Isoprene hotspots at the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula during MASEC′16

Isoprene (C5H8) plays an important role in the formation of surface ozone (O3) and the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) which contributed to the climate change. This study aims to determine hourly distribution of tropospheric isoprene over the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula (WCAP) during the Malaysian Antarctic Scientific Expedition Cruise 2016 (MASEC′16). In-situ measurements of isoprene were taken using a custom-built gas chromatography with photoionization detector, known as iDirac. Biological parameters such as chlorophyll a (chl-a) and particulate organic carbon (POC) were compared to the in-situ isoprene measurements. Significant positive correlation was observed between isoprene and POC concentrations (r2 = 0.67, p < 0.001), but not between isoprene and chl-a. The hotspots of isoprene over maritime Antarctic were then were investigated using NAME dispersion model reanalysis. Measurements showed that isoprene mixing ratio were the highest over region of King George Island, Deception Island and Booth Island with values of ∼5.0, ∼0.9 and ∼5.2 ppb, respectively. Backward trajectory analysis showed that air masses may have lifted the isoprene emitted by marine algae. We believe our findings provide valuable data set of isoprene estimation over the under sampled WCAP

Applications of porous media combustion technology - A review

The rapid advances in technology and improved living standard of the society necessitate abundant use of fossil fuels which poses two major challenges to any nation. One is fast depletion of fossil fuel resources; the other is environmental pollution. The porous medium combustion (PMC) has proved to be one of the feasible options to tackle the aforesaid problems to a remarkable extent. PMC has interesting advantages compared with free flame combustion due to the higher burning rates, the increased power dynamic range, the extension of the lean flammability limits, and the low emissions of pollutants. This article provides a comprehensive picture of the global scenario of applications of PMC so as to enable the researchers to decide the direction of further investigation. The works published so far in this area are reviewed, classified according to their objectives and presented in an organized manner with general conclusions.Porous media combustion Excess enthalpy Radiant burner AMTEC Gas turbines TPV cogeneration

Impact load and mechanical respond of tibiofemoral joint

Mechanical respond of the tibiofemoral joint in impact with a rigid plate is the aim of current study. A circular plate with initial velocity hit the tibiofemoral joint. All components all considered as linear elastic material. Cartilages were perfectly attached to the femur and tibia; and while menisci were allowed to move vertically. Circular plate motion was vertically. Femur and tibia if they were target of rigid plate they left free for motion vertically; otherwise, they were fixed at the end. Computed tomography images were used to construct 3-dimentional model of the tibiofemoral joint to analysis in the commercial finite element software package ABAQUS v6.7. We found that during impact depend on the velocity of impactor the contact pressure increased from 0 to maximum value and again descend to 0. Moreover, the maximum contact pressures occur with small time delay in knee joint due to the nature of impact. Regardless types of loading the results were same with some percentage difference

A study of examination timetable problem in UMP

The examination timetabling problem involves the task of assigning the examinations into a limited number of timeslots and rooms with the aim of satisfying all the hard constraints. Most of the reported research in the literature starts with constructing the initial timetable by scheduling all the examinations and then performs an improvement on the timetable. In this research, we investigate a real world examination timetabling problem from Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP). UMP examination timetabling dataset is a capacitated dataset which contains additional constraints, in addition to those commonly used in the literature. The proposed algorithms start with constructing the initial timetable using the graph heuristic methods. The entire process runs until all of the examinations are assigned successfully. An improvement on the solution was implemented using step-count hill climbing and late acceptance hill climbing. The proposed approaches are tested on two benchmark datasets, namely Toronto dataset and the Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed approaches are able to produce good quality solution when compared to the solutions from the proprietary software used by UMP. Additionally, our solutions satisfy to all the hard constraints which the current systems fails to do

Effectiveness of the EMPOWER-PAR Intervention in Improving Clinical Outcomes of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Primary Care: A Pragmatic Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

10.1186/s12875-016-0557-1BMC Family Practice1711-1

The twin hypotheses

The Brain Code (BC) relies on several essential concepts that are found across a range of physiological and behavioral functions. The Fundamental Code Unit (FCU) assumes an abstract code unit to allow for a higher order of abstractions that informs information exchanges at the cellular and genetic levels, together the two hypotheses provide a foundation for a system level understanding and potentially cyphering of the Brain Code [1–3]. This paper discusses an organizing principle for an abstract framework tested in a limited scope experimental approach as a means to show an empirical example of cognitive measurement as well as a framework for a Cortical Computation methodology. Four important concepts of the BC and FCU are discussed. First, the principle of activation based on Guyton thresholds. This is seen in the well-known and widely documented action potential threshold in neurons, where once a certain threshold is reached, the neuron will fire, reflecting the transmission of information. The concept of thresholds is also valid in Weber minimum detectable difference in our sensing, which applies to our hearing, seeing and touching. Not only the intensity, but also the temporal pattern is affected by this [4]. This brings insight to the second important component, which is duration. The combination of both threshold crossing and duration may define the selection mechanisms, depending on both external and intrinsic factors. However, ranges exist within which tuning can take place. Within reason it can be stated that no functional implication will occur beyond this range. Transfer of information and processing itself relies on energy and can be described in waveforms, which is the third concept. The human sensing system acts as transducer between the different forms of energy, the fourth principle. The aim of the brain code approach is to incorporate these four principles in an explanatory, descriptive and predictive model. The model will take into account fundamental physiological knowledge and aims to reject assumptions that are not yet fully established. In order to fill in the gaps with regards to the missing information, modules consisting of the previous described four principles are explored. This abstraction should provide a reasonable placeholder, as it is based on governing principles in nature. The model is testable and allows for updating as more data becomes available. It aims to replace methods that rely on structural levels to abstraction of functions, or approaches that are evidence-based, but across many noisy-elements and assumptions that outcomes might not reflect behavior at the organism level. </p