Electronic And Paper Document Retention And Auditors’ Responsibilities

The issue of the destruction of documents raises many ethical and legal problems for the auditing profession. Such an issue needs to be examined more closely to explore its ethical and legal implications, and to address the more technical issue of how to retrieve the destroyed electronic documents. The purpose of this research paper is twofold. The first is to examine the auditors’ ethical responsibilities regarding the retention of the electronic and paper documents related to an audit engagement, using the Enron case as a practical case for analysis. The second is to discuss methods of retrieving different types of destroyed electronic documents

Genre Analysis of Daily COVID-19 Infographic Reports in the Arabian Gulf: The Case of the Kingdom of Bahrain

Infographics are visual data that are used in public service announcements to convey particular messages to a particular group of people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the Kingdom of Bahrain relied heavily on the use of infographics to communicate different types of information to all its people. The study at hand aimed to analyze the Medical Announcement Infographics (MAIs) published by the Bahraini MOH during the pandemic. Two research questions were posited. The first one investigated the schematic moves in MAIs, and the second one researched the extent to which the Bahraini Medical Announcement infographics on COVID-19 Pandemic met the contextual variables of register. The study utilized Swales’ genre-analysis model and examined the contextual variables of the MIA register and the lexicogrammatical features highlighted in Systemic Functional Linguistics in relation to the Bahraini MOH’s MAIs. The study concluded that the register variables showed variation in the lexical, structural, and illocutionary force choice-making. In addition, MAIs included both obligatory and optional moves that impacted the behavioral attitudes of the people either positively or negatively

Thermal performance of the chilled water spirally coiled finned tube in cross flow for air conditioning applications

AbstractThe thermal performance of spirally coiled finned tube in cross flow was investigated experimentally. The effects of curvature ratio, flow direction, fin pitch and flow rate of chilled water and air on thermal characteristics of spirally coiled finned tube have been studied. Six test sections with curvature ratios of 0.027, 0.03, 0.04, tube pitches of 18, 20, 30mm, and fin pitches of 33, 22, 11mm were used. The experiments were done using a pilot wind tunnel with air Reynolds number range 35,500–245,000. Innermost and outermost flow directions of chilled water with Reynolds number range 5700–25,300 have been investigated. The innermost flow direction has significant enhancement effect on the Nusselt number compared with outermost flow direction. The decrease of fin pitch enhances the Nusselt number on expense of pressure drop. Decreasing the curvature ratio increases air side Nusselt number on expense of pressure drop. A set of empirical expressions for predicting the friction factor and the Nusselt number for air flow across the spiral coils have been regressed based on the obtained data in the present experiments

Modeling behavioral design patterns of concurrent objects

ABSTRACT Object-oriented software development practices are being rapidly adopted within increasingly complex systems, including reactive, real-time and concurrent system applications. While data modeling is performed very well under current objectoriented development practices, behavioral modeling necessary to capture critical information in real-time, reactive, and concurrent systems is often lacking. Addressing this deficiency, we offer an approach for modeling and analyzing concurrent object-oriented software designs through the use of behavioral design patterns, allowing us to map stereotyped UML objects to colored Petri net (CPN) representations in the form of reusable templates. The resulting CPNs are then used to model and analyze behavioral properties of the software architecture, applying the results of the analysis to the original software design

Hepatitis C treatment: where are we now?

Chronic hepatitis C infection affects millions of people worldwide and confers significant morbidity and mortality. Effective treatment is needed to prevent disease progression and associated complications. Previous treatment options were limited to interferon and ribavirin regimens, which gave low cure rates and were associated with unpleasant side effects. The era of direct acting antiviral (DAA) therapies began with the development of the first-generation of NS3/4A protease inhibitors (PI) in 2011. They vastly improved outcomes for patients, particularly those with genotype 1 infection, the most prevalent genotype globally. Since then a multitude of DAAs have been licensed for use and outcomes for patients have improved further, with fewer side effects and cure rates approaching 100%. Recent regimens are interferon-free, and in many cases, ribavirin-free and involve a combination of DAA agents. This review summarises the treatment options currently available and discusses potential barriers that may delay the global eradication of hepatitis C

Energy harvesting from Microbial Fuel Cells – Wastewater to Electricity

MFCs have the potential to revolutionise wastewater treatment and catalyse a change in attitude towards wastewater as a commodity. It has been observed that domestic wastewater contains approximately 7.6 kJ/L of energy (Heidrich et al., 2011). In large-scale settings, wastewater could be used as an energy resource, offering huge savings in terms of cost and environmental burden. The major challenges facing the implementation of MFCs into wastewater treatment are scale up and energy harvesting/storage. In this study, a modular 20L air-breathing microbial fuel cell was developed alongside a smart energy harvesting (EH) system incorporating AI. The 20L air breathing MFC consists of modular cathode cassettes that enables easy maintenance and scale up to suit adaptive or changing end user requirements. PVDF/Stainless steel mesh cathodes are fabricated using phase inversion and oxygen reduction reaction catalysts incorporated in the polymeric matrix. Custom made carbon fibre brush electrodes are utilised as anodes. The system was inoculated with Shewanella Oneidensis MR-1 and ran under recirculating batch conditions. The MFC is monitored and controlled by a purpose-built circuit that tracks the performance of the individual cathode cassettes and configures the system via a custom Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm for the best efficiency available for the given conditions. In addition, the circuit stores the extracted energy in a suitable energy storage element such as a capacitor bank or a rechargeable battery pack, with optimum charging levels. Moreover, the system is capable of learning multiple parameters associated with the MFC to optimise its parameters to maintain its high efficiency. The harvested energy can be used to power various types of electronic devices through the circuit's variable/adjustable power output. Heidrich, E., Curtis, T. and Dolfing, J. (2011). Determination of the Internal Chemical Energy of Wastewater. Environmental Science & Technology, 45 (2), 827-832. Available from 10.1021/es103058w

Design and synthesis of (2-oxo-1,2-dihydroquinolin-4-yl)-1,2,3-triazole derivatives via click reaction: Potential apoptotic antiproliferative agents

A mild and versatile method based on Cu-catalyzed [2+3] cycloaddition (Huisgen-Meldal-Sharpless reaction) was developed to tether 3,3’-((4-(prop-2-yn-1-yloxy)phenyl)methylene)bis(4-hydroxyquinolin-2(1H)-ones) with 4-azido-2-quinolones in good yields. This methodology allowed attaching three quinolone molecules via a triazole linker with the proposed mechanism. The products are interesting precursors for their anti-proliferative activity. Compound 8g was the most active one, achieving IC$_{50}$ = 1.2 ± 0.2 µM and 1.4 ± 0.2 µM against MCF-7 and Panc-1 cell lines, respectively. Moreover, cell cycle analysis of cells MCF-7 treated with 8g showed cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase (supported by Caspase-3,8,9, Cytochrome C, BAX, and Bcl-2 studies). Additionally, significant pro-apoptotic activity is indicated by annexin V-FITC staining

Synthesis of novel amidines via one-pot three component reactions: Selective topoisomerase I inhibitors with antiproliferative properties

Novel series of amidines were synthesized via the interaction between alicyclic amines, cyclic ketones, and a highly electrophilic 4-azidoquinolin-2(1H)-ones without any catalyst or additive. All the obtained products were elucidated based on NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and elemental analysis. The reaction conditions were optimized using cyclohexanone (2), piperidine (3a), and 4-azido-quinolin-2(1H)-one (1a) under an air atmosphere. The new compounds 4a-l and 5a-c were tested for antiproliferative activity against four cancer cell lines using doxorubicin as a reference drug. The most potent derivatives were compounds 4b, 4d, 4e, 4i, and 5c, with GI$_{50}$ ranging from 1.00 µM to 1.50 µM. Compound 5c was the most effective derivative against the four cancer cell lines, outperforming doxorubicin. The compounds 4b, 4d, 4e, 4i, and 5c were studied further as topoisomerase I and IIα inhibitors. The compounds tested showed selective inhibition of topo I over topo IIα. Finally, docking studies explain why these compounds prefer topo I over topo IIα

The use of chitosan in protecting wooden artifacts from damage by mold fungi

Background: Many buildings in Egypt e.g. museums, mosques and churches, do not possess controlled environments for minimizing the risks of damage of wooden artifacts due to the growth of fungi. Fungal damage usually appears as change in wood color, appearance of stains, and sometimes deformation of wooden surfaces. In this study we focused on the effect that some fungi exert on the properties of wooden artifacts and evaluated the effectiveness of different concentrations of chitosan on their protection against damage by mold fungi. Results: Samples were collected from different monuments and environments, and fungi growing on them were isolated and identified. The isolated Penicillium chrysogenum , Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger strains were used for the infestation of new pitch pine samples. The results revealed that the lightness of samples infected with any of the tested fungi decreased with increasing incubation times. XRD analysis showed that the crystallinity of incubated samples treated individually with the different concentrations of chitosan was lower than the crystallinity of infected samples. The crystallinity index measured by the first and the second method decreased after the first and second months but increased after the third and fourth months. This may due to the reducing of amorphous part by enzymes or acids produced by fungi in wooden samples. Conclusions: The growth of fungi on the treated wood samples decreased with increasing the concentration of chitosan. Hence, it was demonstrated that chitosan prevented fungal growth, and its use could be recommended for the protection of archeological wooden artifacts