Search results for: Protein quality

Authors: Nor Fazlina Iryani Abdul Hamid, Mohamad Khatim Hasan

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Numbers of software quality measurement system have been implemented over the past few years, but none of them focuses on telecommunication industry. Software quality measurement system for telecommunication industry was a system that could calculate the quality value of the measured software that totally focused in telecommunication industry. Before designing a system, quality factors, quality attributes and quality metrics were identified based on literature review and survey. Then, using the identified quality factors, quality attributes and quality metrics, quality model for telecommunication industry was constructed. Each identified quality metrics had its own formula. Quality value for the system was measured based on the quality metrics and aggregated by referring to the quality model. It would classify the quality level of the software based on Net Satisfaction Index (NSI). The system was designed using object-oriented approach in web-based environment. Thus, existing of software quality measurement system was important to both developers and users in order to produce high quality software product for telecommunication industry.

Keywords: Software Quality, Quality Measurement, Object-oriented Approach, Net satisfaction Index.

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Authors: Patrick Nwabueze Okechukwu, Ima Nirwana Soelaiman, Gabriele Anisah Ruth Froemming, Mohd Yusri Idorus, Norazlina Mohamed

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Supplementation of palm vitamin E has been reported to prevent loss of bone density in ovariectomised female rats. The mechanism by which palm vitamin E exerts these effects is still unknown. We hypothesized that palm vitamin E may act by preventing the protein expression changes. Two dimensional poly acyrilamide gel electrophoresis (2-D PAGE) and PD Quest software genomic solutions Investigator (proteomics) was used to analyze the differential protein expression profile in femoral and humeri bones harvested from three groups of rats; sham-operated rats (SO), ovariectomised rats (Ovx) and ovariectomised rats supplemented for 2 months with palm vitamin E. The results showed that there were over 300 valued spot on each of the groups PVE and OVX as compared to about 200 in SO. Comparison between the differential protein expression between OVX and PVE groups showed that ten spots were down –regulated in OVX but up-regulated in PVE. The ten differential spots were separately named P1-P10. The identification and understanding of the pathway of the differential protein expression among the groups is ongoing and may account for the molecular mechanism through which palm vitamin E exert its anti-osteoporotic effect.

Keywords: Palm vitamin E, ovariectomised, osteoporosis protein expression, 2-d-page.

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Authors: Norlin Pauzi, Ahmad R.M. Yahya, Zairossani Nor, Amirul A. Abdullah

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Strain M was isolated from the latex of Hevea brasiliensis that grow in the rubber farm area of Malaysia Rubber Board. Strain M was tentatively identified as Bacillus sp. Strain M demonstrated high protease production at pH 9, and this was suitable to be applied in rubber processing that was in alkaline conditions. The right and suitable proportion to be used in applying supernatant into the latex was two parts of latex and one part of enzyme. In this proportion, the latex was stable throughout the 72 hours of treatment. The potential of strain M to degrade protein in the natural rubber latex was proven with the reduction of 79.3% nitrogen in 24 hours treatment. Centrifugation process of the latex before undergoing the treatment had increased the protein degradation in latex. Although the centrifugation process did not achieve zero nitrogen content, it had improved the performance of protein denaturing in the natural rubber.

Keywords: Hevea brasiliensis, Bacillus sp., protease, latex.

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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: Abdoullah Fath-Allah, Laila Cheikhi, Rafa E. Al-Qutaish, Ali Idri

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Many quality models have been used to measure egovernment portals quality. However, the absence of an international consensus for e-government portals quality models results in many differences in terms of quality attributes and measures. The aim of this paper is to compare and analyze the existing e-government quality models proposed in literature (those that are based on ISO standards and those that are not) in order to propose guidelines to build a good and useful e-government portals quality model. Our findings show that, there is no e-government portal quality model based on the new international standard ISO 25010. Besides that, the quality models are not based on a best practice model to allow agencies to both; measure e-government portals quality and identify missing best practices for those portals.

Keywords: E-government, portal, best practices, quality model, ISO, standard, ISO 25010, ISO 9126.

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Authors: Xiaoli Shen, Yuehui Chen

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Interactions among proteins are the basis of various life events. So, it is important to recognize and research protein interaction sites. A control set that contains 149 protein molecules were used here. Then 10 features were extracted and 4 sample sets that contained 9 sliding windows were made according to features. These 4 sample sets were calculated by Radial Basis Functional neutral networks which were optimized by Particle Swarm Optimization respectively. Then 4 groups of results were obtained. Finally, these 4 groups of results were integrated by decision fusion (DF) and Genetic Algorithm based Selected Ensemble (GASEN). A better accuracy was got by DF and GASEN. So, the integrated methods were proved to be effective.

Keywords: protein interaction sites, features, sliding windows, radial basis functional neutral networks, genetic algorithm basedselected ensemble.

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Authors: Razib M. Othman, Safaai Deris, Rosli M. Illias

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Annotation of a protein sequence is pivotal for the understanding of its function. Accuracy of manual annotation provided by curators is still questionable by having lesser evidence strength and yet a hard task and time consuming. A number of computational methods including tools have been developed to tackle this challenging task. However, they require high-cost hardware, are difficult to be setup by the bioscientists, or depend on time intensive and blind sequence similarity search like Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. This paper introduces a new method of assigning highly correlated Gene Ontology terms of annotated protein sequences to partially annotated or newly discovered protein sequences. This method is fully based on Gene Ontology data and annotations. Two problems had been identified to achieve this method. The first problem relates to splitting the single monolithic Gene Ontology RDF/XML file into a set of smaller files that can be easy to assess and process. Thus, these files can be enriched with protein sequences and Inferred from Electronic Annotation evidence associations. The second problem involves searching for a set of semantically similar Gene Ontology terms to a given query. The details of macro and micro problems involved and their solutions including objective of this study are described. This paper also describes the protein sequence annotation and the Gene Ontology. The methodology of this study and Gene Ontology based protein sequence annotation tool namely extended UTMGO is presented. Furthermore, its basic version which is a Gene Ontology browser that is based on semantic similarity search is also introduced.

Keywords: automatic clustering, bioinformatics tool, gene ontology, protein sequence annotation, semantic similarity search

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Authors: A. E. O. Malau-Aduli, B. W. B. Holman, P. A. Lane

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Our objectives were to evaluate the effects of sire breed, type of protein supplement, level of supplementation and sex on wool spinning fineness (SF), its correlations with other wool characteristics and prediction accuracy in F1 Merino crossbred lambs. Texel, Coopworth, White Suffolk, East Friesian and Dorset rams were mated with 500 purebred Merino dams at a ratio of 1:100 in separate paddocks within a single management system. The F1 progeny were raised on ryegrass pasture until weaning, before forty lambs were randomly allocated to treatments in a 5 x 2 x 2 x 2 factorial experimental design representing 5 sire breeds, 2 supplementary feeds (canola or lupins), 2 levels of supplementation (1% or 2% of liveweight) and sex (wethers or ewes). Lambs were supplemented for six weeks after an initial three weeks of adjustment, wool sampled at the commencement and conclusion of the feeding trial and analyzed for SF, mean fibre diameter (FD), coefficient of variation (CV), standard deviation, comfort factor (CF), fibre curvature (CURV), and clean fleece yield. Data were analyzed using mixed linear model procedures with sire fitted as a random effect, and sire breed, sex, supplementary feed type, level of supplementation and their second-order interactions as fixed effects. Sire breed (P<0.001), sex (P<0.004), sire breed x level of supplementation (P<0.004), and sire breed x sex (P<0.019) interactions significantly influenced SF. SF ranged from 22.7 ± 0.2μm in White Suffolk-sired lambs to 25.1 ± 0.2μm in East Friesian crossbred lambs. Ewes had higher SF than wethers. There were significant (P<0.001) correlations between SF and FD (0.93), CV (0.40), CF (-0.94) and CURV (-0.12). Its strong relationship with other wool quality traits enabled accurate predictions explaining up to about 93% of the observed variation. The interactions between sire breed genetics and nutrition will have an impact on the choices that dual-purpose sheep producers make when selecting sire breeds and protein supplementary feed levels to achieve optimal wool spinning fineness at the farmgate level. This will facilitate selective breeding programs being able to better account for SF and its interactions with other wool characteristics.

Keywords: Merino crossbred sheep, protein supplementation, sire breed, wool quality, wool spinning fineness

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Authors: G. Lavanya Devi, Allam Appa Rao, A. Damodaram, GR Sridhar, G. Jaya Suma

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Cluster analysis divides data into groups that are meaningful, useful, or both. Analysis of biological data is creating a new generation of epidemiologic, prognostic, diagnostic and treatment modalities. Clustering of protein sequences is one of the current research topics in the field of computer science. Linear relation is valuable in rule discovery for a given data, such as if value X goes up 1, value Y will go down 3", etc. The classical linear regression models the linear relation of two sequences perfectly. However, if we need to cluster a large repository of protein sequences into groups where sequences have strong linear relationship with each other, it is prohibitively expensive to compare sequences one by one. In this paper, we propose a new technique named General Regression Model Technique Clustering Algorithm (GRMTCA) to benignly handle the problem of linear sequences clustering. GRMT gives a measure, GR*, to tell the degree of linearity of multiple sequences without having to compare each pair of them.

Keywords: Clustering, General Regression Model, Protein Sequences, Similarity Measure.

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Authors: Fiona Browne, Huiru Zheng, Haiying Wang, Francisco Azuaje

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Recent years have seen a growing trend towards the integration of multiple information sources to support large-scale prediction of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks in model organisms. Despite advances in computational approaches, the combination of multiple “omic" datasets representing the same type of data, e.g. different gene expression datasets, has not been rigorously studied. Furthermore, there is a need to further investigate the inference capability of powerful approaches, such as fullyconnected Bayesian networks, in the context of the prediction of PPI networks. This paper addresses these limitations by proposing a Bayesian approach to integrate multiple datasets, some of which encode the same type of “omic" data to support the identification of PPI networks. The case study reported involved the combination of three gene expression datasets relevant to human heart failure (HF). In comparison with two traditional methods, Naive Bayesian and maximum likelihood ratio approaches, the proposed technique can accurately identify known PPI and can be applied to infer potentially novel interactions.

Keywords: Bayesian network, Classification, Data integration, Protein interaction networks.

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Authors: V. Viliene, V. Sasyte, A. Raceviciute-Stupeliene, R. Gruzauskas

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In horse nutrition, the most suitable cereal for their rations composition could be defined as oats and barley. Oats have high nutritive value because it provides more protein, fiber, iron and zinc than other whole grains, has good taste, and an activity of stimulating metabolic changes in the body. Another cereal – barley is very similar to oats as a feed except for some characteristics that affect how it is used; however, barley is lower in fiber than oats and is classified as a "heavy" feed. The value of oats and barley grain, first of all is dependent on its composition. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has long been considered and used as a significant method in component and quality analysis and as an emerging technology for authenticity applications for cereal quality control. This paper presents the chemical and amino acid composition of different varieties of barley and oats, also digestible energy of different cereals for horses. Ten different spring barley (n = 5) and oats (n = 5) varieties, grown in one location in Lithuania, were assayed for their chemical composition (dry matter, crude protein, crude fat, crude ash, crude fiber, starch) and amino acids content, digestible amino acids and amino acids digestibility. Also, the grains digestible energy for horses was calculated. The oats and barley samples reflectance spectra were measured by means of NIRS using Foss-Tecator DS2500 equipment. The chemical components: fat, crude protein, starch and fiber differed statistically (P<0.05) between the oats and barley varieties. The highest total amino acid content between oats was determined in variety Flamingsprofi (4.56 g/kg) and the lowest – variety Circle (3.57 g/kg), and between barley - respectively in varieties Publican (3.50 g/kg) and Sebastian (3.11 g/kg). The different varieties of oats digestible amino acid content varied from 3.11 g/kg to 4.07 g/kg; barley different varieties varied from 2.59 g/kg to 2.94 g/kg. The average amino acids digestibility of oats varied from 74.4% (Liz) to 95.6% (Fen) and in barley - from 75.8 % (Tre) to 89.6% (Fen). The amount of digestible energy in the analyzed varieties of oats and barley was an average compound 13.74 MJ/kg DM and 14.85 MJ/kg DM, respectively. An analysis of the results showed that different varieties of oats compared with barley are preferable for horse nutrition according to the crude fat, crude fiber, ash and separate amino acids content, but the analyzed barley varieties dominated the higher amounts of crude protein, the digestible Liz amount and higher DE content, and thus, could be recommended for making feed formulation for horses combining oats and barley, taking into account the chemical composition of using cereal varieties.

Keywords: Barley, digestive energy, horses, nutritional value, oats.

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Authors: Mohamed Idris S. Abozaed, Suliman Mohamed Elrajoubi

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Researches and concerns in power quality gained significant momentum in the field of power electronics systems over the last two decades globally. This sudden increase in the number of concerns over power quality problems is a result of the huge increase in the use of non-linear loads. In this paper, power quality evaluation of some distribution networks at Misurata - Libya has been done using a power quality and energy analyzer (Fluke 437 Series II). The results of this evaluation are used to minimize the problems of power quality. The analysis shows the main power quality problems that exist and the level of awareness of power quality issues with the aim of generating a start point which can be used as guidelines for researchers and end users in the field of power systems.

Keywords: Power Quality Disturbances, Power Quality Evaluation, Statistical Analysis.

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Authors: Gry M, Bergström J, Lengquist J, Lindberg J, Drobin K, Schwenk J, Nilsson P, Schuppe-Koistinen I.

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Sensitive and predictive DILI (Drug Induced Liver Injury) biomarkers are needed in drug R&D to improve early detection of hepatotoxicity. The discovery of DILI biomarkers that demonstrate the predictive power to identify individuals at risk to DILI would represent a major advance in the development of personalized healthcare approaches. In this healthy volunteer acetaminophen study (4g/day for 7 days, with 3 monitored nontreatment days before and 4 after), 450 serum samples from 32 subjects were analyzed using protein profiling by antibody suspension bead arrays. Multiparallel protein profiles were generated using a DILI target protein array with 300 antibodies, where the antibodies were selected based on previous literature findings of putative DILI biomarkers and a screening process using pre dose samples from the same cohort. Of the 32 subjects, 16 were found to develop an elevated ALT value (2Xbaseline, responders). Using the plasma profiling approach together with multivariate statistical analysis some novel findings linked to lipid metabolism were found and more important, endogenous protein profiles in baseline samples (prior to treatment) with predictive power for ALT elevations were identified.

Keywords: DILI, Plasma profiling, PLSDA, Randomforest.

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Authors: B. Bina, M.H. Mehdinejad, Gunnel Dalhammer, Guna RajaraoM. Nikaeen, H. Movahedian Attar

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Coagulation of water involves the use of coagulating agents to bring the suspended matter in the raw water together for settling and the filtration stage. Present study is aimed to examine the effects of aluminum sulfate as coagulant in conjunction with Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid on turbidity, hardness, and bacteria in turbid water. A conventional jar test apparatus was employed for the tests. The best removal was observed at a pH of 7 to 7.5 for all turbidities. Turbidity removal efficiency was resulted between % 80 to % 99 by Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid. Dosage of coagulant and coagulant aid decreased with increasing turbidity. In addition, Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein significantly has reduced the required dosage of primary coagulant. Residual Al+3 in treated water were less than 0.2 mg/l and meets the environmental protection agency guidelines. The results showed that turbidity reduction of % 85.9- % 98 paralleled by a primary Escherichia coli reduction of 1-3 log units (99.2 – 99.97%) was obtained within the first 1 to 2 h of treatment. In conclusions, Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid can be used for drinking water treatment without the risk of organic or nutrient release. We demonstrated that optimal design method is an efficient approach for optimization of coagulation-flocculation process and appropriate for raw water treatment.

Keywords: MOCP, Coagulant aid, turbidity removal, E.coliremoval, water, treatment

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Authors: Shahram Naghizadeh Raeisi, Ali Alghooneh

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Using membrane technology and modification of milk protein structural properties, a lactose free yogurt was developed. The functional, textural and structural properties of the sample were evaluated and compared with the commercial ones. Results showed that the modification of protein in high fat set yogurt resulted in 11.55%, 18%, 20.21% and 7.08% higher hardness, consistency, water holding capacity, and shininess values compared with the control one. Furthermore, these indices of modified low fat set yogurt were 21.40%, 25.41%, 28.15% & 10.58% higher than the control one, which could be related to the gel network microstructural properties in yogurt formulated with modified protein. In this way, in comparison with the control one, the index of linkage strength (A), the number of linkages (z), and time scale of linkages (λrel) of the high fat modified yogurt were 22.10%, 50.68%, 21.82% higher than the control one; whereas, the average linear distance between two adjacent crosslinks (ξ), was 16.77% lower than the control one. For low fat modified yogurt, A, z, λrel, and ξ indices were 34.30%, 61.70% and 42.60% higher and 19.20% lower than the control one, respectively. The shelf life of modified yogurt was extended to 10 weeks in the refrigerator, while, the control set yogurt had a 3 weeks shelf life. The acidity of high fat and low fat modified yogurts increased from 76 to 84 and 72 to 80 Dornic degrees during 10 weeks of storage, respectively, whereas for control high fat and low fat yogurts they increased from 82 to 122 and 77 to 112 Dornic degrees, respectively. This behavior could be due to the elimination of microorganism’s source of energy in modified yogurt. Furthermore, the calories of high fat and low fat lactose free yogurts were 25% and 40% lower than their control samples, respectively. Generally, results showed that the lactose free yogurt with modified protein, despite of 1% lower protein content than the control one, showed better functional properties, nutritional properties, network parameters, and shelf stability, which could be promising in the set yogurt industry.

Keywords: Lactose free, low calorie, network properties, protein modification.

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Authors: H. Sakamoto, S. Kurosawa, M. Suzuki, S. Oguri

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In Arabidopsis, several genes encoding proteins with ankyrin repeats and transmembrane domains (AtANKTM) have been identified as mediators of biotic and abiotic stress responses. It has been known that the expression of an AtANKTM gene, At2g24600, is induced in response to abiotic stress and that there are four splicing variants derived from this locus. In this study, by RT-PCR and sequencing analysis, an unknown splicing variant of the At2g24600 transcript was identified. Based on differences in the predicted amino acid sequences, the five splicing variants are divided into three groups. The three predicted proteins are highly homologous, yet have different numbers of ankyrinrepeats and transmembrane domains. It is generally considered that ankyrin repeats mediate protein-protein interaction and that the number oftransmembrane domains affects membrane topology of proteins. The protein variants derived from the At2g24600 locus may have different molecular functions each other.

Keywords: Alternative splicing, ankyrin repeats, transmembrane domains, Arabidopsis.

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Authors: Tom Snir, Eitan Rubin

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Mendelian Disease Genes represent a collection of single points of failure for the various systems they constitute. Such genes have been shown, on average, to encode longer proteins than 'non-disease' proteins. Existing models suggest that this results from the increased likeli-hood of longer genes undergoing mutations. Here, we show that in saturated mutagenesis experiments performed on model organisms, where the likelihood of each gene mutating is one, a similar relationship between length and the probability of a gene being lethal was observed. We thus suggest an extended model demonstrating that the likelihood of a mutated gene to produce a severe phenotype is length-dependent. Using the occurrence of conserved domains, we bring evidence that this dependency results from a correlation between protein length and the number of functions it performs. We propose that protein length thus serves as a proxy for protein cardinality in different networks required for the organism's survival and well-being. We use this example to argue that the collection of Mendelian Disease Genes can, and should, be used to study the rules governing systems vulnerability in living organisms.

Keywords: Systems Biology, Protein Length

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Authors: M. Stoklasa, H. Starzyczna, K. Matusinska

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This article deals with the perceived quality of regional products in the Moravian-Silesian region in the Czech Republic. Research was focused on finding out what do consumers perceive as a quality product and what characteristics make a quality product. The data were obtained by questionnaire survey andanalysed by IBM SPSS. From the thousands of respondents the representative sample of 719 for MS region was created based on demographic factors of gender, age, education and income. The research analysis disclosed that consumers in MS region are still price oriented and that the preference of quality over price does not depend on regional brand knowledge.

Keywords: Regional brands, quality products, characteristics of quality, quality over price.

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Authors: G. Vici, L. Cesanelli, L. Belli, R. Ceci, V. Polzonetti

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Several factors contribute to success in sport and diet is one of them. Evidence-based sport nutrition guidelines underline the importance of macro- and micro-nutrients’ balance and timing in order to improve athlete’s physical status and performance. Nevertheless, a high content of proteins is commonly found in resistance training athletes’ diet with carbohydrate intake that is not enough or not well planned. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of different protein and carbohydrate diet contents on body composition and sport performance on a group of resistance training athletes. Subjects were divided as study group (n=16) and control group (n=14). For a period of 4 months, both groups were subjected to the same resistance training fitness program with study group following a specific diet and control group following an ab libitum diet. Body compositions were evaluated trough anthropometric measurement (weight, height, body circumferences and skinfolds) and Bioimpedence Analysis. Physical strength and training status of individuals were evaluated through the One Repetition Maximum test (RM1). Protein intake in studied group was found to be lower than in control group. There was a statistically significant increase of body weight, free fat mass and body mass cell of studied group respect to the control group. Fat mass remains almost constant. Statistically significant changes were observed in quadriceps and biceps circumferences, with an increase in studied group. The MR1 test showed improvement in study group’s strength but no changes in control group. Usually people consume hyper-proteic diet to achieve muscle mass development. Through this study, it was possible to show that protein intake fixed at 1,7 g/kg/d can meet the individual's needs. In parallel, the increased intake of carbohydrates, focusing on quality and timing of assumption, has enabled the obtainment of desired results with a training protocol supporting a hypertrophic strategy. Therefore, the key point seems related to the planning of a structured program both from a nutritional and training point of view.

Keywords: Body composition, diet, exercise, protein.

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Authors: Fawzi Irshaid, Fatiha Dilmi, Khaled Tarawneh, Raji Hadeth, Adnan Jaran, Ahad Al-Khatib

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P16/INK4A is tumor suppressor protein that plays a critical role in cell cycle regulation. Loss of P16 protein expression has been implicated in pathogenesis of many cancers, including lymphoma. Therefore, we sought to investigate if loss of P16 protein expression is associated with lymphoma and/or any specific lymphoma subtypes (Hodgkin-s lymphoma (HL) and nonHodgkin-s lymphoma (NHL)). Fifty-five lymphoma cases consisted of 30 cases of HL and 25 cases of NHL, with an age range of 3 to 78 years, were examined for loss of P16 by immunohistochemical technique using a specific antibody reacting against P16. In total, P16 loss was seen in 33% of all lymphoma cases. P16 loss was identified in 47.7% of HL cases. In contrast, only 16% of NHL showed loss of P16. Loss of P16 was seen in 67% of HL patients with 50 years of age or older, whereas P16 loss was found in only 42% of HL patients with less than 50 years of age. P16 loss in HL is somewhat higher in male (55%) than in female (30%). In subtypes of HL, P16 loss was found exclusively in all cases of lymphocyte depletion, lymphocyte predominance and unclassified cases, whereas P16 loss was seen in 39% of mixed cellularity and 29% of nodular sclerosis cases. In low grade NHL patients, P16 loss was seen in approximately one-third of cases, whereas no or very rare of P16 loss was found in intermediate and high grade cases. P16 loss did not show any correlation with age or gender of NHL patients. In conclusion, the high rate of P16 loss seen in our study suggests that loss of P16 expression plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of lymphoma, particularly with HL.

Keywords: B-cells, immunostaining, P16 protein, Reed-Sternberg cells, tumors.

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Authors: Olufunke O. Ezekiel, Ogugua C. Aworh

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Solid state fermentation of cassava peel with emphasis on protein enrichment using Trichoderma viride was evaluated. The effect of five variables: moisture content, pH, particle size (p), nitrogen source and incubation temperature; on the true protein and total sugars of cassava peel was investigated. The optimum fermentation period was established to be 8 days. Total sugars were 5-fold higher at pH 6 relative to pH 4 and 7-fold higher when cassava peels were fermented at 30oC relative to 25oC as well as using ammonium sulfate as the nitrogen source relative to urea or a combination of both. Total sugars ranged between 123.21mg/g at 50% initial moisture content to 374mg/g at 60% and from 190.59mg/g with particle size range of 2.00>p>1.41mm to 310.10mg/g with 4.00>p>3.35mm.True protein ranged from 229.70 mg/g at pH 4 to 284.05 mg/g at pH 6; from 200.87 mg/g with urea as nitrogen source and to 254.50mg/g with ammonium sulfate; from 213.82mg/g at 50% initial moisture content to 254.50mg/g at 60% moisture content, from 205.75mg/g in cassava peel with 5.6>p> 4.75mm to 268.30 in cassava peel with particle size 4.00>p>3.35mm, from 207.57mg/g at 25oC to 254.50mg/g at 30oC Cassava peel with particle size 4.00>p>3.35 mm and initial moisture content of 60% at pH 6.0, 30oC incubation temperature with ammonium sulfate (10g N / kg substrate) was most suitable for protein enrichment with Trichoderma viride. Crude protein increased from 4.21 % in unfermented cassava peel samples to 10.43 % in fermented samples.

Keywords: Cassava peel, Solid state fermentation, Trichoderma viride, Total sugars, True protein.

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Authors: Ratchakit Sakuldee, Somkait Udomhunsakul

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Measurement of the quality of image compression is important for image processing application. In this paper, we propose an objective image quality assessment to measure the quality of gray scale compressed image, which is correlation well with subjective quality measurement (MOS) and least time taken. The new objective image quality measurement is developed from a few fundamental of objective measurements to evaluate the compressed image quality based on JPEG and JPEG2000. The reliability between each fundamental objective measurement and subjective measurement (MOS) is found. From the experimental results, we found that the Maximum Difference measurement (MD) and a new proposed measurement, Structural Content Laplacian Mean Square Error (SCLMSE), are the suitable measurements that can be used to evaluate the quality of JPEG200 and JPEG compressed image, respectively. In addition, MD and SCLMSE measurements are scaled to make them equivalent to MOS, given the rate of compressed image quality from 1 to 5 (unacceptable to excellent quality).

Keywords: JPEG, JPEG2000, objective image quality measurement, subjective image quality measurement, correlation coefficients.

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Authors: Ming-Lun Chiang, Hsi-Chia Chen, Chieh Wu, Yu-Ting Tseng, Ming-Ju Chen

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In this study, three strains of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (690, BCRC 13023 and BCRC 13025) were subjected to acid adaptation at pH 5.5 for 90 min. The survival of acid-adapted and non-adapted V. parahaemolyticus strains under simulated gastric condition and their protein expression profiles were investigated. Results showed that acid adaptation increased the survival of the test V. parahaemolyticus strains after exposure to simulated gastric juice (pH 3). Additionally, acid adaptation also affected the protein expression in these V. parahaemolyticus strains. Nine proteins, identified as atpA, atpB, DnaK, GroEL, OmpU, enolase, fructose-bisphosphate aldolase, phosphoglycerate kinase and triosephosphate isomerase, were induced by acid adaptation in two or three of the test strains. These acid-adaptive proteins may play important regulatory roles in the acid tolerance response (ATR) of V. parahaemolyticus.

Keywords: Acid adaptation, protein expression, simulated gastric juice, Vibrio parahaemolyticus

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Authors: Y. Q. Lv, C.K.M. Lee

Abstract:

This paper develops a quality estimation method with the application of fuzzy hierarchical clustering. Quality estimation is essential to quality control and quality improvement as a precise estimation can promote a right decision-making in order to help better quality control. Normally the quality of finished products in manufacturing system can be differentiated by quality standards. In the real life situation, the collected data may be vague which is not easy to be classified and they are usually represented in term of fuzzy number. To estimate the quality of product presented by fuzzy number is not easy. In this research, the trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are collected in manufacturing process and classify the collected data into different clusters so as to get the estimation. Since normal hierarchical clustering methods can only be applied for real numbers, fuzzy hierarchical clustering is selected to handle this problem based on quality standards.

Keywords: Quality Estimation, Fuzzy Quality Mean, Fuzzy Hierarchical Clustering, Fuzzy Number, Manufacturing system

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Authors: B. Tah, P. Pal, M. Mahato, R. Sarkar, G. B. Talapatra

Abstract:

Herein, we report the different types of surface morphology due to the interaction between the pure protein Insulin (INS) and catanionic surfactant mixture of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) and Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) at air/water interface obtained by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique. We characterized the aggregations by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in LB films. We found that the INS adsorption increased in presence of catanionic surfactant at air/water interface. The presence of small amount of surfactant induces two-stage growth kinetics due to the pure protein absorption and protein-catanionic surface micelle interaction. The protein remains in native state in presence of small amount of surfactant mixture. Smaller amount of surfactant mixture with INS is producing surface micelle type structure. This may be considered for drug delivery system. On the other hand, INS becomes unfolded and fibrillated in presence of higher amount of surfactant mixture. In both the cases, the protein was successfully immobilized on a glass substrate by the LB technique. These results may find applications in the fundamental science of the physical chemistry of surfactant systems, as well as in the preparation of drug-delivery system.

Keywords: Air/water interface, Catanionic micelle, Insulin, Langmuir-Blodgett film

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Authors: Shuki Dror

Abstract:

This work discusses an innovative methodology for deployment of service quality characteristics. Four groups of organizational features that may influence the quality of services are identified: human resource, technology, planning, and organizational relationships. A House of Service Quality (HOSQ) matrix is built to extract the desired improvement in the service quality characteristics and to translate them into a hierarchy of important organizational features. The Mean Square Error (MSE) criterion enables the pinpointing of the few essential service quality characteristics to be improved as well as selection of the vital organizational features. The method was implemented in an engineering supply enterprise and provides useful information on its vital service dimensions.

Keywords: HOQ, organizational features, service quality.

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Authors: Asem M. Othman

Abstract:

The expansion of the hospitality industry is distinctive in the 21st century. Services, by nature, are intangible. Hence, service quality, in general, is a complicated process to be measured and evaluated. Hotels, as a service sector and part of the hospitality industry, are growing rapidly. This research paper was carried out to identify the quality determinants that may affect hotel guests’ service quality perception. In this research paper, each quality determinant will be discussed, illustrated, and justified thoroughly via a systematic literature review. This paper sets the stage to measure the significant influence of the service quality determinants on guest satisfaction. The knowledge contribution from this study proposes to practitioners and/or hotel service providers, fundamental elements to adopt the implications into their policies.

Keywords: Hotel service, service quality, quality determinants, quality management.

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Authors: S. B. Fasoyiro, K. A. Arowora

Abstract:

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) blanched for 20min was dehulled and milled into flour. The flour was incorporated into dried whole fermented maize (Ogi) at five levels. The resultant products were analyzed for chemical and pasting properties. The fortified Ogi samples were also assessed for sensory attributes: appearance, color, flavor, mouth feel and overall acceptability. The protein content in the whole Ogi fortified samples was in the range of 11.2-16.6% and crude fibre 3.22-3.46%. Fortified whole Ogi with pigeon pea at 30%, 40% and 50% of inclusion with pigeon pea flour has higher protein, crude fibre and ash content. Varying range of pasting quality was recorded for the blends, pasting temperature for fortified Obi was in the range of 45.3-49.50C and peak time 5.05-5.210C. The sensory acceptability of the whole Ogi fortified blends prepared into gruel has higher acceptability for various qualities in comparison with the traditional Ogi gruel.

Keywords: Maize Ogi, pigeon pea, chemical, pasting, sensory properties.

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Authors: Jehad Al Dallal

Abstract:

Software engineers apply different measures to quantify the quality of software design. These measures consider artifacts developed at low or high level software design phases. The results are used to point to design weaknesses and to indicate design points that have to be restructured. Understanding the relationship among the quality measures and among the design quality aspects considered by these measures is important to interpreting the impact of a measure for a quality aspect on other potentially related aspects. In addition, exploring the relationship between quality measures helps to explain the impact of different quality measures on external quality aspects, such as reliability and maintainability. In this paper, we report a replication study that empirically explores the correlation between six well known and commonly applied design quality measures. These measures consider several quality aspects, including complexity, cohesion, coupling, and inheritance. The results indicate that inheritance measures are weakly correlated to other measures, whereas complexity, coupling, and cohesion measures are mostly strongly correlated.  

Keywords: Quality attribute, quality measure, software design quality, spearman correlation.

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Authors: Seung Pil Pack

Abstract:

Deaminated lesions were produced via nitrosative oxidation of natural nucleobases; uracul (Ura, U) from cytosine (Cyt, C), hypoxanthine (Hyp, H) from adenine (Ade, A), and xanthine (Xan, X) and oxanine (Oxa, O) from guanine (Gua, G). Such damaged nucleobases may induce mutagenic problems, so that much attentions and efforts have been poured on the revealing of their mechanisms in vivo or in vitro. In this study, we employed these deaminated lesions as useful probes for analysis of DNA-binding/recognizing proteins or enzymes. Since the pyrimidine lesions such as Hyp, Oxa and Xan are employed as analogues of guanine, their comparative uses are informative for analyzing the role of Gua in DNA sequence in DNA-protein interaction. Several DNA oligomers containing such Hyp, Oxa or Xan substituted for Gua were designed to reveal the molecular interaction between DNA and protein. From this approach, we have got useful information to understand the molecular mechanisms of the DNA-recognizing enzymes, which have not ever been observed using conventional DNA oligomer composed of just natural nucleobases.

Keywords: Deaminated lesion, DNA-protein interaction, DNA-recognizing enzymes

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