Arachidonic acid turnover in the guinea pig endometrium

Prostaglandin (PG) F output from the guinea pig uterus increases after Day 11 of the oestrous cycle and oestradiol (whose output from the ovary increases after Day 10) acting on a progesterone-primed uterus is probably the physiological stimulus for this increase in uterine PGF„ release. The availability of free Act arachidonic acid in the endometrium is the rate-limiting step in PGF synthesis. The aim of the present studies was to determine the source of arachidonic acid for endometrial PGF synthesis. Initially, the endometrium ^as maintained in tissue culture in the presence of tritiated arachidonic acid ( H-AA) and the radioactive contents of the various lipids was subsequently measured. The uptake of H-AA into phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), was significantly higher on Day 15 (day of high PGF^ synthesis) than on Day 7 (day of low PGF„ synthesis) . Arachidonic acid couid be ir.coroorated into these Act phospholipids by an increase in the mass amounts of phospholipids. However results indicated that there was no significant difference in the amount of phospholipids present on Day 7 and Day 15. Arachidonic acid could be incorporated into the phospholipids either by an increase in de novo synthesis or by the addition to lysophospholipid. The rates-of PC synthesis and phosphatidylinositol synthesis did not differ on Days 7 and 15, indicating that the measured uptake of arachidonic acid into phospholipid is not due to increased de novo synthesis but rather to increased addition to lysophospholipid. Oestradiol may be the stimulus for this latter process

Analysis of the Key Success Factors for Commercializing Innovation

The development and commercialization of new technologies have inherent uncertainties and associated risks. Many researches conducted by Indonesian R&Ds never reached the diffusion stage, i.e., the commercialization process. Therefore, Indonesia needs a strategy to translate promising technologies into a stream of economic returns for its stakeholders. This study analyzes the critical success factors (KSF) for commercializing innovation. It used new product development literature and TOE (technology–organization– environment) framework and developed a research model to investigate the determinants of commercialization of innovation. In choosing the selected vital success factors, a hierarchy of KSFs was defined. It also used the Analytic hierarchy process to help experts rank the importance of identified KSFs. The KSF hierarchy is constructed with two levels: a critical comprising three dimensions and a detailed level of nine individual factors. The result shows that the experts believe that in the top-level, technology is the most critical dimension followed by environment and organization. Technology is the primary consideration for the company before launching their product to the market. Market demand has the highest rank from the environmental dimension. Lastly, experts suggest that the organization network is the most significant to grasp investors and potential markets for successful commercialization

Mobile game for the elderly: Bundled Bingo Game

The aim of this project is to develop a customized Bingo game based on the user interface guidelines that suit the elderly users. This project targeted to improve the cognitive ability of the elderly with the specifically designed gaming features. In this research, qualitative data will be used to analyze the confidence and acceptance level of the elderly on the mobile digital games, as well as to understand how the elderly interacts with current technologies (mobile devices) and the benefit they can gain from the mobile games. User testing, survey, and result analysis have been done with a group of elderly members from D’Happy club in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The results of this project contribute to the development of an elderly friendly mobile game to motivate the elderly’s engagement in mobile gaming, with the will that it could help to delay and decrease the risk of the elderly in developing the Alzheimer’s disease

Prevalence of salmonella spp., salmonella typhimurium, escherichia coli and escherichia coli O157:|bH7 from bats, birds, soil and water in the selected study sites at Sarawak

A total of 235 samples collected from bats, birds, water and soil of Sebangkoi Recreation Park, Kubah National Park and Bako National Park in Sarawak were studied for the presence of Salmonella spp., Salmonella Typhimurium, Escherichia coli and Escherichia coli 0157: H7. Among the samples, 12% (28/235) and 14% (33/235) were identified with the presence of Salmonella spp. and E. coli respectively. Further confirmation using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) indicated that 11% (3/28) of Salmonella Typhimurium, 3% (1/33) of E. coli 0157: H7 and 18% (6/33) E. coli 0157 were present in the samples. Besides, antibiotic resistance analysis for Salmonella spp. showed that there were 56% (14/25),92% (23/25), 0% (0/25), 4% (1125), 8% (2/25), 56% (I4125) and 12% (3/25) of the Salmonella isolates were resistant to ampicillin, cephalothin, chloramphenicol, doxycycline, gentamicin, nitrofurantoin and streptomycin respectively. On the other hand, the E. coli isolates had 18% (6/33), 42% (14/33), 3% (1/33),0% (0/33), 9% (3/33), 18% (6/33) and 30% (10/33) resistant to ampicillin, cephalothin, chloramphenicol, doxycycline, gentamicin, nitrofurantoin and streptomycin respectively. Then, the lowest and the highest multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index for Salmonella spp. and E. coli isolates were in the ranged from 0.1 to 0.7 which were resistant to at least one and the most five of the antimicrobial agents used. Furthermore, the MAR analysis revealed that 87% (20/23) of Salmonella isolates and 67% (12/18) of E. coli isolates had MAR index more than 0.2 whereas 13% (3123) of Salmonella isolates and 33% (6/18) of E. coli isolates had MAR index less than 0.2

Singapore's public and private transport modes : an economic comparison and policy implications

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-133).Frequently, public decisions on transportation are based on cost benefit analyses that do not take into account the costs that private individuals are eventually led to spend in order to use these systems, even though these expenditures are sizeable. For FY2006-2007 in Singapore, we estimate that more than 90% of the S$34.4 billion to S$34.9 billion spent on the private automobile system were borne by private individuals. In contrast, only about 65% of the S$1.66 billion spent on the public transport system were borne by private individuals. The inclusion of private expenditures shows that the private automobile transport system costs society at least 20.7 times as much as the public transport system, even though 64$2.05 per passenger-kilometer, or 14 times as much as public transport trips, which cost S$0.143 per passenger-km. Applying derived economic and time cost functions to each trip from the 2004 home travel survey data, we compared trips made among each of the 82 postal sectors of Singapore, and found that the economic costs to society for private car driver trips far exceed those made with public transport for all of the 1,906 postal sector combinations analyzed. Although the time costs for private car driver trips were substantially lower than those of public transport trips for almost all of the origin-destination pairs, these were not sufficient to offset the far higher economic costs to society. We have highlighted particular zonal combinations for which differences in economic, time, and total costs between private car driver trips and public transport trips were very pronounced, as these promise the largest potential benefits to society if the differences between public and private modes were bridged.(cont.) Therefore policies should be pursued to increase the share of variable automobile costs as a percentage of total costs. In parallel, other policy measures should include improvements of Rapid Transit System coverage specially along the corridors identified in this thesis, increases in road pricing, and actions to shift the burden of parking costs to private motorists.by Chin Ning Ho.S.M

Does a 3D immersive experience enhance Mandarin writing by CSL students?

This study aimed at enhancing the Mandarin essay writing by learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Singapore by using authentic contexts in Second Life (SL). The participants were students in two classes of eighth graders from a junior high school in Singapore, and the study lasted for 5 weeks. A quasi-experimental design was adopted by randomly assigning the two classes to the experimental group (N=26) or the control group (N = 34). The two groups received identical writing instructions and were asked to write essays about identical topics within an identical time period. The only difference between the two groups was the activities performed at the prewriting stage: with or without immersive exploration in SL. Three kinds of qualitative data were collected and analyzed: students’ writing plans, students’ compositions, and in-class observation data. The analysis results show that the writing motivation and performance of the CSL students varied depending on whether or not they performed immersive exploration before writing. Those who explored the authentic contexts in SL before writing performed significantly better at constructing a prewriting plan and exhibited significantly higher writing quality compared to those without such an immersive experience. The former group also demonstrated higher motivation

Electronic structures of lanthanum, samarium, and gadolinium sulfides

In this study, we report our efforts to elucidate the electronic structures of two lattice structures of lanthanide sulfides (LnS and Ln3S4) and for three lanthanides (Ln = La, Sm and Gd) using density functional theory calculations performed with the CASTEP code. A DFT+U method was used for the corrections of on-site Coulomb interactions with U = 6 eV. The calculated electronic structures show that both lanthanum and gadolinium sulfides have metallic properties, consistent with the available experimental results. However, the calculated electronic structure of Sm3S4 is considerably different from those of the La3S4 and Gd3S4 and is predicted to have semiconducting properties

On character table of Clifford groups

Based on a presentation of $\mathcal{C}_n$ and the help of [GAP], we construct the character table of the Clifford group $\mathcal{C}_n$ for $n=1,2,3$. As an application, we can efficiently decompose the (higher power of) tensor product of the matrix representation in those cases. Our results recover some known results in [HWW, WF] and reveal some new phenomena. We prove that the trivial character is the only linear character for $\mathcal{C}_n$ and hence $\mathcal{C}_n$ equals to its commutator subgroup when $n\geq 3$. A few conjectures about $\mathcal{C}_n$ for general $n$ are proposed.Comment: 13 pages; comments and suggestions are welcom