Improving the indoor air quality (IAQ) through application of the air cleaning technologies for offices building simulated in environmental chamber

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is very important issue in residential and commercial buildings, because human spend almost 90% of their life indoor. IAQ problems effect on the health of the occupants, and lead to reduction of the efficiency and output in workplaces. The main objective of this study is to improving the (IAQ) and to reduce energy consumption in offices building, through experimental and simulation investigation. The method used in this study was by using environmental chamber to represent the real office. The results of the experimental were validated the simulation. The chamber was modified by installing two mechanical filters with low pressure drop; minimum efficiency reporting value rate 13 (MERV 13) and activated carbon filter (ACF) on the air handling unit. The IAQ parameters which include temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, air flow rate, pressure drop, CO2 concentration and particle matters PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentration for upstream and downstream were considered in this study. These variables were measured inside the chamber using IAQ devices and these data were used as an input data for simulation by using ANSYS 16.1 software. The simulation generated the air distribution via air velocity, temperature, CO2 concentration and the particle distribution in the room. The results from experiment showed good agreement for combining filters efficiency value from 86.20% to 84.60% and from 86% to 82.35% for PM 10 and PM 2.5 particle removal respectively during occupied period. The CO2 concentration decreased during the measurement period from 816 ppm to 700 ppm and the distribution was in the acceptable range compare with ASHRAE standard 55-2004 and Malaysian industry code of practice on IAQ. Also, the validation with simulation showed below 10% error ratio compare with experiment results. The significance of study is to balance between enhancing thermal comfort inside workplace and (IAQ) for occupants, leading to reduction of energy consumption

University’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and Involvement of Students in Entrepreneurial Activities: A Case of Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)

The concept of the entrepreneurial ecosystem refers to the interaction between the various stakeholders of institutions and individuals to encourage implementation towards entrepreneurship, innovation and the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Universities play an important role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem for entrepreneurship and forms a catalyst for economic growth and capacity building to enhance the innovation, creativity and competitiveness of a country. The objective of this study was to explore the involvement of UTHM students in entrepreneurial activities based on the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in terms of financial assistance, infrastructure, education and training. The methodology employed for this study is a qualitative inquiry by using in-depth interview technique. The respondents consisted of 10 students and officers from the Centre of Business Entrepreneurship Development. The data were then being transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The results of this study showed that financial assistance, infrastructure, education and training is a very important ecosystem in increasing student involvement in entrepreneurship. The study also shows that there are inadequate infrastructure facilities to meet the demand of students for business. The lack of provision of loans also affected the level of student participation in entrepreneurship at the University

Developing a community HCV service: project ITTREAT (Integrated Community based Test - stage - TREAT) service for people who inject drugs

Liver disease is now the third most common cause of premature death in the UK, with chronic viral hepatitis being an important contributory factor. Often the diagnosis of chronic liver disease is only made when patients present late in the disease trajectory. This underscores the importance of near patient testing and linkage into care. The need for community based models for liver disease is in line with the recently commissioned National Liver report, which calls for assessment and treatment of high-risk individuals in the community. In this manuscript our objectives are to discuss the need for community services for individuals with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and give an overview of the different community models for HCV. Finally we describe our experiences in setting up a successful nurse led service for screening, stratification and treatment of HCV related liver disease at a substance misuse service. We highlight the important stages of this process including engaging with stakeholders, obtaining funding and service set up. We also explore the obstacles and challenges faced and summarise our key recommendations. A brief summary of interim clinical outcomes is also presented

Effect of the clinical application of the diode laser (810 nm) in the treatment of dentine hypersensitivity

BACKGROUND: Dentine hypersensitivity is a common clinical finding with a wide variation in prevalence values. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of diode laser (810 nm) in the treatment of cervical dentine hypersensitivity. METHODS: Five patients, with at least two sensitive teeth were selected. A total of 14 teeth were included in this trial. By using Visual Analogous Scale the pain of dentine hyper sensitivity was detected and the pre- treatment readings were recorded. The Diode laser (810 nm), was irradiated on (non contact) mode at the cervical region. The samples were divided into two groups according to exposure duration: For Group 1 exposure duration was 30 seconds and for group 2 exposure duration was one minute. The efficiency of the treatment was assessed at two examination period :15 minutes after first application and 7 days after first application, the degree of sensitivity was determined by using Visual Analogous Scale. RESULTS: The results show significant reduction of pain after 15 minutes of laser application in the group with 30 seconds exposure duration (P = .001), and the pain completely fade away after one week in the same group, while in the group with 1 minute exposure duration the pain completely disappeared (visual analogous scale = (0)) after 15 minutes and one week of laser application (P = 0.001). CONCLUSION: The study concluded that application of diode laser (810 nm) was effective for the reduction of dentine hypersensitivity

Medium access prioritizing in the heterogeneous low-rate wireless PANs

Coping with customer interests to employ Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in the new applications requires dealing with the fact of nodes variety that implies the heterogeneous nature of the traffic. This necessitates employing differentiation techniques that lead in the end to implementing prioritization in some processes of the system. The medium access controlling process plays a main role in the WSN work life cycle and the QoS provisioning is mainly based on the MAC efficiency. In this paper, we introduce the main techniques of WSN medium access prioritizing in the cluster-based Low-PANs. We propose using the prioritizing source as the categorizing factor. Furthermore, this study analyzes the impact of applying the MAC prioritization on the performance of the WSN. The simulation results prove that prioritizing nodes improves the system performance in terms of the access delay and the throughput metrics

Fabrication of Lateral Polysilicon Gap of Less than 50nm Using Conventional Lithography

We report a thermal oxidation process for the fabrication of nanogaps of less than 50 nmin dimension.Nanogaps of this dimension are necessary to eliminate contributions from double-layer capacitance in the dielectric detection of protein or nucleic acid. The method combines conventional photolithography and pattern-size reduction techniques. The gaps are fabricated on polysiliconcoated silicon substrate with gold electrodes. The dimensions of the structure are determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). An electrical characterization of the structures by dielectric analyzer (DA) shows an improved conductivity as well as enhanced permittivity and capacity with the reduction of gap size, suggesting its potential applications in the detection of biomolecule with very low level of power supply. Two chrome Masks are used to complete the work: the first Mask is for the nanogap pattern and the second one is for the electrodes. An improved resolution of pattern size is obtained by controlling the oxidation time. The method expected to enable fabrication of nanogaps with a wide ranging designs and dimensions on different substrates. It is a simple and cost-effective method and does not require complicated nanolithography process for fabricating desired nanogaps in a reproducible fashion

Decentralized time domain muting for interference mitigation in LTE-advanced heterogeneous networks

User equipments (UEs) offloaded from the MeNBs to the PeNBs via cell range extension (CRE) bias in a co-channel deployment suffered severe interference. The severity of the downlink interference varies significantly with the change in the CRE bias. The baseline approach for Interference mitigation technique based on time domain muting (TDM) of resources by MeNBs used trial and error technique which is causing resource wastage and is practically not feasible. Proposed here is a Model for TDM based on estimated cell load conditions and symbol efficiency (SE) as metrics to determine the muting ratio of resources. System level simulation was conducted to validate the throughput performances and the MeNBs- PeNBs resource trade-offs of the proposed method. Compared to the baseline (centralized) approach, the proposed decentralized TDM algorithm exhibited optimal throughput performance and adapted to the change in CRE bias with better trade-offs

LptO (PG0027) is required for lipid A 1-phosphatase activity in Porphyromonas gingivalis W50

ABSTRACT Porphyromonas gingivalis produces outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) rich in virulence factors, including cysteine proteases and A-LPS, one of the two lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) produced by this organism. Previous studies had suggested that A-LPS and PG0027, an outer membrane (OM) protein, may be involved in OMV formation. Their roles in this process were examined by using W50 parent and the Δ PG0027 mutant strains. Inactivation of PG0027 caused a reduction in the yield of OMVs. Lipid A from cells and OMVs of P. gingivalis W50 and the Δ PG0027 mutant strains were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Lipid A from W50 cells contained bis-P-pentaacyl, mono-P-pentaacyl, mono-P-tetraacyl, non-P-pentaacyl, and non-P-tetraacyl species, whereas lipid A from Δ PG0027 mutant cells contained only phosphorylated species; nonphosphorylated species were absent. MALDI-TOF/TOF tandem MS of mono-P-pentaacyl ( m / z 1,688) and mono-P-tetraacyl ( m / z 1,448) lipid A from Δ PG0027 showed that both contained lipid A 1-phosphate, suggesting that the Δ PG0027 mutant strain lacked lipid A 1-phosphatase activity. The total phosphatase activities in the W50 and the Δ PG0027 mutant strains were similar, whereas the phosphatase activity in the periplasm of the Δ PG0027 mutant was lower than that in W50, supporting a role for PG0027 in lipid A dephosphorylation. W50 OMVs were enriched in A-LPS, and its lipid A did not contain nonphosphorylated species, whereas lipid A from the Δ PG0027 mutant (OMVs and cells) contained similar species. Thus, OMVs in P. gingivalis are apparently formed in regions of the OM enriched in A-LPS devoid of nonphosphorylated lipid A. Conversely, dephosphorylation of lipid A through a PG0027-dependent process is required for optimal formation of OMVs. Hence, the relative proportions of nonphosphorylated and phosphorylated lipid A appear to be crucial for OMV formation in this organism. IMPORTANCE Gram-negative bacteria produce outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) by “blebbing” of the outer membrane (OM). OMVs can be used offensively as delivery systems for virulence factors and defensively to aid in the colonization of a host and in the survival of the bacterium in hostile environments. Earlier studies using the oral anaerobe Porphyromonas gingivalis as a model organism to study the mechanism of OMV formation suggested that the OM protein PG0027 and one of the two lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) synthesized by this organism, namely, A-LPS, played important roles in OMV formation. We suggest a novel mechanism of OMV formation in P. gingivalis involving dephosphorylation of lipid A of A-LPS controlled/regulated by PG0027, which causes destabilization of the OM, resulting in blebbing and generation of OMVs. </jats:p

Multiparametric MR imaging for detection of clinically significant prostate cancer: a validation cohort study with transperineal template prostate mapping as the reference standard.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of multiparametric (MP) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for prostate cancer detection by using transperineal template prostate mapping (TTPM) biopsies as the reference standard and to determine the potential ability of MP MR imaging to identify clinically significant prostate cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Institutional review board exemption was granted by the local research ethics committee for this retrospective study. Included were 64 men (mean age, 62 years [range, 40-76]; mean prostate-specific antigen, 8.2 ng/mL [8.2 μg/L] [range, 2.1-43 ng/mL]), 51 with biopsy-proved cancer and 13 suspected of having clinically significant cancer that was biopsy negative or without prior biopsy. MP MR imaging included T2-weighted, dynamic contrast-enhanced and diffusion-weighted imaging (1.5 T, pelvic phased-array coil). Three radiologists independently reviewed images and were blinded to results of biopsy. Two-by-two tables were derived by using sectors of analysis of four quadrants, two lobes, and one whole prostate. Primary target definition for clinically significant disease necessary to be present within a sector of analysis on TTPM for that sector to be deemed positive was set at Gleason score of 3+4 or more and/or cancer core length involvement of 4 mm or more. Sensitivity, negative predictive value, and negative likelihood ratio were calculated to determine ability of MP MR imaging to rule out cancer. Specificity, positive predictive value, positive likelihood ratio, accuracy (overall fraction correct), and area under receiver operating characteristic curves were also calculated. RESULTS: Twenty-eight percent (71 of 256) of sectors had clinically significant cancer by primary endpoint definition. For primary endpoint definition (≥ 4 mm and/or Gleason score ≥ 3+4), sensitivity, negative predictive value, and negative likelihood ratios were 58%-73%, 84%-89%, and 0.3-0.5, respectively. Specificity, positive predictive value, and positive likelihood ratios were 71%-84%, 49%-63%, and 2.-3.44, respectively. Area under the curve values were 0.73-0.84. CONCLUSION: Results of this study indicate that MP MR imaging has a high negative predictive value to rule out clinically significant prostate cancer and may potentially have clinical use in diagnostic pathways of men at risk