Characterizing plasmin-induced lag phase and application of PDMS microfluidics to detection of fibrinolytic activity

Physical trauma is responsible for over six million deaths annually, and of these roughly 40 percent result from acute traumatic coagulopathy (ATC) occurring in the first few hours of incidence. Patients who have developed ATC have significantly improved survivability when treated with tranexamic acid (TXA), a chemical inhibitor of the clot lysing enzyme plasmin. Current methods of detecting ATC are inadequate, lacking in either efficient speed, sensitivity, or cost. Hyperfibrinolysis (HF) is a key component of ATC and can be a result of excess plasmin activity. The following study observes effects of plasmin on hemostasis, and explores the use of silicon-based polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidics measuring changes in electrical resistance as a method to detect HF. Coagulation was characterized by measuring turbidity of solutions containing fibrinogen and thrombin, and plasmin was incorporated to observe fibrinolysis and other plasmin-induced effects. It was found that high concentrations of plasmin caused a delay in the turbidity increase during coagulation. This lag phase may be a contributing factor to HF and ultimately ATC. Finally, the use of PDMS microfluidics to measure changes in electrical resistance to detect coagulation and fibrinolysis activity was supported. Resistance change adhered closely to traditional substrate-enzyme kinetics and plasmin-induced effects mimicked those which were observed in turbidity measurements. Further investment and development of this method of measurement could provide a faster, more accurate, and more inexpensive alternative to current techniques for measuring fibrinolysis

Reka bentuk pembelajaran atas talian bagi program kejuruteraan mekanikal Kolej Vokasional

Reka bentuk pembelajaran atas talian merupakan suatu proses yang menyokong kepada konsep pembelajaran bestari di sekolah. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti reka bentuk pembelajaran atas talian bagi program Kejuruteraan Mekanikal Kolej Vokasional. Terdapat dua aspek yang ditekankan dalam kajian ini iaitu domain pembelajaran yang terdiri daripada kognatif, afektif dan psikomotor dengan elemen reka bentuk seperti teks, video, audio, grafik, animasi, antaramuka dan warna. Reka bentuk kajian yang dijalankan adalah secara tinjauan dengan menggunakan kaedah kuantitatif melalui instrumen soal selidik yang diadaptasi daripada kajian lepas bagi mendapatkan maklumat. Seramai 169 orang pensyarah dari Jabatan Kejuruteraan Mekanikal di Kolej Vokasional Negeri Johor yang terlibat dalam kajian ini. Kajian ini mengandungi dua fasa iaitu fasa pertama merupakan proses pencarian maklumat berkaitan kajian manakala fasa kedua merupakan proses bagi menganalisis dapatan kajian. Hasil dapatan kajian menunjukkan terdapat hubungan positif yang kuat dan signifikan di antara domain pembelajaran dengan elemen reka bentuk. Kesimpulanya, kajian ini diharapkan berguna bagi membantu pensyarah dalam membangunkan platform pengajaran dan pembelajaran atas talian yang interaktif untuk pelajar Kolej Vokasional

Engineering programme structure requirements for Bologna compliance

In 1999 twenty nine European countries have signed the Bologna Declaration to establish a common European higher education system as for the year 2010. Engineering Ireland has decided that the education standard for the title of CEng and MIEI should be raised to Master Degree in engineering accredited by Engineers Ireland with effect from programmes completed in 2013”. This paper focuses on engineering programme structure in our school. Further discussions will be carried out to present the current engineering programmes in our school and the future vision to compliance with Bologna treaty

Levels of Economic Development and Harrod foreign trade

Estimates of export and import demand functions for ninety countries using Stock and Watson (1993) Dynamic OLS are presented. These estimates are then used to examine the relationship between levels of economic development and Harrod foreign trade multiplier. We show that there is an inverted U relations, as predicted by Thirlwall (1997), contrary to Bairam (1997, 1993). Absence of inverse relation between levels of economic development and Harrod foreign trade multiplier imply that Thirlwall's law does not imply convergence.Thirlwall Law, Trade Elasticities, Dynamic Harrod Multiplier

The Wheat Pricing Policies in Pakistan: Some Alternative Options

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact on wheat production, consumption, and trade of changing the input subsidy and output price subsidy policies. A model of the wheat market in Pakistan is developed to examine the likely effects of alternative wheat pricing policies in Pakistan. A recursive econometric simulation model was used to project production, consumption, and trade under the baseline and two other scenarios. The baseline scenario is designed to predict the evolution of production, consumption, and trade if agricultural policies are maintained until the year 2000. In scenario one, the effects of complete subsidy removal are assessed while in scenario two the subsidies are assumed to be phased out gradually. The results of the study indicate that there will be a greater decline in wheat production if the government eliminates the input subsidies at once than if there is a gradual phasing out of these. The results suggest that there will be a little impact on the consumption of wheat due to the increase in consumer price of wheat. However, the lower-income household with the higher number of family members will be affected more with the increase in the price of staple wheat. Imports of wheat are greater if the subsidies are eliminated at once, as compared to phasing them out gradually.

Is this all "Greek" in Europe ? Critical evaluation of the Euro zone policy response to debt crises

Eurozone is going though the worst ever crises since the adoption of the common currency in 1999. In the aftermath of financial crises of 2007, many EU government due to their own fragile banking system and imbalance economic structures persued a debt-spending financing which resulted into a full-fledged sovereign debt crises .Though indebtedness increased in all members of the union to over come the recession but some states become more vulnerable. EU tried different measures to check the contagion but lack of an adequate institutional setup, poor coordination and the absence of a permanent mechanism to cope with such crises made the situation more worst. Many options have tried so far to get out of the mess but these have failed to address the underlying cusses of the catastrophe. The systemic policy failure has not only exposed the union to the risks of breakup but also render the future of Euro as a reserve currency more uncertain. Nevertheless, the challenge in the current situation demands a very well carved policy which ensures the integration of the union and stability of the Euro as the reserve currency. This challenging situation underpins the necessity to move further with a strong political will. Improving the euro area's fiscal woe by a balanced economic growth and overhaul of the regulatory architecture are the few areas calls for the serious attention of authorities.monetary policy ; community policy ; European Union ; currency crisis ; euro area

How financial markets affect long run growth : a cross country study

Empirical studies on new growth theory have tended to ignore financial policy's role in development. The author provides evidence that the initial level of financial development is positively associated with a country's later GDP growth rate, after controlling for the effect of the starting value of human capital and the investment rate. A country that starts with a more developed financial system tends to grow faster because it can make more efficient use of resources. It can do so through several channels, including better evaluation and monitoring of firms, lower transaction costs for financial intermediation, and externalities generated from information collected and processed in financial markets. Policy reform that fosters financial development also has a significant positive effect on the growth rate of real GDP. The empirical evidence presented for 50 developing countries tends to reinforce a classical theme of development economics: the importance of human capital and financial markets.Inequality,Economic Theory&Research,Macroeconomic Management,Achieving Shared Growth,Financial Economics

The Montreal Protocol: Developing Countries Import of Halons

Base on the model of legal and illegal trade in CFC from Ivanova (2007), this paper empirically analyzes the affects of the Montreal Protocol on imports of Halons, and hence their consumption, in developing countries. We show that countries with high income level have decreased their import of Halons, but ratifiers of the Protocol import more Halons than non-ratifiers.

Foundations for structured programming with GADTs

GADTs are at the cutting edge of functional programming and become more widely used every day. Nevertheless, the semantic foundations underlying GADTs are not well understood. In this paper we solve this problem by showing that the standard theory of data types as carriers of initial algebras of functors can be extended from algebraic and nested data types to GADTs. We then use this observation to derive an initial algebra semantics for GADTs, thus ensuring that all of the accumulated knowledge about initial algebras can be brought to bear on them. Next, we use our initial algebra semantics for GADTs to derive expressive and principled tools — analogous to the well-known and widely-used ones for algebraic and nested data types — for reasoning about, programming with, and improving the performance of programs involving, GADTs; we christen such a collection of tools for a GADT an initial algebra package. Along the way, we give a constructive demonstration that every GADT can be reduced to one which uses only the equality GADT and existential quantification. Although other such reductions exist in the literature, ours is entirely local, is independent of any particular syntactic presentation of GADTs, and can be implemented in the host language, rather than existing solely as a metatheoretical artifact. The main technical ideas underlying our approach are (i) to modify the notion of a higher-order functor so that GADTs can be seen as carriers of initial algebras of higher-order functors, and (ii) to use left Kan extensions to trade arbitrary GADTs for simpler-but-equivalent ones for which initial algebra semantics can be derive