (P<0.05) abdominal fat pad percentage but had no effect (P>0.05) on carcass, liver, pancreas, gizzard or heart percentages. In conclusion, up to 20% of juice wastes mixture could be included for the broiler diet to effectively replace up to 40% corn in the diet.

Keywords: average daily gain, feed consumption, feedconversion, juice waste mixture

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Authors: Khaddouja Boujenfa, Nadia Essoussi, Mohamed Limam

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Multiple sequence alignment is a fundamental part in many bioinformatics applications such as phylogenetic analysis. Many alignment methods have been proposed. Each method gives a different result for the same data set, and consequently generates a different phylogenetic tree. Hence, the chosen alignment method affects the resulting tree. However in the literature, there is no evaluation of multiple alignment methods based on the comparison of their phylogenetic trees. This work evaluates the following eight aligners: ClustalX, T-Coffee, SAGA, MUSCLE, MAFFT, DIALIGN, ProbCons and Align-m, based on their phylogenetic trees (test trees) produced on a given data set. The Neighbor-Joining method is used to estimate trees. Three criteria, namely, the dNNI, the dRF and the Id_Tree are established to test the ability of different alignment methods to produce closer test tree compared to the reference one (true tree). Results show that the method which produces the most accurate alignment gives the nearest test tree to the reference tree. MUSCLE outperforms all aligners with respect to the three criteria and for all datasets, performing particularly better when sequence identities are within 10-20%. It is followed by T-Coffee at lower sequence identity (<10%), Align-m at 20-30% identity, and ClustalX and ProbCons at 30-50% identity. Also, it is noticed that when sequence identities are higher (>30%), trees scores of all methods become similar.

Keywords: Multiple alignment methods, phylogenetic trees, Neighbor-Joining method, Robinson-Foulds distance.

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Authors: B. Silva, H. Figueiredo, I. C. Neves, T. Tavares

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Arthrobacter viscosus biomass was used for Cr(VI) biosorption. The effect of pH on Cr(VI) reduction and removal from aqueous solution was studied in the range of 1-4. The Cr(VI) removal involves both redox reaction and adsorption of metal ions on biomass surface. The removal rate of Cr(VI) was enhanced by very acid conditions, while higher solution pH values favored the removal of total chromium. The best removal efficiency and uptake were reached at pH 4, 72.5 % and 12.6 mgCr/gbiomass, respectively.

Keywords: Biosorption, chromium, pH, reduction.

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Authors: N. I. Bazid, I. N. Umar

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Due to the advancement of Internet technology, online learning is widely used in higher education institutions. Online learning offers several means of communication, including online forum. Through online forum, students and instructors are able to discuss and share their knowledge and expertise without having a need to attend the face-to-face, ordinary classroom session. The purposes of this study are to analyze the students’ levels of participation and critical thinking, types of action and factors influencing their participation in online forum. A total of 41 postgraduate students undertaking a course in educational technology from a public university in Malaysia were involved in this study. In this course, the students participated in a weekly online forum as part of the course requirement. Based on the log data file extracted from the online forum, the students’ type of actions (view, add, update, delete posts) and their levels of participation (passive, moderate or active) were identified. In addition, the messages posted in the forum were analyzed to gauge their level of critical thinking. Meanwhile, the factors that might influence their online forum participation were measured using a 24-items questionnaire. Based on the log data, a total of 105 posts were sent by the participants. In addition, the findings show that (i) majority of the students are moderate participants, with an average of two to three posts per person, (ii) viewing posts are the most frequent type of action (85.1%), and followed by adding post (9.7%). Furthermore, based on the posts they made, the most frequent type of critical thinking observed was justification (50 input or 19.0%), followed by linking ideas and interpretation (47 input or 18%), and novelty (38 input or 14.4%). The findings indicate that online forum allows for social interaction and can be used to measure the students’ critical thinking skills. In order to achieve this, monitoring students’ activities in the online forum is recommended.

Keywords: Critical thinking, learning management system, level of online participation, online forum.

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Authors: Ekesa B. Nakhauka, De Lange M., Macharia I., Garming H., Ouma E., Birachi E., Van Asten P., Van-Lauwe B., Blomme G.

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Impact of adopting products promoted by the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) on food and nutrition security was tested. Multi-stage sampling was used to select 7 project mandate areas, 5 villages/mandate area (stratified into action, satellite and control sites) and 913 households. Structured questionnaires were administered; analysis of impact based on comparison between stratums, differences in means tested by ANOVA and significance of difference obtained by Tukey's HSD multiple rank tests. Perception of adequate food sufficiency received a higher rating in action and satellite sites compared to control sites reason being improved agricultural technologies. For >60% of households, worsened food security was due to climatic conditions. Although a higher proportion of households in action and satellite was meeting calorie RDIs in DRC and Burundi the difference was insignificant from control sites. 53% of respondents in control sites indicated a decrease in intake of protein rich foods, this was significantly higher than the proportion in the action (46%) and satellite (41%) sites.

Keywords: Food security, Farmer-households, Nutrition security

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Authors: Vladimíra Čavojová, Eva Ballová Mikušková

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In this study we tried to replicate the unconscious thought advantage (UTA), which states that complex decisions are better handled by unconscious thinking. We designed an experiment in e-prime using similar material as the original study (choosing between four different apartments, each described by 12 attributes). A total of 73 participants (52 women (71.2%); 18 to 62 age: M=24.63; SD=8.7) took part in the experiment. We did not replicate the results suggested by UTT. However, from the present study we cannot conclude whether this was the case of flaws in the theory or flaws in our experiment and we discuss several ways in which the issue of UTA could be examined further.

Keywords: Decision making, unconscious thoughts, UTT.

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Authors: Himanshu Shekhar Maharana, S. K .Dash

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Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) proves to be a vital optimization process in electric power system for allocating generation amongst various units to compute the cost of generation, the cost of emission involving global warming gases like sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide etc. In this dissertation, we emphasize ramp rate constriction factor based particle swarm optimization (RRCPSO) for analyzing various performance objectives, namely cost of generation, cost of emission, and a dual objective function involving both these objectives through the experimental simulated results. A 6-unit 30 bus IEEE test case system has been utilized for simulating the results involving improved weight factor advanced ramp rate limit constraints for optimizing total cost of generation and emission. This method increases the tendency of particles to venture into the solution space to ameliorate their convergence rates. Earlier works through dispersed PSO (DPSO) and constriction factor based PSO (CPSO) give rise to comparatively higher computational time and less good optimal solution at par with current dissertation. This paper deals with ramp rate and constriction factor based well defined ramp rate PSO to compute various objectives namely cost, emission and total objective etc. and compares the result with DPSO and weight improved PSO (WIPSO) techniques illustrating lesser computational time and better optimal solution. 

Keywords: Economic load dispatch, constriction factor based particle swarm optimization, dispersed particle swarm optimization, weight improved particle swarm optimization, ramp rate and constriction factor based particle swarm optimization.

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Authors: Sunday Olufemi Adesogan

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The supply of potable water at least is a very important index in national development. Water tariffs depend on the treatment cost which carries the highest percentage of the total operation cost in any water supply scheme. In order to keep water tariffs as low as possible, treatment costs have to be minimized. The University of Ibadan, Nigeria, water supply scheme consists of a treatment plant with three distribution stations (Amina way, Kurumi and Lander) and two raw water supply sources (Awba dam and Eleyele dam). An operational study of the scheme was carried out to ascertain the efficiency of the supply of potable water on the campus to justify the need for water supply schemes in tertiary institutions. The study involved regular collection, processing and analysis of periodic operational data. Data collected include supply reading (water production on daily basis) and consumers metered reading for a period of 22 months (October 2013 - July 2015), and also collected, were the operating hours of both plants and human beings. Applying the required mathematical equations, total loss was determined for the distribution system, which was translated into monetary terms. Adequacies of the operational functions were also determined. The study revealed that water supply scheme is justified in tertiary institutions. It was also found that approximately 10.7 million Nigerian naira (N) is lost to leakages during the 22-month study period; the system’s storage capacity is no longer adequate, especially for peak water production. The capacity of the system as a whole is insufficient for the present university population and that the existing water supply system is not being operated in an optimal manner especially due to personnel, power and system ageing constraints.

Keywords: Operational, efficiency, production, supply, water treatment plant, water loss.

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Authors: Ratnakar Tripathi, Rajnikant Mishra

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The PAX6, a transcription factor, is essential for the morphogenesis of the eyes, brain, pituitary and pancreatic islets. In rodents, the loss of Pax6 function leads to central nervous system defects, anophthalmia, and nasal hypoplasia. The haplo-insufficiency of Pax6 causes microphthalmia, aggression and other behavioral abnormalities. It is also required in brain patterning and neuronal plasticity. In human, heterozygous mutation of Pax6 causes loss of iris [aniridia], mental retardation and glucose intolerance. The 3- deletion in Pax6 leads to autism and aniridia. The phenotypes are variable in peneterance and expressivity. However, mechanism of function and interaction of PAX6 with other proteins during development and associated disease are not clear. It is intended to explore interactors of PAX6 to elucidated biology of PAX6 function in the tissues where it is expressed and also in the central regulatory pathway. This report describes In-silico approaches to explore interacting proteins of PAX6. The models show several possible proteins interacting with PAX6 like MITF, SIX3, SOX2, SOX3, IPO13, TRIM, and OGT. Since the Pax6 is a critical transcriptional regulator and master control gene of eye and brain development it might be interacting with other protein involved in morphogenesis [TGIF, TGF, Ras etc]. It is also presumed that matricelluar proteins [SPARC, thrombospondin-1 and osteonectin etc] are likely to interact during transport and processing of PAX6 and are somewhere its cascade. The proteins involved in cell survival and cell proliferation can also not be ignored.

Keywords: Interacting Proteins, Pax6, PIP, STRING

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Authors: Tomislav Stambolic, Anton Causevski

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The deficit of power for electricity demand reaches almost 30% for consumers in the last few years. This reflects with continually increasing the price of electricity, and today the price for small industry is almost 110Euro/MWh. The high price is additional problem for the owners in the economy crisis which is reflected with higher price of the goods. The paper gives analyses of the energy needs for real agro complex in Macedonia, private vinery with capacity of over 2 million liters in a year and with self grapes and fruits fields. The existing power supply is from grid with 10/04 kV transformer. The geographical and meteorological condition of the vinery location gives opportunity for including renewable as a power supply option for the vinery complex. After observation of the monthly energy needs for the vinery, the base scenario is the existing power supply from the distribution grid. The electricity bill in small industry has three factors: electricity in high and low tariffs in kWh and the power engaged for the technological process of production in kW. These three factors make the total electricity bill and it is over 110 Euro/MWh which is the price near competitive for renewable option. On the other side investments in renewable (especially photovoltaic (PV)) has tendency of decreasing with price of near 1,5 Euro/W. This means that renewable with PV can be real option for power supply for small industry capacities (under 500kW installed power). Therefore, the other scenarios give the option with PV and the last one includes wind option. The paper presents some scenarios for power supply of the vinery as the followings: • Base scenario of existing conventional power supply from the grid • Scenario with implementation of renewable of Photovoltaic • Scenario with implementation of renewable of Photovoltaic and Wind power The total power installed in a vinery is near 570 kW, but the maximum needs are around 250kW. At the end of the full paper some of the results from scenarios will be presented. The paper also includes the environmental impacts of the renewable scenarios, as well as financial needs for investments and revenues from renewable.

Keywords: Energy, Power Supply, Renewable, Efficiency.

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Authors: Nneka N. Uchegbu, Charles N. Ishiwu

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The nutritional composition and hypoglycaemic effect of crackers produced from blend of sprouted pigeon pea, unripe plantain and brewers’ spent grain and fed to Alloxan induced diabetic rat was investigated. Crackers were produced from different blends of sprouted pigeon pea, unripe plantain and brewers’ spent grain. The crackers were evaluated for proximate composition, amino acid profile and antinutritional factors. Blood glucose levels of normal and diabetic rats fed with the control sample and different formulations of cracker were measured. The protein content of the samples were significantly different (p<0.05) from each other with sample A having the lowest value and sample B with the highest value. The values obtained showed that the samples contained most of the amino acids that are found in plant proteins. The levels of antinutritional factor determined were generally low. Administration of the formulated cracker meals led to a significant reduction in the fasting blood glucose level in the diabetic rats. The present study concluded that consumption of crackers produced from this composite flour could be recommended for the diabetics and those who are sceptical about the disease.

Keywords: Crackers, diabetics rat, sprouted pigeon pea, unripe plantain and brewers’ spent grain.

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Authors: M. S. Haghighat, A. Dolati, M. Tabari, E. Mohseni

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The Merrifield-Simmons index of a graph G is defined as the total number of its independent sets. A (n, n + 2)-graph is a connected simple graph with n vertices and n + 2 edges. In this paper we characterize the (n, n+2)-graph with the largest Merrifield- Simmons index. We show that its Merrifield-Simmons index i.e. the upper bound of the Merrifield-Simmons index of the (n, n+2)-graphs is 9 × 2n-5 +1 for n ≥ 5.

Keywords: Merrifield-Simmons index, (n, n+2)-graph.

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Authors: Laila Ozola, Evita Straumite

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Celiac disease is a permanent enteropathy caused by the ingestion of gluten, a protein occurring in wheat, rye and barley. The only way of the effective daily treatment is a strict gluten-free diet. From the investigation of products available in the local market, it was found that Latvian producers do not offer gluten-free products. The aim of this research was to study and analyze changes of celiac patient’s attitude to gluten-free product quality and availability in the Latvian market and purchasing habits. The survey was designed using website www.visidati.lv, and a questionnaire was sent to people suffering from celiac disease. The first time the respondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire in 2011, but now repeatedly from the beginning of September 2013 till the end of January 2014. The questionnaire was performed with 75 celiac patients, respondents were from all Latvian regions and they answered 16 questions. One of the most important questions was aimed to find out consumers’ opinion about quality of gluten-free products, consumption patterns of gluten-free products, and, moreover, their interest in products made in Latvia. Respondents were asked to name gluten-free products they mainly buy and give specific purchase locations, evaluate the quality of products and necessity for products produced in Latvia. The results of questionnaire show that the consumers are satisfied with the quality of gluten-free flour, flour blends, sweets and pasta, but are not satisfied with the quality of bread and confectionery available in the Latvian markets.

Keywords: Consumers, gluten-free products, quality, survey.

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Authors: Sarkar M. A. Kawsar, Sarkar M. A. Mamun, Md S. Rahman, Hidetaro Yasumitsu, Yasuhiro Ozeki

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Lectins have a good scope in current clinical microbiology research. In the present study evaluated the antimicrobial activities of a D-galactose binding lectin (PnL) was purified from the annelid, Perinereis nuntia (polychaeta) by affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to be 32 kDa as a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under both reducing and non-reducing conditions. The hemagglutinating activity of the PnL showed against trypsinized and glutaraldehyde-fixed human erythrocytes was specifically inhibited by D-Gal, GalNAc, Galβ1-4Glc and Galα1-6Glc. PnL was evaluated for in vitro antibacterial screening studies against 11 gram-positive and gram-negative microorganisms. From the screening results, it was revealed that PnL exhibited significant antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus megaterium showed the highest growth inhibition by the lectin (250 μg/disc). However, PnL did not inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae and Pseudomonas sp. PnL was also examined for in vitro antifungal activity against six fungal phytopathogens. PnL (100 μg/mL) inhibited the mycelial growth of Alternaria alternata (24.4%). These results indicate that future findings of lectin applications obtained from annelids may be of importance to life sciences.

Keywords: Perinereis nuntia, Lectin, Inhibition zone, Mycelial growth.

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Authors: Noraini Othman, Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between hope and resilience with work engagement. A total of 422 staff nurses working in three public hospitals in Peninsular Malaysia participated in this study. Statistical results using regression analysis revealed that hope and resilience were positively related to work engagement. Possible reasons for these findings, as well as their implications and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: hope, nurses, resilience, work engagement

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Authors: M. Govindarajan

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Text Mining is around applying knowledge discovery techniques to unstructured text is termed knowledge discovery in text (KDT), or Text data mining or Text Mining. In decision tree approach is most useful in classification problem. With this technique, tree is constructed to model the classification process. There are two basic steps in the technique: building the tree and applying the tree to the database. This paper describes a proposed C5.0 classifier that performs rulesets, cross validation and boosting for original C5.0 in order to reduce the optimization of error ratio. The feasibility and the benefits of the proposed approach are demonstrated by means of medial data set like hypothyroid. It is shown that, the performance of a classifier on the training cases from which it was constructed gives a poor estimate by sampling or using a separate test file, either way, the classifier is evaluated on cases that were not used to build and evaluate the classifier are both are large. If the cases in hypothyroid.data and hypothyroid.test were to be shuffled and divided into a new 2772 case training set and a 1000 case test set, C5.0 might construct a different classifier with a lower or higher error rate on the test cases. An important feature of see5 is its ability to classifiers called rulesets. The ruleset has an error rate 0.5 % on the test cases. The standard errors of the means provide an estimate of the variability of results. One way to get a more reliable estimate of predictive is by f-fold –cross- validation. The error rate of a classifier produced from all the cases is estimated as the ratio of the total number of errors on the hold-out cases to the total number of cases. The Boost option with x trials instructs See5 to construct up to x classifiers in this manner. Trials over numerous datasets, large and small, show that on average 10-classifier boosting reduces the error rate for test cases by about 25%.

Keywords: C5.0, Error Ratio, text mining, training data, test data.

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Authors: Teti Estiasih, Harijono, Weny Bekti Sunarharum, Atina Rahmawati

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This research studied the hypoglycemic effect of water soluble polysaccharide (WSP) extracted from yam (Dioscorea hispida) tuber by three different methods: aqueous extraction, papain assisted extraction, and tempeh inoculums assisted extraction. The two later extraction methods were aimed to remove WSP binding protein to have more pure WSP. The hypoglycemic activities were evaluated by means in vivo test on alloxan induced hyperglycemic rats, glucose response test (GRT), in situ glucose absorption test using everted sac, and short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) analysis. All yam WSP extracts exhibited ability to decrease blood glucose level in hyperglycemia condition as well as inhibited glucose absorption and SCFA formation. The order of hypoglycemic activity was tempeh inoculums assisted- >papain assisted- >aqueous WSP extracts. GRT and in situ glucose absorption test showed that order of inhibition was papain assisted- >tempeh inoculums assisted- >aqueous WSP extracts. Digesta of caecum of yam WSP extracts oral fed rats had more SCFA than control. Tempeh inoculums assisted WSP extract exhibited the most significant hypoglycemic activity.

Keywords: hypoglycemic activity, papain, tempeh inoculums, water soluble polysaccharides, yam (Discorea hispida)

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Authors: Reihaneh Ahmadzadeh Ghavidel, Mehdi Ghiafeh Davoodi

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The usefulness of weaning foods to meet the nutrient needs of children is well recognized, and most of them are precooked roller dried mixtures of cereal and/or legume flours which posses a high viscosity and bulk when reconstituted. The objective of this study was to formulate composite weaning foods using cereals, malted legumes and vegetable powders and analyze them for nutrients, functional properties and sensory attributes. Selected legumes (green gram and lentil) were germinated, dried and dehulled. Roasted wheat, rice, carrot powder and skim milk powder also were used. All the ingredients were mixed in different proportions to get four formulations, made into 30% slurry and dried in roller drier. The products were analyzed for proximate principles, mineral content, functional and sensory qualities. The results of analysis showed following range of constituents per 100g of formulations on dry weight basis, protein, 18.1-18.9 g ; fat, 0.78-1.36 g ; iron, 5.09-6.53 mg; calcium, 265-310 mg. The lowest water absorption capacity was in case of wheat green gram based and the highest was in rice lentil based sample. Overall sensory qualities of all foods were graded as “good" and “very good" with no significant differences. The results confirm that formulated weaning foods were nutritionally superior, functionally appropriate and organoleptically acceptable.

Keywords: malted legumes, weaning foods, nutrition, functional properties

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Authors: Je-Hoon Michael Oh

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The major source of allergy in home is the house dust mite (Dematophagoides farina, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) causing allergic symptom include atopic dermatitis, asthma, perennial rhinitis and even infant death syndrome. Control of this mite species is dependent on the use of chemical methods such as fumigation treatments with methylene bromide, spraying with organophosphates such as pirimiphos-methyl, or treatments with repellents such as DEET and benzyl benzoate. Although effective, their repeated use for decades has sometimes resulted in development of resistance and fostered environmental and human health concerns. Both decomposing animal parts and the protein that surrounds mite fecal pellets cause mite allergy. So it is more effective to repel than to kill them because allergen is not living house dust mite but dead body or fecal particles of house dust mite. It is important to find out natural repellent material against house dust mite to control them and reduce the allergic reactions. Plants may be an alternative source for dust mite control because they contain a range of bioactive chemicals. The research objectives of this paper were to verify the acaricidal and repellent effects of cinnamon essential oil and to find out it-s most effective concentrations. We could find that cinnamon bark essential oil was very effective material to control the house dust mite. Furthermore, it could reduce chemical resistance and danger for human health.

Keywords: house dust mite, cinnamon, repellent effect

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Authors: Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, Larysa Martynyuk, Iryna Syzonenko, Liliya Martynyuk

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Medical, social, and economic relevance of osteoporosis is caused by reducing quality of life, increasing disability and mortality of the patients as a result of fractures due to the low-energy trauma. This study is aimed to examine the associations of metabolic syndrome components, bone mineral density (BMD) and trabecular bone score (TBS) in menopausal women with non-vertebral fractures. 1161 menopausal women aged 50-79 year-old were examined and divided into three groups: A included 419 women with increased body weight (BMI - 25.0-29.9 kg/m²), B – 442 females with obesity (BMI >29.9 kg/m²)i and C – 300 women with metabolic syndrome (diagnosis according to IDF criteria, 2005). BMD of lumbar spine (L1-L4), femoral neck, total body and forearm was investigated with usage of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The bone quality indexes were measured according to Med-Imaps installation. All analyses were performed using Statistical Package 6.0. BMD of lumbar spine (L1-L4), femoral neck, total body, and ultradistal radius was significant higher in women with obesity and metabolic syndrome compared to the pre-obese ones (p<0.001). TBS was significantly higher in women with increased body weight compared to obese and metabolic syndrome patients. Analysis showed significant positive correlation between waist circumference, triglycerides level and BMD of lumbar spine and femur. Significant negative association between serum HDL level and BMD of investigated sites was established. The TBS (L1-L4) indexes positively correlated with HDL (high-density lipoprotein) level. Despite the fact that BMD indexes were better in women with metabolic syndrome, the frequency of non-vertebral fractures was significantly higher in this group of patients.

Keywords: Bone mineral density, trabecular bone score, metabolic syndrome, fracture.

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Authors: David Xiaoqian Sun, Khairunnisa Binti Haji Sibah, Jr., Lejak Anak Ambol

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The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between objectively measured physical activity levels (PALs), enjoyment of physical activity (EPA), and body mass index (BMI) among adolescents. A total of 188 12-14-year-old Bruneian secondary school adolescents (88 boys and 100 girls) voluntarily took part in this study. Subjects wore the RT3 accelerometer for seven consecutive days in order to measure their PALs. Times of students’ engagement in total (TPA), light (LPA), moderate (MPV), and vigorous PA (VPA) were obtained from the accelerometer. Their BMIs were calculated from their body height and weight. Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) was administrated to obtain their EPA levels. Four key enjoyment factors including fun factors, positive perceptions, unexciting in doing activities, and negative perceptions were identified. Subjects’ social economic status (SES) was provided by school administration. Results show that all the adolescents did not meet the recommended PA guidelines even though boys were engaged in more MVPA than girls. No relationships were found between BMI and all PALs in both boys and girls. BMI was significantly related to the PACES scores (r = -.22, p = 0.01), fun factors (r = -.20, p = 0.05) and positive perceptions (r =- .21, p < 0.05). The PACES scores were significantly related to LPA (r = .18, p = 0.01) but not related to MVPA (r = .04, p > 0.05). After controlling for age and SES, BMI was only significantly related to the PACES scores in girls (r = -.27, p < .01) but boys (r = -.06, p > 0.05). Fun factors were significantly related to LPA and MVPA (p < .01) in girls while negative perceptions were significantly related to LPA and MVPA (p < .01) in boys. This study provides evidence that enjoyment may be a trigger of LPA but MVPA and may be influenced by their BMI status particularly in girls. Based on these findings, physical and health educators are suggested to not only make PA more enjoyable, but also consider gender differences in promoting adolescents' participation in MVPA

Keywords: Accelerometer, body mass index, enjoyment of physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity.

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Authors: Magda M. Mohsen, Manal E. Fareed

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Background: Widespread use of chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of cancer has lead to higher health hazards among employee who handle and administer such drugs, so nurses should know how to protect themselves, their patients and their work environment against toxic effects of chemotherapy. Aim of this study was carried out to examine the effect of chemotherapy safety protocol for oncology nurses on their protective measure practices. Design: A quasi experimental research design was utilized. Setting: The study was carried out in oncology department of Menoufia university hospital and Tanta oncology treatment center. Sample: A convenience sample of forty five nurses in Tanta oncology treatment center and eighteen nurses in Menoufiya oncology department. Tools: 1. an interviewing questionnaire that covering sociodemographic data, assessment of unit and nurses' knowledge about chemotherapy. II: Obeservational check list to assess nurses' actual practices of handling and adminestration of chemotherapy. A base line data were assessed before implementing Chemotherapy Safety protocol, then Chemotherapy Safety protocol was implemented, and after 2 monthes they were assessed again. Results: reveled that 88.9% of study group I and 55.6% of study group II improved to good total knowledge scores after educating on the safety protocol, also 95.6% of study group I and 88.9% of study group II had good total practice score after educating on the safety protocol. Moreover less than half of group I (44.4%) reported that heavy workload is the most barriers for them, while the majority of group II (94.4%) had many barriers for adhering to the safety protocol such as they didn’t know the protocol, the heavy work load and inadequate equipment. Conclusions: Safety protocol for Oncology Nurses seemed to have positive effect on improving nurses' knowledge and practice. Recommendation: chemotherapy safety protocol should be instituted for all oncology nurses who are working in any oncology unit and/ or center to enhance compliance, and this protocol should be done at frequent intervals.

Keywords: Chemotherapy Safety protocol, Effect, protective measure practice.

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Authors: Aminat. O Adelekan, Olawale T. Gbadebo

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Biscuit is one of the most consumed cereal foods in Nigeria and research has shown that locally available tropical crops like cassava, sweet potato can be made into flour and used in the production of biscuits and other pastries. This study investigates some quality parameters in biscuits made from blends of wheat, cassava and carrot flour. The values of result of samples increased with increasing percentage substitution of cassava and carrot flour in some quality parameter like fiber, ash, gluten content, and carbohydrate. The protein content reduced significantly (P < 0.05) with increasing percentage substitution of cassava and carrot flour which ranged from 14.80% to 11.80% compared with the control sample which had 15.60%. There was a recorded significant increase (P < 0.05) in some mineral composition such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, phosphorus, and vitamin A and C composition as the percentage substitution of cassava and carrot flour increased. During storage stability test, samples stored in the fridge and freezer were found to be the best storage location to preserve the sensory attributes and inhibit microbial growth when compared with storage under the sun and on the shelf. Biscuit made with blends of wheat, cassava and carrot flour can therefore serve as an alternative to biscuits made from 100% wheat flour, as they are richer in vitamin A, vitamin C, carbohydrate, dietary fiber and some essential minerals.

Keywords: Biscuit, carrot, flour blends, storage.

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Authors: Rozhgar A. Khailany, Mehri Igci, Emine Bayraktar, Sakip Erturhan, Metin Karakok, Ahmet Arslan

Abstract:

Kidney cancer is the most lethal urological cancer accounting for 3% of adult malignancies. VHL, a tumor-suppressor gene, is best known to be associated with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The VHL functions as negative regulator of hypoxia inducible factors. Recent sequencing efforts have identified several novel frequent mutations of histone modifying and chromatin remodeling genes in ccRCC (clear cell RCC) including PBRM1 and SETD2. The PBRM1 gene encodes the BAF180 protein, which involved in transcriptional activation and repression of selected genes. SETD2 encodes a histone methyltransferase, which may play a role in suppressing tumor development. In this study, RNAs of 30 paired tumor and normal samples that were grouped according to the types of kidney cancer and clinical characteristics of patients, including gender and average age were examined by RT-PCR, SSCP and sequencing techniques. VHL, PBRM1 and SETD2 expressions were relatively down-regulated. However, statistically no significance was found (Wilcoxon signed rank test, p>0.05). Interestingly, no mutation was observed on the contrary of previous studies. Understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of RCC has aided the development of molecular-targeted drugs for kidney cancer. Further analysis is required to identify the responsible genes rather than VHL, PBRM1 and SETD2 in kidney cancer.

Keywords: Kidney cancer, molecular biomarker, expression analysis, mutation screening.

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Authors: F. S. Al-Anzi, M. Sarfraz, A. Elmi, A. R. Khan

Abstract:

Researchers are responding to the environmental challenges of Kuwait in localized, innovative, effective and economic ways. One of the vital and significant examples of the natural challenges is lack or water and desertification. In this research, the project team focuses on redesigning a prototype, using Value Engineering Methodology, which would provide similar functionalities to the well-known technology of Waterboxx kits while reducing the capital and operational costs and simplifying the process of manufacturing and usability by regular farmers. The design employs used tires and recycled plastic sheets as raw materials. Hence, this approach is going to help not just fighting desertification but also helping in getting rid of ever growing huge tire dumpsters in Kuwait, as well as helping in avoiding hazards of tire fires yielding in a safer and friendlier environment. Several alternatives for implementing the prototype have been considered. The best alternative in terms of value has been selected after thorough Function Analysis System Technique (FAST) exercise has been developed. A prototype has been fabricated and tested in a controlled simulated lab environment that is being followed by real environment field testing. Water and soil analysis conducted on the site of the experiment to cross compare between the composition of the soil before and after the experiment to insure that the prototype being tested is actually going to be environment safe. Experimentation shows that the design was equally as effective as, and may exceed, the original design with significant savings in cost. An estimated total cost reduction using the VE approach of 43.84% over the original design. This cost reduction does not consider the intangible costs of environmental issue of waste recycling which many further intensify the total savings of using the alternative VE design. This case study shows that Value Engineering Methodology can be an important tool in innovating new designs for reducing costs.

Keywords: Desertification, functional analysis, scrap tires, value engineering, waste recycling, water irrigation rationing.

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Authors: Rosa Buxeda, Lorenzo Saliceti-Piazza, Rodolfo J. Romañach, Luis Ríos, Sandra L. Maldonado-Ramírez

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Biopharmaceuticals manufacturing is one of the major economic activities worldwide. Ninety-three percent of the workforce in a biomanufacturing environment concentrates in production-related areas. As a result, strategic collaborations between industry and academia are crucial to ensure the availability of knowledgeable workforce needed in an economic region to become competitive in biomanufacturing. In the past decade, our institution has been a key strategic partner with multinational biotechnology companies in supplying science and engineering graduates in the field of industrial biotechnology. Initiatives addressing all levels of the educational pipeline, from K-12 to college to continued education for company employees have been established along a ten-year span. The Amgen BioTalents Program was designed to provide undergraduate science and engineering students with training in biomanufacturing. The areas targeted by this educational program enhance their academic development, since these topics are not part of their traditional science and engineering curricula. The educational curriculum involved the process of producing a biomolecule from the genetic engineering of cells to the production of an especially targeted polypeptide, protein expression and purification, to quality control, and validation. This paper will report and describe the implementation details and outcomes of the first sessions of the program.

Keywords: Biomanufacturing curriculum, interdisciplinary learning, workforce development, industry-academia partnering.

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Authors: Victor Abioye Akinbinu

Abstract:

This work is intended to study the post-failure characteristic behaviour of rocks and the techniques of controlling the post-failure regime based on the mechanism of rocks deformation process. It is impossible to determine the post-failure regime of rocks using conventional laboratory testing equipment. This is because most testing machines are soft and therefore no information can be obtained after the peak load. Stress-strain deformation tests were conducted using both conventional and unconventional method (i.e. the closed loop servo-controlled testing machine) in accordance to ISRM standard. Normalised pre-failure curves were constructed to show the stages in the deformation process. The first type contains the Class I and progress to Class II with low strength soft brittle rocks. The second type shows entirely Class II characteristic behaviour. The third type is extremely brittle under axial loading, resulted in explosive failure, so its class could not be determined. The difficulty in obtaining the post-failure curves increases as the total volumetric strain approaches a positive value. The author’s use of normalised pre-failure curves enables identification of additional type of deformation process with very brittle response under axial loading. Testing the third type without confinement could cause equipment damage. Identification of the deformation process with the rock classes using conventional test could guide the personnel conducting tests using closed-loop servo-controlled system, to avoid equipment damage when testing rocks with third type deformation process so that testing is performed safely. It has also improved our understanding on total specimen failure and brittleness of rocks (e.g. brittle for Class II and less brittle or ductile for Class I).

Keywords: Closed-loop servo-controlled system, conventional testing equipment, deformation process, post-failure, pre-failure normalised curves, rock classes.

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Authors: P. Worathanakul, P. Kongkachuichay

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A new SUZ-4 zeolite membrane with tetraethlyammonium hydroxide as the template was fabricated on mullite tube via hydrothermal sol-gel synthesis in a rotating autoclave reactor. The suitable synthesis condition was SiO2:Al2O3 ratio of 21.2 for 4 days at 155 °C crystallization under autogenous pressure. The obtained SUZ-4 possessed a high BET surface area of 396.4 m2/g, total pore volume at 2.611 cm3/g, and narrow pore size distribution with 97 nm mean diameter and 760 nm long of needle crystal shape. The SUZ-4 layer obtained from seeding crystallization was thicker than that of without seeds or in situ crystallization.

Keywords: Membrane, seeding, sol-gel, SUZ-4 Zeolite.

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Authors: Eduardo da Silva, Tânia Caetano, Jessica B. Lopes

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Emotion dysregulation has been linked to psychopathology in general and, in particular, to substance abuse and other addiction-related disorders, such as eating disorders, impulsive disorder, and gambling. It has been proposed that a lessening of the difficulties in emotion regulation can have a significant positive impact on the treatment of these disorders. The present study explores the association between the progress in the Change & Grow^® therapeutic model (5 stages of treatment), and the decrease in the difficulties related to emotion regulation. The Change & Grow^® model has five stages of treatment according to the model’s five principles (Truth, Acceptance, Gratitude, Love and Responsibility) and incorporates different therapeutic approaches such as positive psychology, cognitive and behavioral therapy and third generation therapies. The main objective is to understand the impact of the presented therapeutic model on difficulties in emotion regulation in patients with addiction-related disorders. The exploratory study has a cross-sectional design. Participants were 44 (15 women and 29 men) Portuguese patients in the residential Villa Ramadas International Treatment Centre. The instrument used was the Portuguese version of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), which measures six dimensions of emotion regulation (Strategies, Non-acceptance, Awareness, Impulse, Goals, and Clarity). The mean rank scores for both the DERS total score and the Impulse subscale showed statistically significant differences according to Stage of Treatment/Principles. Furthermore, Stage of Treatment/Principles held a negative correlation with the scores of the Non-acceptance and Impulse subscales, as well as the DERS total score. The results indicate that the Change & Grow^® model seems to have an impact in lessening the patient’s difficulties in emotion regulation. The Impulse dimension suffered the greater impact, which supports the well-known relevance of impulse control, or related difficulties, in addiction-related disorders.

Keywords: Addiction, Change & Grow®, emotion regulation, psychopathology.

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Authors: Suttijit Sriwatcharakul

Abstract:

The bioactivity studies from the weed ethanolic crude extracts from leaf, stem, pod and root of wild spider flower; Cleoma viscosa Linn. were analyzed for the growth inhibition of 6 bacterial species; Salmonella typhimurium TISTR 5562, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 1466, Streptococcus epidermidis ATCC 1228, Escherichia coli DMST 4212 and Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 with initial concentration crude extract of 50 mg/ml. The agar well diffusion results found that the extracts inhibit only gram positive bacteria species; S. aureus, S. epidermidis and B. subtilis. The minimum inhibition concentration study with gram positive strains revealed that leaf crude extract give the best result of the lowest concentration compared with other plant parts to inhibit the growth of S. aureus, S. epidermidis and B. subtilis at 0.78, 0.39 and lower than 0.39 mg/ml, respectively. The determination of total phenolic compounds in the crude extracts exhibited the highest phenolic content was 10.41 mg GAE/g dry weight in leaf crude extract. Analyzed the efficacy of free radical scavenging by using DPPH radical scavenging assay with all crude extracts showed value of IC50 of leaf, stem, pod and root crude extracts were 8.32, 12.26, 21.62 and 35.99 mg/ml, respectively. Studied cytotoxicity of crude extracts on human breast adenocarcinoma cell line by MTT assay found that pod extract had the most cytotoxicity CC50 value, 32.41 µg/ml. Antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity of crude extracts exhibited that the more increase of extract concentration, the more activities indicated. According to the bioactivities results, the leaf crude extract of Cleoma viscosa Linn. is the most interesting plant part for further work to search the beneficial of this weed.

Keywords: Antimicrobial, antioxidant activity, Cleoma viscosa Linn., cytotoxicity test, total phenolic compound.

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