Economic criteria for sustainable affordable housing model

Affordable housing and sustainable development are major challenges across the world, including Malaysia. To address the housing affordability issue, the government has provided affordable housing to the citizens. However, the economic sustainability of affordable housing remains questionable. Housing affordability is often defined by house price and household income without considering other criteria that affect long-term affordability. In fact, there are three ways to measure housing affordability, namely purchase, repayment and income. Therefore, there is a need to assess housing affordability by linking it with sustainability issues in order to provide affordable housing that is economically sustainable. The objectives of this research are to determine the economic criteria for sustainable affordable housing and to develop a model known as Economically Sustainable Affordable Housing Assessment Model (ESAHAM). From literature review and focus group discussion, it was found that there are 25 economic criteria for sustainable affordable housing grouped into the three categories of affordability. These criteria were then assigned its relative importance from the perspective of low- and middle-income residents in Iskandar Malaysia, Johor, who were selected by using probability sampling technique. 573 from 1,200 questionnaires were usable for descriptive statistical analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process. The findings showed that all the economic criteria were important as each had a mean score of more than 3.0. These criteria were then assigned its weights to reflect its contribution to the overall criteria in the development of ESAHAM. Three affordable housing estates in Iskandar Malaysia were selected to test the applicability of the model and it revealed that these estates are economically sustainable. The assessment results showed that ESAHAM is able to measure the economic sustainability of affordable housing. As a conclusion, the findings of this research contribute to the government, policymakers, developers, home buyers and those who are involved in the housing industry by providing a guideline for economically sustainable affordable housing provision and determination

Examining outcomes following thrombolysis in an increasingly older and dependent stroke population

We are grateful for the support of the nurses from Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland for assisting in obtaining follow-up functional status at three months.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Combinatorial DNA Rearrangement Facilitates the Origin of New Genes in Ciliates

Programmed genome rearrangements in the unicellular eukaryote Oxytricha trifallax produce a transcriptionally active somatic nucleus from a copy of its germline nucleus during development. This process eliminates noncoding sequences that interrupt coding regions in the germline genome, and joins over 225,000 remaining DNA segments, some of which require inversion or complex permutation to build functional genes. This dynamic genomic organization permits some single DNA segments in the germline to contribute to multiple, distinct somatic genes via alternative processing. Like alternative mRNA splicing, the combinatorial assembly of DNA segments contributes to genetic variation and facilitates the evolution of new genes. In this study, we use comparative genomic analysis to demonstrate that the emergence of alternative DNA splicing is associated with the origin of new genes. Short duplications give rise to alternative gene segments that are spliced to the shared gene segments. Alternative gene segments evolve faster than shared, constitutive segments. Genes with shared segments frequently have different expression profiles, permitting functional divergence. This study reports alternative DNA splicing as a mechanism of new gene origination, illustrating how the process of programmed genome rearrangement gives rise to evolutionary innovation