Abstract: Magnetic Nanoparticles (MNPs) have great potential
to overcome many of the shortcomings of the present diagnostic and
therapeutic approaches used in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This
Literature review discusses the use of Magnetic Nanoparticles
focusing mainly on Iron oxide based MNPs in cancer imaging using
MRI.
Abstract: In recent years, scanning probe atomic force
microscopy SPM AFM has gained acceptance over a wide spectrum
of research and science applications. Most fields focuses on physical,
chemical, biological while less attention is devoted to manufacturing
and machining aspects. The purpose of the current study is to assess
the possible implementation of the SPM AFM features and its
NanoScope software in general machining applications with special
attention to the tribological aspects of cutting tool. The surface
morphology of coated and uncoated as-received carbide inserts is
examined, analyzed, and characterized through the determination of
the appropriate scanning setting, the suitable data type imaging
techniques and the most representative data analysis parameters
using the MultiMode SPM AFM in contact mode. The NanoScope
operating software is used to capture realtime three data types
images: “Height", “Deflection" and “Friction". Three scan sizes are
independently performed: 2, 6, and 12 μm with a 2.5 μm vertical
range (Z). Offline mode analysis includes the determination of three
functional topographical parameters: surface “Roughness", power
spectral density “PSD" and “Section". The 12 μm scan size in
association with “Height" imaging is found efficient to capture every
tiny features and tribological aspects of the examined surface. Also,
“Friction" analysis is found to produce a comprehensive explanation
about the lateral characteristics of the scanned surface. Configuration
of many surface defects and drawbacks has been precisely detected
and analyzed.
Abstract: This paper discusses the designing of knowledge
integration of clinical information extracted from distributed medical
ontologies in order to ameliorate a machine learning-based multilabel
coding assignment system. The proposed approach is
implemented using a decision tree technique of the machine learning
on the university hospital data for patients with Coronary Heart
Disease (CHD). The preliminary results obtained show a satisfactory
finding that the use of medical ontologies improves the overall
system performance.
Abstract: Fungal infections are becoming more common and the
range of susceptible individuals has expanded. While Candida
albicans remains the most common infective species, other Candida
spp. are becoming increasingly significant. In a range of large-scale
studies of candidaemia between 1999 and 2006, about 52% of 9717
cases involved C. albicans, about 30% involved either C. glabrata or
C. parapsilosis and less than 15% involved C. tropicalis, C. krusei or
C. guilliermondii. However, the probability of mortality within 30
days of infection with a particular species was at least 40% for C.
tropicalis, C. albicans, C. glabrata and C. krusei and only 22% for
C. parapsilopsis. Clinical isolates of Candida spp. grew at rates
ranging from 1.65 h-1 to 4.9 h-1. Three species (C. krusei, C. albicans
and C. glabrata) had relatively high growth rates (μm > 4 h-1), C.
tropicalis and C. dubliniensis grew moderately quickly (Ôëê 3 h-1) and
C. parapsilosis and C. guilliermondii grew slowly (< 2 h-1). Based
on these data, the log of the odds of mortality within 30 days of
diagnosis was linearly related to μm. From this the underlying
probability of mortality is 0.13 (95% CI: 0.10-0.17) and it increases
by about 0.09 ± 0.02 for each unit increase in μm. Given that the
overall crude mortality is about 0.36, the growth of Candida spp.
approximately doubles the rate, consistent with the results of larger
case-matched studies of candidaemia.
Abstract: Finding effective ways of improving university quality assurance requires, as well, a retraining of the staff. This article illustrates an Online Programme of Excellence Model (OPEM), based on the European quality assurance model, for improving participants- formative programme standards. The results of applying this OPEM indicate the necessity of quality policies that support the evaluators- competencies to improve formative programmes. The study concludes by outlining how faculty and agency staff can use OPEM for the internal and external quality assurance of formative programmes.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of preparation and control of orders on performance. The focused activities explored in this research are: procurement, production and distribution. These changes in performance were obtained through improvement of the supply chain. It is proved using all the company activities that it is possible to increase de efficiency and do services in an adequate way, placing the products in the market efficiently. For that, it was explored the importance of the supply chain, with privilege to the practical environment and the quantification of the obtained results.
Abstract: There are several approaches for handling multiclass classification. Aside from one-against-one (OAO) and one-against-all (OAA), hierarchical classification technique is also commonly used. A binary classification tree is a hierarchical classification structure that breaks down a k-class problem into binary sub-problems, each solved by a binary classifier. In each node, a set of classes is divided into two subsets. A good class partition should be able to group similar classes together. Many algorithms measure similarity in term of distance between class centroids. Classes are grouped together by a clustering algorithm when distances between their centroids are small. In this paper, we present a binary classification tree with tuned observation-based clustering (BCT-TOB) that finds a class partition by performing clustering on observations instead of class centroids. A merging step is introduced to merge any insignificant class split. The experiment shows that performance of BCT-TOB is comparable to other algorithms.
Abstract: Car accident is one of the major causes of death in many countries. Many researchers have attempted to design and develop techniques to increase car safety in the past recent years. In spite of all the efforts, it is still challenging to design a system adaptive to the driver rather than the automotive characteristics. In this paper, the adaptive car safety system is explained which attempts to find a balance.
Abstract: For stable bipedal gait generation on the level floor,
efficient restoring of mechanical energy lost by heel collision at
the ground is necessary. Parametric excitation principle is one of
the solutions. We dealt with the robot-s total center of mass as
an inverted pendulum to consider the total dynamics of the robot.
Parametrically excited walking requires the use of continuous target
trajectory that is close to discontinuous optimal trajectory. In this
paper, we proposed the new target trajectory based on a position
in the walking direction. We surveyed relations between walking
performance and the parameters that form the target trajectory via
numerical simulations. As a result, it was found that our target
trajectory has the similar characteristics of a parametrically excited
inverted pendulum.
Abstract: In this paper we present a method of abrupt cut detection with a novel logic of frames- comparison. Actual frame is compared with its motion estimated prediction instead of comparison with successive frame. Four different similarity metrics were employed to estimate the resemblance of compared frames. Obtained results were evaluated by standard used measures of test accuracy and compared with existing approach. Based on the results, we claim the proposed method is more effective and Pearson correlation coefficient obtained the best results among chosen similarity metrics.
Abstract: This paper presents a experiment to estimate the
influences of cutting conditions in microstructure changes of
machining austenitic 304 stainless steel, especially for wear insert. The
wear insert were prefabricated with a width of 0.5 mm. And the forces,
temperature distribution, RS, and microstructure changes were
measured by force dynamometer, infrared thermal camera, X-ray
diffraction, XRD, SEM, respectively. The results told that the different
combinations of machining condition have a significant influence on
machined surface microstructure changes. In addition to that, the
ANOVA and AOMwere used to tell the different influences of cutting
speed, feed rate, and wear insert.
Abstract: Heat-inducible gene expression vectors are useful for hyperthermia-induced cancer gene therapy, because the combination
of hyperthermia and gene therapy can considerably improve the therapeutic effects. In the present study, we developed an enhanced
heat-inducible transgene expression system in which a heat-shock
protein (HSP) promoter and tetracycline-responsive transactivator
were combined. When the transactivator plasmid containing the
tetracycline-responsive transactivator gene was co-transfected with
the reporter gene expression plasmid, a high level of heat-induced gene expression was observed compared with that using the HSP
promoter without the transactivator. In vitro evaluation of the
therapeutic effect using HeLa cells showed that heat-induced therapeutic gene expression caused cell death in a high percentage of
these cells, indicating that this strategy is promising for cancer gene therapy.
Abstract: This study examines the possibility to apply the theory of multidimensional accounting (momentum accounting) in a Brazilian Navy-s Services Provider Military Organization (Organização Militar Prestadora de Serviços - OMPS). In general, the core of the said theory is the fact that Accounting does not recognize the inertia of transactions occurring in an entity, and that occur repeatedly in some cases, regardless of the implementation of new actions by its managers. The study evaluates the possibility of greater use of information recorded in the financial statements of the unit of analysis, within the strategic decisions of the organization. As a research strategy, we adopted the case study. The results infer that it is possible to use the theory in the context of a multidimensional OMPS, promoting useful information for decision-making and thereby contributing to the strengthening of the necessary alignment of its administration with the current desires of the Brazilian society.
Abstract: In this paper, the modified optimal sliding mode control with a proposed method to design a sliding surface is presented. Because of the inability of the previous approach of the sliding mode method to design a bounded and suitable input, the new variation is proposed in the sliding manifold to obviate problems in a structural system. Although the sliding mode control is a powerful method to reject disturbances and noises, the chattering problem is not good for actuators. To decrease the chattering phenomena, the optimal control is added to the sliding mode control. Not only the proposed method can decline the intense variations in the inputs of the system but also it can produce the efficient responses respect to the sliding mode control and optimal control that are shown by performing some numerical simulations.
Abstract: Recent theorizations on the cognitive process of moral
judgment have focused on the role of intuitions and emotions, marking
a departure from previous emphasis on conscious, step-by-step
reasoning. My study investigated how being in a disgusted mood state
affects moral judgment.
Participants were induced to enter a disgusted mood state through
listening to disgusting sounds and reading disgusting descriptions.
Results shows that they, when compared to control who have not been
induced to feel disgust, are more likely to endorse actions that are
emotionally aversive but maximizes utilitarian return
The result is analyzed using the 'emotion-as-information' approach
to decision making. The result is consistent with the view that
emotions play an important role in determining moral judgment.
Abstract: The proposed system identifies the species of the wood
using the textural features present in its barks. Each species of a wood
has its own unique patterns in its bark, which enabled the proposed
system to identify it accurately. Automatic wood recognition system
has not yet been well established mainly due to lack of research in this
area and the difficulty in obtaining the wood database. In our work, a
wood recognition system has been designed based on pre-processing
techniques, feature extraction and by correlating the features of those
wood species for their classification. Texture classification is a problem
that has been studied and tested using different methods due to its
valuable usage in various pattern recognition problems, such as wood
recognition, rock classification. The most popular technique used
for the textural classification is Gray-level Co-occurrence Matrices
(GLCM). The features from the enhanced images are thus extracted
using the GLCM is correlated, which determines the classification
between the various wood species. The result thus obtained shows a
high rate of recognition accuracy proving that the techniques used in
suitable to be implemented for commercial purposes.
Abstract: We study dynamic instability in high-rise steel moment
resisting frames (SMRFs) subjected to synthetic long-period ground
motions caused by hypothetical huge subduction earthquakes. Since
long duration as well as long dominant periods is a characteristic of
long-period ground motions, interstory drifts may enter the negative
postyield stiffness range many times when high-rise buildings are
subjected to long-period ground motions. Through the case studies of
9 high-rise SMRFs designed in accordance with the Japanese design
practice in 1980s, we demonstrate that drifting, or accumulation of
interstory drifts in one direction, occurs at the lower stories of the
SMRFs, if their natural periods are close to the dominant periods of the
long-period ground motions. The drifting led to residual interstory
drift ratio over 0.01, or to collapse if the design base shear was small.
Abstract: Work stress causes the organizational work-life
imbalance of employees. Because of this imbalance, workers perform
with lower effort to finish assignments and thus an organization will
experience reduced productivity. In order to investigate the problem
of an organizational work-life imbalance, this qualitative case study
focuses on an organizational work-life imbalance among Thai
software developers in a German-owned company in Chiang Mai,
Thailand. In terms of knowledge management, fishbone diagram is
useful analysis tool to investigate the root causes of an organizational
work-life imbalance systematically in focus-group discussions.
Furthermore, fishbone diagram shows the relationship between
causes and effects clearly. It was found that an organizational worklife
imbalance among Thai software developers is influenced by
management team, work environment, and information tools used in
the company over time.
Abstract: Logistics is part of the supply chain processes that plans, implements, and controls the efficient and effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer requirements. This research aims to investigate the current status and future direction of the use of Information Technology (IT) for logistics, focusing on Supply Chain Management (SCM) and E-Commerce adoption in Johor. Therefore, this research stresses on the type of technology being adopted, factors, benefits and barriers affecting the innovation in SCM and ECommerce technology adoption among Logistics Service Providers (LSP). A mailed questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 265 logistics companies in Johor. The research revealed that SCM technology adoption among LSP was higher as they had adopted SCM technology in various business processes while they perceived a high level of benefits from SCM adoption. Obviously, ECommerce technology adoption among LSP is relatively low.
Abstract: The effect of wheat flour extraction rates on flour
composition, farinographic characteristics and the quality of
sourdough naans was investigated. The results indicated that by
increasing the extraction rate, the amount of protein, fiber, fat and
ash increased, whereas moisture content decreased. Farinographic
characteristic like water absorption and dough development time
increased with an increase in flour extraction rate but the dough
stabilities and tolerance indices were reduced with an increase in
flour extraction rates. Titratable acidity for both sourdough and
sourdough naans also increased along with flour extraction rate. The
study showed that overall quality of sourdough naans were affected
by both flour extraction rate and starter culture used. Sensory
analysis of sourdough naans revealed that desirable extraction rate
for sourdough naan was 76%.