A Study on Best Quality Practices at King Faisal University (KFU), Alhassa, Saudi Arabia

This paper aims to examine the quality best practices in King Faisal University (KFU). The quality best practices issue has taken a huge consideration among different Saudi Arabian sectors. These sectors include education, manufacturing, government, private, healthcare, IT, service and non-profit organizations. This research concentrates and discusses the quality management in Saudi Arabian higher education system.The study is a specific reference to one of the well-known public university in Saudi Arabia i.e. KFU. The importance of conducting this research is to examine the quality best practices in KFU in terms of many aspects. These aspects include university in general, colleges, curriculum, employees, faculty members and students. Although some colleges attain academic accreditations, there is a lack of knowledge in terms of main quality best practices. The substantial expectation of this research is to eliminate the quality drawbacks in KFU. Another emphasis is to provide a number of recommendations to enhance the quality best practices in KFU

Performance analysis of unsupervised feature selection methods

Feature selection (FS) is a process which attempts to select more informative features. In some cases, too many redundant or irrelevant features may overpower main features for classification. Feature selection can remedy this problem and therefore improve the prediction accuracy and reduce the computational overhead of classification algorithms. The main aim of feature selection is to determine a minimal feature subset from a problem domain while retaining a suitably high accuracy in representing the original features. In this paper, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Rough PCA, Unsupervised Quick Reduct (USQR) algorithm and Empirical Distribution Ranking (EDR) approaches are applied to discover discriminative features that will be the most adequate ones for classification. Efficiency of the approaches is evaluated using standard classification metrics.Comment: 7 pages, Conference Publication

Variation in Feed Point within Differed L-Slot Multi-frequency Microstrip Patch

A rectangular microstrip patch antenna with differed pair of L-slots is presented. The proposed antenna is designed to evaluate the effect of alteration in probe-feed point. The proposed microstrip antenna is suitable for bluetooth, mobile and wireless communication applications simultaneously. It is designed successfully for mobile communication systems and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) applications. The results obtained had showed better improvement in the return loss and radiation pattern in comparison to the other existing antennas

Performance Improvement of Cloud Computing Data Centers Using Energy Efficient Task Scheduling Algorithms

Cloud computing is a technology that provides a platform for the sharing of resources such as software, infrastructure, application and other information. It brings a revolution in Information Technology industry by offering on-demand of resources. Clouds are basically virtualized datacenters and applications offered as services. Data center hosts hundreds or thousands of servers which comprised of software and hardware to respond the client request. A large amount of energy requires to perform the operation.. Cloud Computing is facing lot of challenges like Security of Data, Consumption of energy, Server Consolidation, etc. The research work focuses on the study of task scheduling management in a cloud environment. The main goal is to improve the performance (resource utilization and redeem the consumption of energy) in data centers. Energy-efficient scheduling of workloads helps to redeem the consumption of energy in data centers, thus helps in better USAge of resource. This is further reducing operational costs and provides benefits to the clients and also to cloud service provider. In this abstract of paper, the task scheduling in data centers have been compared. Cloudsim a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environment has been used to implement and demonstrate the experimental results. The results aimed at analyzing the energy consumed in data centers and shows that by having reduce the consumption of energy the cloud productivity can be improved

Smart Vehicle System Using Arduino

Transportation is a basic need of society and with the increasing population; indirectly there is an increase in the vehicle density, which may lead to many road accidents resulting in injuries and sometimes lead to death. To prevent this particularly, a system has been designed for accident location detection, accident prevention due to the upper issue of the dipper and anti-collision system. In this system, the shock sensor, ultrasonic sensor and temperature sensor are used as an input to the system along with GPS and GSM for real-time analysis and corresponding responses are analyzed; if any hazard occurs, the processing unit (Arduino) will take the appropriate action

Tannery effluent effect on the haematological parameters of freshwater fish, Channa punctatus

The present investigation was undertaken to evaluate the tannery effluent toxicity stress symptoms in fish blood during a long term of exposure period. The effect of tannery effluent on various haematological parameters were evaluated exposing fresh water fish, C. punctatus to different concentration i.e., [Control, 5% Tannery effluent (TE), 10% TE and 20% TE] of tannery effluent. Exposed of fish to tannery effluent showed a significant decrease in the haemoglobin (Hb) content (9.16± 0.08), red blood cells (3.32 ± 0.12), packed cell volume (34.66 ± 0.33) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) values, whereas significant increase in the white blood cells (WBC), erythro-cyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and clotting time was recorded with increase in exposure periods as compared to control respectively. Hb, RBC and MCHC values showed fluctuating results. The haematological parameters were decreases from 15th days of exposure periods to 45th days of exposure period. The decrease in haematological parameters clearly indicates that the exposed fishes have become anemic due to tannery effluent exposure

Replacement of saturated with unsaturated fats had no impact on vascular function but beneficial effects on lipid biomarkers, E-selectin and blood pressure: results from the randomized, controlled Dietary Intervention and VAScular function (DIVAS) study

Background: Public health strategies to lower cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk involve reducing dietary saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake to ≤10% of total energy (%TE). However, the optimal type of replacement fat is unclear. Objective: We investigated the substitution of 9.5-9.6%TE dietary SFA with either monounsaturated (MUFA) or n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on vascular function and other CVD risk factors. Design: Using a randomized, controlled, single-blind, parallel group dietary intervention, 195 men and women aged 21-60 y with moderate CVD risk (≥50% above the population mean) from the United Kingdom followed one of three 16-wk isoenergetic diets (%TE target compositions, total fat:SFA:MUFA:n-6 PUFA): SFA-rich (36:17:11:4, n = 65), MUFA-rich (36:9:19:4, n = 64) or n-6 PUFA-rich (36:9:13:10, n = 66). The primary outcome measure was flow-mediated dilatation (%FMD); secondary outcome measures included fasting serum lipids, microvascular reactivity, arterial stiffness, ambulatory blood pressure, and markers of insulin resistance, inflammation and endothelial activation. Results: Replacing SFA with MUFA or n-6 PUFA did not significantly impact on %FMD (primary endpoint) or other measures of vascular reactivity. Of the secondary outcome measures, substitution of SFA with MUFA attenuated the increase in night systolic blood pressure (-4.9 mm Hg, P = 0.019) and reduced E-selectin (-7.8%, P = 0.012). Replacement with MUFA or n-6 PUFA lowered fasting serum total cholesterol (TC; -8.4% and -9.2%, respectively), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (-11.3% and -13.6%) and TC to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (-5.6% and -8.5%) (P ≤ 0.001). These changes in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol equate to an estimated 17-20% reduction in CVD mortality. Conclusions: Substitution of 9.5-9.6%TE dietary SFA with either MUFA or n-6 PUFA did not impact significantly on %FMD or other measures of vascular function. However, the beneficial effects on serum lipid biomarkers, blood pressure and E-selectin offer a potential public health strategy for CVD risk reduction

What do adolescents perceive to be key features of an effective dementia education and awareness initiative?

The development of dementia friendly communities is a current global and national priority for the UK. As a response to policy, there have been a number of dementia awareness initiatives disseminated with the aim of reducing the stigma associated with a diagnosis of dementia. The inclusion of adolescents in such initiatives in imperative in order to sustain dementia friendly communities. With this is mind, the aim of this study was to establish the dementia education needs of adolescents and effective dissemination strategies to convey key messages. A total of 42 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years participated in eight focus group discussions. Key themes to emerge from discussions included: the importance of dementia awareness, topics of interest within dementia, preferred methods of learning, the inclusion of the person living with dementia and the use of social media. The findings of the study will enable the development of appropriate dementia awareness initiatives for adolescents and thus facilitate the sustainability of dementia friendly communities

Genetic relatedness of infecting and reinfecting respiratory syncytial virus strains identified in a birth cohort from rural Kenya

Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) reinfects individuals repeatedly. The extent to which this is a consequence of RSV antigenic diversity is unclear. Methods: Six-hundred thirty-five children from rural Kenya were closely monitored for RSV infection from birth through 3 consecutive RSV epidemics. RSV infections were identified by immunofluorescence testing of nasal washing samples collected during acute respiratory illnesses, typed into group A and B, and sequenced in the attachment (G) protein. A positive sample separated from a previous positive by ≥14 days was defined as a reinfection a priori. Results: Phylogenetic analysis was undertaken for 325 (80%) of 409 identified infections, including 53 (64%) of 83 reinfections. Heterologous group reinfections were observed in 28 episodes, and homologous group reinfections were observed in 25 episodes; 10 involved homologous genotypes, 5 showed no amino acid changes, and 3 were separated by 21–24 days and were potentially persistent infections. The temporal distribution of genotypes among reinfections did not differ from that of single infections. Conclusions: The vast majority of infection and reinfection pairs differed by group, genotype, or G amino acid sequence (ie, comprised distinct viruses). The extent to which this is a consequence of immune memory of infection history or prevalent diversity remains unclear