Quantitative Perfusion and Permeability Biomarkers in Brain Cancer from Tomographic CT and MR Images

Dynamic contrast-enhanced perfusion and permeability imaging, using computed tomography and magnetic resonance systems, are important techniques for assessing the vascular supply and hemodynamics of healthy brain parenchyma and tumors. These techniques can measure blood flow, blood volume, and blood-brain barrier permeability surface area product and, thus, may provide information complementary to clinical and pathological assessments. These have been used as biomarkers to enhance the treatment planning process, to optimize treatment decision-making, and to enable monitoring of the treatment noninvasively. In this review, the principles of magnetic resonance and computed tomography dynamic contrast-enhanced perfusion and permeability imaging are described (with an emphasis on their commonalities), and the potential values of these techniques for differentiating high-grade gliomas from other brain lesions, distinguishing true progression from posttreatment effects, and predicting survival after radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and antiangiogenic treatments are presented

Laptop Riser, a Useful PBL Project for Diploma Students in Engineering Design

A useful project is identified for the semester-four diploma students in their final workshop of mechanical engineering program in the school of engineering at Australian college of Kuwait (ACK). ACK is putting significant emphasis in project based learning (PBL) and is developing new courses for both diploma and degree programs according to PBL style. In the final workshop project, it is required that the students design and manufacture a foldable laptop riser during fourteen weeks of their works. This project uses welding, cutting, drilling, and bending processes. It is expected that the deliverable product of this workshop is to be used in offices of ACK faculties and staff to raise the laptop height to provide an ergonomic and healthy office use. Students gain experiences in developing their own ideas, acquainted with preliminary design calculations, make sketches and drawings, build their laptop risers, and report their learning outcomes.  The students are allowed to work individually or in a team of two to three students. The students are asked to satisfy specific requirements and fulfill certain restrictions such as pre known available materials, sizes and dimensions, and quality of finished product. We found that students are satisfied with their learning and developed skills and also enjoyed to see their end products are utilized in the ACK offices

Application of pbl in the course fluid and electrical drive systems, case study: Manufacturing an automated punch machine

The PBL unit of fluid and electrical drive systems is taught in final semester of undergraduates in mechanical engineering department of the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). The recent project on an automated punching machine is discovered more appealing to both students and instructors in triggering new ideas and satisfaction end results. In this case study, the way this PBL unit is coordinated and facilitated is explained. Two examples of student works are presented. The aim is to expose the students to real world engineering problems but in a satisfying manner. Similar to real life problems for engineers, restrictions are applied for the students on costs, availability of ACK facilities, and application of automation tools. Students are directly engaged by using technical standards on punching heads and dies, standard tensile testing of plates, and so on. Arduino microprocessor programming, an open-source hardware and software electronic platform, and electro-pneumatic devices are adopted for developing the automated punching machine. The goal of the PBL course is to acquaint students learning based on the concepts of team working, engineering design, professional manufacturing, and sequential testing of the end product. It is found that students achieved their best and developed new skills in this PBL unit as reflected in their portfolios

A survey on relationship among consumer personal characteristics, brand personality and brand love

Consumer’s personality traits, as one of the most important aspects of human psychological tendency, may influence people towards different brands. Therefore, the owners of most well-known brands also try to learn more about people’s personal characteristics to gain more market shares. The purpose of this paper is to find out more about consumer personality, which creates motivation in consumer’s mind and to learn more about the effect of this image on consumer’s interest on purchasing products. The population of this survey includes all people in city of Tehran, Iran who own one of Apple’s products. The results of the survey have indicated that neuroticism, extroversion, openness, compatibility, loyalty and brand love, as the main characteristics of brand personality, maintained positive impacts on brand love

Systemic risk indicators : the case of Portugal

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e FinanceiraThis dissertation is an effort to shed more light upon systemic risk of Portuguese financial systems. At first, companies listed in Portuguese stock market index (PSI-20) is considered, and then, the attention is shifted to banking system. Considering the first part, the PSI-20 index is considered as financial system index, and spillover effect and marginal risk contribution of companies to the system is detected. CoVaR and ΔCoVaR are the risk indicators used for this purpose. CoVaR shows the spillover effect of a company or system being distressed to another, and ΔCoVaR measures the contribution of a firm or system to another one if its state changes from median to distressed situation. Secondly, banking system of Portugal is considered separately, and the same indicators are used to quantify the linkage of banks and the system. It is concluded that BCP is adding less risk to other banks and the system compared to the risk contributed to it. Thirdly, the spillover effect and risk contribution of major international banks on Portuguese banking system and vice versa are analysed to figure out which banks affect Portuguese financial system more in case of being distressed, and the other way around. Lastly, we estimated CoVaR and ΔCoVaR for BES. Since BES was resolved in 2014, it sounded interesting to detect which international banks were more affected by the event, and which one contributed more risk to it. The conclusion was that the Portuguese banking system and BES is more linked to European banks that others.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of strategic position in brand promise: Evidence from LG Company

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of different strategies including attribute, advantage, application, consumer, competitive advantage, pricing/quality and category on brand promise for products of LG Company in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs two questionnaires, one for strategic positioning and the other for brand promise in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for brand promise and strategic positioning are 0.81 and 0.79, respectively. The questionnaires are distributed among 385 randomly selected regular users of LG products and using Spearman correlation as well as Stepwise regression techniques, the effects of various strategies on brand promise are examined. The results of the implementation of Spearman correlation have indicated that there were positive and meaningful relationships between different strategies and brand promise. In addition, the results of Stepwise regression have indicated that three strategies of price/quality, consumer and application were the most important predictors of brand promise

Systemic risk indicators : the case of Portugal

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e FinanceiraThis dissertation is an effort to shed more light upon systemic risk of Portuguese financial systems. At first, companies listed in Portuguese stock market index (PSI-20) is considered, and then, the attention is shifted to banking system. Considering the first part, the PSI-20 index is considered as financial system index, and spillover effect and marginal risk contribution of companies to the system is detected. CoVaR and ΔCoVaR are the risk indicators used for this purpose. CoVaR shows the spillover effect of a company or system being distressed to another, and ΔCoVaR measures the contribution of a firm or system to another one if its state changes from median to distressed situation. Secondly, banking system of Portugal is considered separately, and the same indicators are used to quantify the linkage of banks and the system. It is concluded that BCP is adding less risk to other banks and the system compared to the risk contributed to it. Thirdly, the spillover effect and risk contribution of major international banks on Portuguese banking system and vice versa are analysed to figure out which banks affect Portuguese financial system more in case of being distressed, and the other way around. Lastly, we estimated CoVaR and ΔCoVaR for BES. Since BES was resolved in 2014, it sounded interesting to detect which international banks were more affected by the event, and which one contributed more risk to it. The conclusion was that the Portuguese banking system and BES is more linked to European banks that others.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effects of Scleral Stiffness on Biomechanics of the Optic Nerve Head in Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a common cause of blindness worldwide, yet the etiology of the disease is unclear. A leading hypothesis is that elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) affects the biomechanical environment within the tissues of the optic nerve head (ONH), and that the altered biomechanical environment contributes to optic nerve damage and consequent loss of vision. The biomechanical environment of the ONH is strongly dependent on the biomechanical properties of sclera, particularly scleral stiffness. However there is significant variability in reported stiffness data for human sclera. Therefore, our research goal was to measure the stiffness of human sclera and incorporate this information into finite element models of the human eye to characterize and quantify the biomechanical environment within and around the optic nerve head region at different IOP levels. Human sclera adjacent to the optic nerve head showed highly nonlinear, nearly isotropic and heterogeneous stiffness which was found to be substantially lower than that previously assumed, particularly at lower levels of IOP. The products c*c1 and c*c2, measures of stiffness in the latitudinal and longitudinal directions from the Fung constitutive model, were 2.9 ± 2.0 MPa and 2.8 ± 1.9 MPa, respectively, and were not significantly different (two-sided t-test; p = 0.795). Scleral stiffness was not statistically different between left and right eyes of an individual (p = 0.952) and amongst the quadrants of an eye (p = 0.412 and p = 0.456 in latitudinal and longitudinal directions, respectively). Three stress-strain relationships consistent with the 5th, 50th and 95th percentiles of the measured scleral stiffness distribution were selected as representatives of compliant, median and stiff scleral properties and were implemented in a generic finite element model of the eye using a hyperelastic five-parameter Mooney-Rivlin material model. Models were solved for IOPs of 15, 25 and 50 mmHg. The magnitudes of strains at the optic nerve head region were substantial at even the lowest applied IOP (15 mmHg) and increased at elevated IOPs (e.g. the third principal strain in the compliant model reached as much as 5.25% in the lamina cribrosa at 15mmHg and 8.84% in the lamina cribrosa at 50 mmHg). Scleras that are “weak”, but still within the physiologic range, are predicted to lead to appreciably increased optic nerve head strains and could represent a risk factor for glaucomatous optic neuropathy. As IOP increased from 15 to 50 mmHg, principal strains in the model with a compliant sclera increased at a lower rate than in the model with a stiff sclera. We quantified the biomechanical environment within and around the optic nerve head region using a range of experimentally measured mechanical properties of sclera and at different IOPs. We showed that IOP-related strains within optic nerve head tissues can reach potentially biologically significant levels (capable of inducing a range of effects in glial cells) even at average levels of IOP and for typical human scleral biomechanical properties.Ph