Improving Passing Lane Safety and Efficiency for Alaska’s Rural Non‐divided Highways

INE/AUTC 14.0

Globalized party-based democracy and Africa: the influence of global party-based democracy networks

In this paper, I intend to explain what we mean by globalized party-based democracy in an African context.1 The paper treats globalized party-based democracy as an extension of African colonial and imperial legacy and probes questions on the influence of today’s global party-based democracy networks on African political parties. Specifically, I compare the accession of the major political parties in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi to global party-based democracy networks, and their influence on their ideologies and policy orientations in an era of neo-liberal globalisation. If some aspects of African party-based democracy have globalized, the next question is what aspects have not (been) globalized. Paradoxically, despite a myriad of global influences, party-based democracies in Africa have retained much of their nascent quasi-polyarchy traits characterised by ethnic, religious and regional divisions, political patronage and weak internal party democracy. This prospect negates the idea that African political parties, indeed African political institutions, are under threat of being “universalised” as consequence of the ascendancy of globalized party-based democracy

Characterizing Immune Response to HIV-1 Infection in BICD2-Knockout Cells

An important part of the HIV-1 infection cycle is the attachment of the intracellular viral core to the host microtubule network, facilitated by attachment of the viral capsid to cargo adaptor proteins. One such cargo adaptor is Bicaudal D Homolog Protein 2 (BICD2). BICD2 can attach to both the HIV-1 capsid and the dynein/dynactin complex and facilitate the trafficking of the viral core towards the host nucleus. Removal of BICD2 can disrupt this viral translocation, resulting in an elevated immune response that impairs productive HIV-1 infection. In my research, we investigated what viral particles are detected in the absence of BICD2, as well as what host factors are involved in detection and immune response. We found that the viral capsid is the key viral determinant, that capsid sensor TRIM5α appears involved in detection, and that the larger immune response spans the innate and adaptive arms of the immune response

The Effect of Risk Management Systems on Honesty in Managerial Reporting: An Experimental Examination

An extension of the agency model of capital budgeting under private information shows that an owner’s investment in a risk management system (RMS) exacerbates the owner’s agency costs as it increases the expected slack available for managerial expropriation. This study experimentally examines the effects of an RMS on honesty in managerial reporting and the incremental effect of the owner’s willingness to invest in an RMS. Applying insights from a model of social norm activation and behavioral economics, I predict that an RMS will increase managerial honesty in reporting by increasing common expectations for truthful reporting. Furthermore, I predict that the owner’s willingness to invest will activate a trustworthiness social norm for managers that will strengthen the positive effect of an RMS. Consistent with my theory, I find that an RMS has a positive effect on managerial honesty in reporting, and this positive effect is greater when the RMS is the result of the owner’s investment choice. An analysis of exit questionnaire responses confirms that the owner’s investment in an RMS signaled trust and increased the manager’s trustworthiness. The results suggest that an RMS can play a corporate governance role despite the potential increase in agency costs, and the salience of the owner’s investment choice reinforces this role

Gene silencing in cancer cells using siRNA : genetic and functional studies

Sequence-specific small interfering RNA (siRNA) duplexes can be used for gene silencing in mammalian cells and as mechanistic probes for determining gene function. Transfection of siRNA for specificity protein 1 (Sp1) in MCF-7 or ZR-75 cells decreased Sp1 protein in nuclear extracts, and immunohistochemical analysis showed that Sp1 protein in transfected MCF-7 cells was barely detectable. Decreased Sp1 protein in MCF-7 was accompanied by a decrease in basal and estrogen-induced transactivation and cell cycle progression. These results clearly demonstrate the key role of Sp1 protein in regulating growth and gene expression of breast cancer cells. The aryl hydrocarbon (AhR) is a ligand-activated nuclear transcription factor. siRNA for the AhR decreased TCDD-induced CYP1A1 protein, CYP1A1dependent activity, and luciferase activity in cells transfected with an Ah-responsive construct. 17β-Estradiol (E2) induces proliferation of MCF-7 cells, and this response is inhibited in cells cotreated with E2 plus TCDD. The effects of TCDD on E2-induced cell cycle progression were partially blocked in MCF-7 cells transfected with siRNA for AhR. The decrease in AhR protein in MCF-7 cells was also accompanied by increased G0/G1 → S phase progression. Surprisingly, TCDD alone induced G0/G1 → S phase progression and exhibited estrogenic activity in MCF-7 cells transfected with siRNA for the AhR. In contrast, degradation of the AhR in HepG2 liver cancer cells resulted in decreased G0/G1 → S phase progression, and this was accompanied by decreased expression of cyclin D1, cyclin E, cdk2 and cdk4. In the absence of ligand, the AhR exhibits growth inhibitory (MCF-7) and growth promoting (HepG2) activity that is cell context-dependent. Sp family proteins play a complex role in regulation of pancreatic cancer cells growth and expression of genes required for growth, angiogenesis and apoptosis. Sp1, Sp3 and Sp4 cooperatively activate VEGF promoter constructs in these cells; however, only Sp3 regulates cell proliferation. siRNA for Sp3 inhibits phosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein, blocks G0/G1 → S phase progression of Panc-1 cells, and upregulates p27 protein/promoter activity. Thus, Sp3 plays a critical role in angiogenesis (VEGF upregulation) and the proliferation of Panc-1 cells by a novel mechanism of Sp3-dependent suppression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27

Geometrical Effects of Conic Sections on The Motion of Bodies

The subject of dynamics is generally divided into two branches; kinematics which is concerned with the geometry of motion apart from all considerations of force, mass or energy. And kinetics which is concerned with the effects of forces on the motion of bodies. In this paper, we explained the basic geometrical concepts of the conic sections (ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola) and their effects on the suitable kind of motion and the orbits of bodies.                     &nbsp

INTERMEDIATE VIEW RECONSTRUCTION FOR MULTISCOPIC 3D DISPLAY

This thesis focuses on Intermediate View Reconstruction (IVR) which generates additional images from the available stereo images. The main application of IVR is to generate the content of multiscopic 3D displays, and it can be applied to generate different viewpoints to Free-viewpoint TV (FTV). Although IVR is considered a good approach to generate additional images, there are some problems with the reconstruction process, such as detecting and handling the occlusion areas, preserving the discontinuity at edges, and reducing image artifices through formation of the texture of the intermediate image. The occlusion area is defined as the visibility of such an area in one image and its disappearance in the other one. Solving IVR problems is considered a significant challenge for researchers. In this thesis, several novel algorithms have been specifically designed to solve IVR challenges by employing them in a highly robust intermediate view reconstruction algorithm. Computer simulation and experimental results confirm the importance of occluded areas in IVR. Therefore, we propose a novel occlusion detection algorithm and another novel algorithm to Inpaint those areas. Then, these proposed algorithms are employed in a novel occlusion-aware intermediate view reconstruction that finds an intermediate image with a given disparity between two input images. This novelty is addressed by adding occlusion awareness to the reconstruction algorithm and proposing three quality improvement techniques to reduce image artifices: filling the re-sampling holes, removing ghost contours, and handling the disocclusion area. We compared the proposed algorithms to the previously well-known algorithms on each field qualitatively and quantitatively. The obtained results show that our algorithms are superior to the previous well-known algorithms. The performance of the proposed reconstruction algorithm is tested under 13 real images and 13 synthetic images. Moreover, analysis of a human-trial experiment conducted with 21 participants confirmed that the reconstructed images from our proposed algorithm have very high quality compared with the reconstructed images from the other existing algorithms

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF KETOROLAC TROMETHAMINE MUCOADHESIVE BUCCAL TABLETS

Objective: The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate buccal mucoadhesive tablets of ketorolac tromethamine. Methods: The tablets were prepared by direct compression using bioadhesive polymers such as carbobpl 934 with hydroxylpropyl methylcellulose K4M and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose. The prepared tablets were characterized by different parameters such as weight uniformity, content uniformity, hardness, swelling index, in vitro drug release studies, ex- vivo residence time and ex- vivo permeation study. Results: F7 formulation containing Carbopol 934 and SCMC (at the ratio 1:3, respectively) showed good swelling, a convenient residence time as well as the highest amount of drug released within 6 hrs. Stability studies in natural saliva for 6 hrs, indicated that optimized F7 formulation has good stability in human saliva. In addition to the good correlation obtained between in vitro drug release and ex-vivo drug permeation study. Conclusion: The buccal mucoadhesive tablet of ketorolac could be an alternative route to reduce the pronounced gastrointestinal irritations, reduce dosing frequency to improve patient complains