Final Year Project Allocations for Undergraduate Engineering Students in TNE Programs

Final year project allocations become a challenging task, particularly, in the case of a large number of undergraduate students enthusiast to get a project of their interest and/or to work with a supervisor of their choice. The problem is challenging as the interest of all the students should be matched while keeping the staff workload in balance. It becomes a matching problem with the constraints of staff workload, student preferences, and staff skillset. Particularly, in the Transnational Education (TNE) programs, the physical availability (or lack of it) of the staff plays an important part in the student project selections which gives an additional challenge to the allocation problem. Authors provide a review of different final year project allocation methods currently in practice and discuss their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the constraints highlighted. Authors finally conclude by discussing an algorithm which can work effectively and efficiently in the context of project allocations for TNE programs

Evaluation of the Effect of Different Laser Activated Bleaching Methods on Enamel Susceptibility to Caries; An In Vitro Model

Introduction: Today bleaching is a routine noninvasive alternative for treatment of discolored teeth. The concern has been raised whether or not oxidizing reaction during this process, might endanger integrity of the teeth and raise the risk of caries formation. The aim of this study was to determine whether conventional or laser activated bleaching predispose teeth to develop caries or not.Methods:Sixty human molars were mounted on acrylic cylinders and Knoop microhardness (KHN) and DIAGNOdent (DD) values of them were recorded. They were divided into four experimental groups; G1)conventional bleaching with 40% Hydrogen peroxide gel G2) Diode laser assisted bleaching with same gel. G3)Nd;YAG laser assisted bleaching with the same gel. G4)control group. After bleaching, all samples were subjected to a three day pH cycling regimen and then, KHN and DD values were measured.Results:All groups had significant reduction in KHN values. . It seems that there is no statistically meaningful difference between changes in enamel microhardness of sample groups and all groups have changed in a similar amount. Reduction of DD scores were significant in Diode laser and conventional groups, however changes in Nd:YAG laser and control groups were not significant. Changes in DD values have followed a similar pattern among groups, except in G1-G4 and G2-G4 couples. Conventional and Diode laser group had a meaningful difference in reduction of DD values in comparison with control group.Conclusion:It can be concluded that bleaching whether conventional or laser activated method, does not make teeth vulnerable to develop carious lesions

Hepatic, periportal, retroperitoneal, and mesenteric neurofibromatosis in von recklinghausen\u27s disease

We present a rare case of histologically proven neurofibromatosis of the liver, hepatic hilum, retroperitoneum, and mesentery. An adult male who had been diagnosed with neurofibromatosis (NF) type 1 underwent a computed tomography (CT) scan for abdominal pain and vomiting. The CT scan showed a large low-attenuating lesion in the region of porta hepatis which was infiltrating along portal tracts into the liver, encasing the major vessels, and extending into the retroperitoneum and mesentery. Based on the radiological findings, a differential diagnosis of plexiform neurofibroma was given, although sarcomatous transformation could not have been entirely excluded from imaging alone. The tumor was subsequently biopsied, and the histopathological analysis confirmed the diagnosis of neurofibroma. This case highlights the importance and diagnostic dilemmas in the presence of this tumor at atypical locations in this disease spectru

Effects of Pharmaceuticals on the Nitrogen Cycle in Water and Soil: A Review

The effects of pharmaceuticals on the nitrogen cycle in water and soil have recently become an increasingly important issue for environmental research. However, a few studies have investigated the direct effects of pharmaceuticals on the nitrogen cycle in water and soil. Pharmaceuticals can contribute to inhibition and stimulation of nitrogen cycle processes in the environment. Some pharmaceuticals have no observable effect on the nitrogen cycle in water and soil while others appeared to inhibit or stimulate for it. This review reports on the most recent evidence of effects of pharmaceuticals on the nitrogen cycle processes by examination of the potential impact of pharmaceuticals on nitrogen fixation, nitrification, ammonification, denitrification, and anammox. Research studies have identified pharmaceuticals that can either inhibit or stimulate nitrification, ammonification, denitrification, and anammox. Among these, amoxicillin, chlortetracycline, ciprofloxacin, clarithromycin, enrofloxacin, erythromycin, narasin, norfloxacin, and sulfamethazine had the most significant effects on nitrogen cycle processes. This review also clearly demonstrates that some nitrogen transformation processes such as nitrification show much higher sensitivity to the presence of pharmaceuticals than other nitrogen transformations or flows such as mineralization or ammonia volatilization. We conclude by suggesting that future studies take a more comprehensive approach to report on pharmaceuticals’ impact on the nitrogen cycle process

Improving Student Engagement in a Transnational Engineering Education Programme Using Piazza

No abstract available

Correlation analysis of vital signs to monitor disease risks in ubiquitous healthcare system

Healthcare systems for chronic diseases demand continuous monitoring of physiological parameters or vital signs of the patients’ body. Through these vital signs’ information, healthcare experts attempt to diagnose the behavior of a disease. Identifying the relationship between these vital signs is still a big question for the research community. We have proposed a sophisticated way to identify the affiliations between vital signs of three specific diseases i.e., Sepsis, Sleep Apnea, and Intradialytic Hypotension (IDH) through Pearson statistical correlation analysis. Vital signs data of about 32 patients were taken for analysis. Experimental results show significant affiliations of vital signs of Sepsis and IDH with average correlation coefficient of 0.9 and 0.58, respectively. The stability of the mentioned correlation is about 75% and 90%, respectively

The Interaction Effect of Financial Leverage on the Relationship Between Board Attributes and Firm Performance; Evidence of Non-financial Listed Companies of Pakistan

The eminence of corporate governance (CG) was grasped after the major blunders incorporate strategies and distinct corporate scandals around the world during the global financial crises. Advanced countries have passed numerous laws such as “Say on Pay” or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to shield the shareholder’s wealth. However, evolving countries are still flourishing to gain recognition in corporate governance (CG) effectiveness. The intention of the study is to probe the link between the CG (board size, outside directors) and firm performance (Tobin’s Q). Leverage has been used as an interaction term in the current study. The data had been collected from 130 non-financial firms from the year 2012 to 2015 and Multiple Regression Techniques will be used as the instruments for data analysis. The results indicate that the board size and Tobin’s Q have a significant association and outside directors’ insignificant association with Tobin’s Q. The interaction effect of leverage found a significant connotation between board size, outside directors, and Tobin’s Q

Travelers-Tracing and Mobility Profiling Using Machine Learning in Railway Systems

With the advent of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) throughout the world, safe transportation becomes critical while maintaining reasonable social distancing that requires a strategy in the mobility of daily travelers. Crowded train carriages, stations, and platforms are highly susceptible to spreading the disease, especially when infected travelers intermix with healthy travelers. Travelers-profiling is one of the essential interventions that railway network professionals rely on managing the disease outbreak while providing safe commute to staff and the public. In this plethora, a Machine Learning (ML) driven intelligent approach is proposed to manage daily train travelers that are in the age-group 16-59 years and over 60 years (vulnerable age-group) with the recommendations of certain times and routes of traveling, designated train carriages, stations, platforms, and special services using the London Underground and Overground (LUO) Network. LUO dataset has been compared with various ML algorithms to classify different agegroup travelers where Support Vector Machine (SVM) mobility prediction classification achieves up to 86.43% and 81.96% in age-group 16-59 years and over 60 years