Effect of Boundary Conditions on the Behavior of Stiffened and Un-Stiffened Cylindrical Shells

The effect of boundary conditions is very important in the analysis of cylindrical shells, and is rarely studied in the literature due to its difficult experimental simulation. For large structures such as shell roofs, the type of boundary supports is among the major factors that can minimize the stresses and deflections. In this study, experimental and numerical investigations of the effect of different boundary supports for stiffened and un-stiffened cylindrical shells were conducted. Two different models of the stiffened and un-stiffened cylindrical shells with different boundary conditions, “pinned and with rigid diaphragms”, were studied. It was shown that by using rigid diaphragms for cylindrical shells, the deflections are minimized by 80%, and by (45–50) % for the stiffened cylindrical shells. From the experimental investigations and the numerical results obtained, the efficiency of the proposed boundary support types for cylindrical shells is confirmed, which can result in economic benefits

Healthcare Professionals and Telehealth Usability during COVID-19

Objective: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many other health providers needed to rapidly adopt telehealth services to ensure continuity of patient care, without the opportunity to extensively evaluate the usability of the adopted technology. Therefore, this study aims to examine health professionals’ telehealth usability during COVID-19 in Florida. Design: This cross-sectional study employed the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) to licensed healthcare providers in Florida in June 2020. Setting and Participants: A total of 399,660 selected health professionals with Florida licensure were recruited from open-access Florida healthcare to participate in a Qualtrics web-based survey. A total of 1,868 health professionals completed the survey. Multiple linear and mixed regression models were applied to analyze the overall and subdomain scores from TUQ. Results: The analysis of the overall TUQ score showed younger, female healthcare professionals, and participants who reported an increase in telehealth usage during pandemic had a significantly higher overall TUQ score. Compared with the score from physicians and nurses, the scores from the mental health group and social work group were significantly higher, while the score rehabilitation group was significantly lower. Analysis of the subdomain scores was consistent with the overall scores. Conclusion: The findings from this study indicate that the health professionals’ telehealth usability is related to age, gender, and the change of telehealth usage during the COVID-19 Page 2 of 12 Telehealth and Medicine Today® ISSN 2471-6960 https://doi.org/10.30953/tmt.v6.270 pandemic. While pandemics represent only one possible impetus for the healthcare system to swiftly switch to telehealth platforms, each profession should consider providing adequate resources to accommodate the need for change

A comparative analysis for adopting an innovative pedagogical approach of flipped teaching for active classroom learning

Active learning is a way of education that imparts the responsibility of learning on learners. Active learning pedagogies ranging from simple lectures to structured pedagogies can be applied to online or face-to-face environments or in a combination of both. Multiple studies have shown that active learning can be done by flipped teaching which improves students understanding and retention of information. The flipped classroom approach, with its prime focus on active learning, attempts to address the concerns of academic staff and helps to meet the expectations of students for practical exposure. On contrary to the traditional pattern of teaching using conventional classrooms and other e-learning methods, the flipped classrooms is a form of blended learning in which students first learn the content online by watching video lectures, usually at home, and do the homework in a class by discussing it with their teachers and colleagues. This approach allows having the most personalized interaction of the teacher with students. Flipped classrooms have started to become common on many university campuses. Despite the growing number of flipped courses, however, quantitative information on their effectiveness remains sparse because of very less number of researchers on it. This paper, therefore, investigates the various major aspects of flipped technology to explore the effectiveness of a flipped classroom model on student’s performance and ease of use. The paper also presents a research of comparing traditional class that engages students in some learning to a flipped classroom that creates more time for active learning using PAPRIKA technique of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). A group of students and teachers undergone through the different approaches to teaching have been evaluated for various attributes to determine the overall utility of Flipped teaching

Cancer Cell Int

BACKGROUND: Astrocytoma are known to have altered glutamate machinery that results in the release of large amounts of glutamate into the extracellular space but the precise role of glutamate in favoring cancer processes has not yet been fully established. Several studies suggested that glutamate might provoke active killing of neurons thereby producing space for cancer cells to proliferate and migrate. Previously, we observed that calcium promotes disassembly of integrin-containing focal adhesions in astrocytoma, thus providing a link between calcium signaling and cell migration. The aim of this study was to determine how calcium signaling and glutamate transmission cooperate to promote enhanced astrocytoma migration. METHODS: The wound-healing model was used to assay migration of human U87MG astrocytoma cells and allowed to monitor calcium signaling during the migration process. The effect of glutamate on calcium signaling was evaluated together with the amount of glutamate released by astrocytoma during cell migration. RESULTS: We observed that glutamate stimulates motility in serum-starved cells, whereas in the presence of serum, inhibitors of glutamate receptors reduce migration. Migration speed was also reduced in presence of an intracellular calcium chelator. During migration, cells displayed spontaneous Ca(2+) transients. L-THA, an inhibitor of glutamate re-uptake increased the frequency of Ca(2+) oscillations in oscillating cells and induced Ca(2+) oscillations in quiescent cells. The frequency of migration-associated Ca(2+) oscillations was reduced by prior incubation with glutamate receptor antagonists or with an anti-beta1 integrin antibody. Application of glutamate induced increases in internal free Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)]i). Finally we found that compounds known to increase [Ca(2+)]i in astrocytomas such as thapsigagin, ionomycin or the metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist t-ACPD, are able to induce glutamate release. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrate that glutamate increases migration speed in astrocytoma cells via enhancement of migration-associated Ca(2+) oscillations that in turn induce glutamate secretion via an autocrine mechanism. Thus, glutamate receptors are further validated as potential targets for astrocytoma cancer therapy

An analytical survey on implementing best practices for introducing e-learning programs to students

Today, a need has risen to reduce paper both to become “green” and to save costs.Shifting to an online course, to expand, the number of students who are participating in online courses and programs with significant global reach continues to increase dramatically.However, many studies showed that the failed retention rates for students of online institutions are bit higher than traditional classroom environments. This calls for analysing the current practices in the use of contents in online courses to improve e-learning student persistence.This is a conceptual paper sharing the specific best practice examples, observations, and outcomes from some leading universities, based on surveys of existing methodologies and practical experience. Special emphasis placed on current and future trends in effective online pedagogy. This paper identifies the best practices for introducing the students to e-learning experience in an analytical manner.The paper also analyses the various attributes of best practices in Elearning using Fuzzy AHP method of a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method.The Fuzzy AHP involves several steps which include the setting of evaluation criteria and their weights, and evaluation of the E-learning technique as compared to the traditional learning technique for identifying the effect on response rates for different aspects of quality and time in order to explore the real worth in the use of e-learning. This paper shows that all the attributes behave comparable very well in the case of E-learning as compared to the traditional method.The analysis of our criteria which are essential for any effective learning demonstrated that the E-learning methods have good potential to grow

Diversification and Intensification in Parallel {SAT} Solving

International audienceIn this paper, we explore the two well-known principles of diversification and intensification in portfolio-based parallel SAT solving. These dual concepts play an important role in several search algorithms including local search, and appear to be a key point in modern parallel SAT solvers. To study their trade-off, we define two roles for the computational units. Some of them classified as Masters perform an original search strategy, ensuring diversification. The remaining units, classified as Slaves are there to intensify their master's strategy. Several important questions have to be answered. The first one is what information should be given to a slave in order to intensify a given search effort? The second one is, how often, a subordinated unit has to receive such information? Finally, the question of finding the number of subordinated units along their connections with the search efforts has to be answered. Our results lead to an original intensification strategy which outperforms the best parallel SAT solver, and solves some open SAT instances

The WISDOM Radar: Unveiling the Subsurface Beneath the ExoMars Rover and Identifying the Best Locations for Drilling

The search for evidence of past or present life on Mars is the principal objective of the 2020 ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Rover mission. If such evidence is to be found anywhere, it will most likely be in the subsurface, where organic molecules are shielded from the destructive effects of ionizing radiation and atmospheric oxidants. For this reason, the ExoMars Rover mission has been optimized to investigate the subsurface to identify, understand, and sample those locations where conditions for the preservation of evidence of past life are most likely to be found. The Water Ice Subsurface Deposit Observation on Mars (WISDOM) ground-penetrating radar has been designed to provide information about the nature of the shallow subsurface over depth ranging from 3 to 10 m (with a vertical resolution of up to 3 cm), depending on the dielectric properties of the regolith. This depth range is critical to understanding the geologic evolution stratigraphy and distribution and state of subsurface H2O, which provide important clues in the search for life and the identification of optimal drilling sites for investigation and sampling by the Rover's 2-m drill. WISDOM will help ensure the safety and success of drilling operations by identification of potential hazards that might interfere with retrieval of subsurface samples

Cultural orientations and preference for HRM policies and practices:the case of Oman

This study empirically examines the influence of cultural orientations on employee preferences of human resource management (HRM) policies and practices in Oman. Data were collected from 712 employees working in six large Omani organizations. The findings indicate that there is a number of differences among Omani employees regarding value orientations due especially to age, education and work experience. The findings show a strong orientation towards mastery, harmony, thinking and doing, and a weak orientation towards hierarchy, collectivism, subjugation and human nature-as-evil. The results demonstrate a clear link between value orientations and preferences for particular HRM policies and practices. Group-oriented HRM practices are preferred by those who scored high on collectivism and being orientations, and those who scored low on thinking and doing orientations. Hierarchy-oriented HRM practices are preferred by those scoring high on hierarchy, subjugation and human nature-as-bad orientations, and those scoring low on thinking and mastery orientations. Finally, preference for loose and informal HRM practices was positively associated with being, and negatively associated with thinking, doing and harmony orientations. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in detail

Compatibility between Calpurnia aurea leaf extract, attraction aggregation, and attachment pheromone and entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae on viability, growth, and virulence of the pathogen

Metarhizium anisopliae sensu stricto (ss) (Metsch.) Sorok. isolate ICIPE 07 is being developed as biopesticide for the control of ticks. In addition, leaf extracts of Calpurnia aurea Benth, and the attraction aggregation and attachment pheromone (AAAP) are being used as ticks’ attractant. The three agents are being considered for use in combination in an autodissemination approach, whereby ticks that are attracted to semiochemicals are infected with the inoculum. Experiments were therefore conducted to evaluate in vitro the compatibility between C. aurea, AAAP, and the M. anisopliae on vegetative growth, conidial production, and spore viability. Calpurnia aurea leaf extract was compatible with the fungus at all the concentrations tested, whereas AAAP inhibited all the fungal growth parameters. The virulence of M. anisopliae formulated in emulsifiable extracts of C. aurea was also tested against different developmental stages of Rhipicephalus appendiculatus in laboratory bioassays. No significant differences in virulence were observed between M. anisopliae applied alone and M. anisopliae formulated in different concentrations of C. aurea leaf extracts. These results suggest that C. aurea leaf extracts is compatible with M. anisopliae and could be mixed together for “spot-spray” treatments as low-cost and environmental-friendly technology to control ticks in grazing field, while AAAP should be used separately.Bioscience Eastern and Central Africa Network (BecANet) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).http://link.springer.com/journal/10340hb2013mn201