The application of BIM tools to explore the dynamic characteristics of smart materials in a contemporary Shanashil building design element

Traditional architecture is known for its crafted facade features that respond to environmental, social and cultural requirements. Contemporary architecture produced façade features that attempted to enhance local design identity and local culture. Despite the advantages of modern technology, architectural elements have difficulties in fulfilling the idea of sustainable elegance that once traditional elements provided. This problem calls for an interdisciplinary design approach to deliver sustainable design solutions that positively adapt to the surrounding environment as well as maintain the state of elegance in design. With this in mind, the research aims to explore the role of new glass technologies to improve the performance and at the same time maintain the design value of traditional façade element “shanashil” in Baghdadi buildings. This research utilises BIM tools and uses smart materials to restore the lost value in design, which mimics the dynamic characteristics observed in nature, inspired by biomimetics strategies. Such qualities are found in the characteristics of smart dynamic glazing material particularly in the switchable, reversible properties of transparency and coloration efficiency. The material characteristics are attached to a 3D digital prototype to visualise the difference between dynamic and static properties through the use of technology tools Revit plugin and smart glazing virtual reality prototype. This research concludes that the dynamic characteristics of smart glazing materials are effective in delivering a multifunctional design quality to collectively blend in harmony with the surrounding environment

Pathological, Bacteriological and Prevalence Studies Of Ovine Footrot

Ovine footrot, is a disease associated with infection by the bacterium Dichelobacter nodosus. It is a disease that limits the productivity or sheep-farming enterprises throughout the world. Both wool production and body weight are adversely affected during the clinical phase of the infection. Ovine footrot has become an important contagious disease in Malaysia. The first confirmed case of footrot was reported in a government sheep farm in mid-198Os. The disease is now present ill other farms throughout the country, and local vaccine is being used to reduce the disease. Previous studies have identified D. nodosus in three sheep farms ill Malaysia and only serogroup B was identified. The possible presence of other D. nodosus serogroups and scrotypes is unknown. This study attempts to isolate and identify the unknown serogroups and serotypes so as develop a better vaccine candidate using local isolates of D. nodosus. Eight sheep farms were investigated in this study. Four sheep farms were found to be infected with D. nodosus. Two hundred and ninety-three D. nodosus isolates were obtained from 741 foot samples. Five serogroups were identified in Malaysia. This is the first study where serogroups A, C, F and I with their serotypes AI, A2, CI, FI and F2 were identified in the infected sheep farms. Serogroup B was the predominant serogroup isolated (78.2%) while the isolation percentages for serogroups F, A, I and C were 7.9%, 7.5%, 3.8% and 2.7% respectively. The information on the pathogenesis of the disease is still lacking despite previous studies on ovine footrot. Interdigital cutaneous changes associate with footrot in sheep is not well documented. The disease was induced experimentally in sheep by topical application of bacterial isolates on the interdigital skin of the hoof, and light and electron microscopy studies of the lesions were conducted. Virulent footrot was observed by a gross progressive separation of the horny tissues from the soft tissues. On day 21 post inoculation (p.i.), a complete separation of the hoof from the underrunning structures and lameness were evident. The benign footrot was observed with mild interdigital dermatitis and all infected feet completely recovered on day 21 p.i.. Histopathological changes in virulent footrot were observed in the interdigital skin layers and hoof matrix. These ranged from acute dermatitis to hyperkeratosis, parakeratosis and acanthosis of the epidermis. Oedema and leukocytic infiltration with neutrophils, macrophages and scanty lymphocytes were also evident in the dennis. Furthermore, vasculitis and perivascular cuffing, lymphangitis and inflammation of the sweat glands were observed in the dermis. The histopathological changes of benign footrot were less severe than virulent form in the epidermis and there were no pathological changes in the dermis. In scanning electron microscopy, a severe zone of lysis appearing as a surface depression around bacteria in the horny layer of the interdigital skin of the hoof was detected in virulent footrot, while this lesion was less severe in the benign form. Transmission electron microscopy revealed degeneration in the epiderm is and dermis. Degeneration in the basal cell layer of the epidermis and the basement membrane in virulent form of footrot, which have not been reported previously was observed in this study. Dichelobacter nodosus was observed in the lesions of the epidermis and dermis of virulent footrot. Its' isolation from characteristic foot lesions indicated that it was associated with footrot. Immunohistochemistry observations validate the relationship between the lesions seen in footrot and virulent D. nodosus. Immunogold staining technique facilitates to detection and localisation of D. nodosus for electron microscopy. Specific reactions were labelled in components and the matrix of epidermis and dermis of the interdigital skin. Dichelobacter nodosus antigen labelled with 5 nm gold particles was observed in the intracellular and intercellular spaces of the epidermis. This is the first report where immunogold labelling technique have been used in the study of footrot lesions in sheep for electron microscopical observations. The total monthly rainfall and mean daily temperature have a relation to the prevalence rate of the disease. These conditions provide suitable environment propagation of D. nodosus. The overall prevalence of footrot in the eight farms investigated was 3.3%. The highest prevalence was recorded in April (0.8%), while the lowest in August (0.3%) in IHK farm by survey study. Observations described in this study were made to define the prevalence are related to seasonal conditions, but the effect of rainfall overrides all other factors for footrot to occur. Adults were more susceptible than weaners. No cases were detected in preweaners. The prevalence by sex which was 4.4% in the male and 7.7% in the female was significant (p=O.009). No significant difference in prevalence rates between breeds was detected

Antibiotic resistance pattern of HA-MRSA strains isolated from leukemia patients in Baghdad, Iraq

Digitalitzat per Artypla

Promoting awareness of depression with a mobile application: a usability study and evaluation

This paper reports selected results from a study designed to understand the potential and limitations of a mobile application in promoting health awareness of depression to patients, their families and others. The mobile application was developed with a user-centered approach, which emphasized user preferences and opinions throughout an iterative process of development. It comprised medical information about depression, and causes, symptoms and methods of treatment. We conducted several design and evaluation sessions with a group of users (patients, their family, doctors, nurses and general users). Our findings demonstrate that the mobile medical application has the potential to improve and increase awareness among patients and their family members

Studying the Structural Behaviour of RC Beams with Circular Openings of Different Sizes and Locations Using FE Method

This paper aims to investigate the structural behaviour of RC beams with circular openings of different sizes and locations modelled using ABAQUS FEM software. Seven RC beams with the dimensions of 1200 mm×150 mm×150 mm were tested under threepoint loading. Group A consists of three RC beams incorporating circular openings with diameters of 40 mm, 55 mm and 65 mm in the shear zone. However, Group B consists of three RC beams incorporating circular openings with diameters of 40 mm, 55 mm and 65 mm in the flexural zone. The final RC beam did not have any openings, to provide a control beam for comparison. The results show that increasing the diameter of the openings increases the maximum deflection and the ultimate failure load decreases relative to the control beam. In the shear zone, the presence of the openings caused an increase in the maximum deflection ranging between 4% and 22% and a decrease in the ultimate failure load of between 26% and 36% compared to the control beam. However, the presence of the openings in the flexural zone caused an increase in the maximum deflection of between 1.5% and 19.7% and a decrease in the ultimate failure load of between 6% and 13% relative to the control beam. In this study, the optimum location for placing circular openings was found to be in the flexural zone of the beam with a diameter of less than 30% of the depth of the beam

Empirical analysis of rough set categorical clustering techniques based on rough purity and value set

Clustering a set of objects into homogeneous groups is a fundamental operation in data mining. Recently, attention has been put on categorical data clustering, where data objects are made up of non-numerical attributes. The implementation of several existing categorical clustering techniques is challenging as some are unable to handle uncertainty and others have stability issues. In the process of dealing with categorical data and handling uncertainty, the rough set theory has become well-established mechanism in a wide variety of applications including databases. The recent techniques such as Information-Theoretic Dependency Roughness (ITDR), Maximum Dependency Attribute (MDA) and Maximum Significance Attribute (MSA) outperformed their predecessor approaches like Bi-Clustering (BC), Total Roughness (TR), Min-Min Roughness (MMR), and standard-deviation roughness (SDR). This work explores the limitations and issues of ITDR, MDA and MSA techniques on data sets where these techniques fails to select or faces difficulty in selecting their best clustering attribute. Accordingly, two alternative techniques named Rough Purity Approach (RPA) and Maximum Value Attribute (MVA) are proposed. The novelty of both proposed approaches is that, the RPA presents a new uncertainty definition based on purity of rough relational data base whereas, the MVA unlike other rough set theory techniques uses the domain knowledge such as value set combined with number of clusters (NoC). To show the significance, mathematical and theoretical basis for proposed approaches, several propositions are illustrated. Moreover, the recent rough categorical techniques like MDA, MSA, ITDR and classical clustering technique like simple K-mean are used for comparison and the results are presented in tabular and graphical forms. For experiments, data sets from previously utilized research cases, a real supply base management (SBM) data set and UCI repository are utilized. The results reveal significant improvement by proposed techniques for categorical clustering in terms of purity (21%), entropy (9%), accuracy (16%), rough accuracy (11%), iterations (99%) and time (93%). vi

Identification of adipogenesis and osteogenesis pathways of differentiated bone marrow stem cells in vitro in rabbits

Transdifferentiation is a process whereby a cell type committed to and progressing along a specific developmental lineage switches into another cell types. The objective of this study was to assess whether rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs) precommitted to give mesenchymal cell lineage transdifferentiate in response to inductive extracellular cues to expand adult MSCs. Bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) obtained from ilium of adult male rabbit comprised heterogeneous groups of cells after seeding and growing in culture plates. After initial plating, the adherent cells exhibited small rounded, spindle-shaped and exhibited fibroblast-like morphology in reaching confluence. Rabbit BMSCs differentiated into adipocytes and osteocyte as a accumulation of intracellular lipid droplets and calcium deposition throughout the culture after 21 days

Neurobiological observations of bone mesenchymal stem cells in vitro and in vivo of injured sciatic nerve in rabbit

The PKH26 is a fluorescent lipophilic dyes used for the study of Asymmetric cell Divisions (ASDs) and efficiently purifies the stem cell fraction. The aim of this study was to explore the neurobiological characteristics in vitro and in vivo and tracking fate of the transplanted rabbit Bone Marrow-Mesenchymal Stem Cells (rBM-MSCs). A fluorescent microscope was used to determine the changes in cell size, fluorescence intensity during tissue culture, track cell divisions and the distribution of PKH26 dye between daughter cells. The results showed the identification of ASDs based on fluorescence intensity of the PKH26 dye was distributed equally between daughter cells at each division in vitro. The labeling BMSCs with PKH26 showed within the wall of the neurons in the dorsal root ganglia in vivo. Labeled BMSCs which are fibroblastic-like cells in P4 showed oval shaped and less density than P2. Direct examine of the labeled BMSCs in the cryosections at 16 weeks post operation showed the BMSCs were differentiated and appeared as like Schwann cells in an anastomosed sciatic nerve in the Local Treated Group (LTG). In the Systemic Treated Group (STG) sections, the labeled BMSCs were migrated to the anastomosed sciatic nerve, ipsilateral lumber dorsal root ganglia resembling glial and stellate cells and some of the labeled cells migrated to the anterior horn of spinal cord (motor neuron). In conclusion, the biological behaviors of BMSCs in vitro and in vivo showed highly mitosis at P2, activated fibroblast-like cells, differentiated to functional myelinating Schwann-like cells in LTG. The BMSCs in STG migrated and engrafted at the dorsal root ganglia as a neuron and glial cell, glial cells and satellite in the spinal cord