The impact of Web Analytics in Web Development Process

Web Development and the way it’s been applied nowadays has been remarkably affected by the trend of harnessing user’s output through the implementation of Web Analytics. Under-standing the degree in which the process of web development is driven by data demands a detailed examination on topics within the area of Web Analytics and its correlations with Web Development. Accordingly, the strategically implementation of user derived, refined and ana-lyzed data is reflecting the actual incentives and goals business related with the website. Nev-ertheless, the concept of detecting the roles of individuals involved in these processes and investigating their actual roles and contribution, reflects a matter of great importance for un-veiling the actual status quo of web development processes. Therefore, a descriptive analysis of the stakeholders’ involvement who are shaping and driving the development process is em-inent. Describing the mentality and the cooperation established in the relationships of the vari-ous stakeholders combined with the competences provided from Analytic tools is providing a valuable knowledge on the phenomenon of enquiry. In this master thesis, the contemporary process of Web Development is deconstructed and through the examination of Web Analytics and the different roles of individuals involved within it. Additionally, a framework model refined from this research endeavors, that depict the stakeholders’ correlation with the pro-cesses that web development follows, is disclosed

Extraction of Aluminium from Kaolin: a Comparative Study of Hydrometallurgical Processes

Abstract -The increase of aluminium demand globally, raises the interest of developing alternative technologies to produce alumina from non-bauxitic sources, especially clays. This paper studies the extraction of aluminium from kaolin through leaching process, using aqueous solutions of acids and bases, as leaching agents. For this study, crude kaolin excavated in Milos Island, Greece, was used. Before leaching, crude kaolin was calcined; calcination achieves the dehydroxylation of kaolinite, which is the main mineralogical phase of kaolin and its transformation to metakaolin, an amorphous Al-Si phase from which aluminium is easily leached. Calcination of the crude kaolin used in this work was taken place at 850 o C for 2 h, given that these conditions revealed as optimum in the relevant experimental investigation. Leaching of aluminium from the calcined kaolin was performed with aqueous solutions of mineral acids (HCl, HNO 3 and H 2 SO 4 ), organic acids (C 2 H 2 O 4 , C 2 H 4 O 2 and C 6 H 8 O 7 ) and bases (NaOH, KOH and NH 4 OH). All leaching experiments were performed under constant conditions, regardless the leaching agent used. According to the experimental results, acids were proved more effective in aluminium extraction, than bases. However, aluminum extraction was accompanied by simultaneous extraction of Si which comprises an important impurity for the production of alumina from the pregnant liquor. Based on this consideration, oxalic acid was revealed as the most effective leaching agent, yielding more than 75% extraction of Al and less than 5% Si extraction

Ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες και γονιμότητα του ανθρώπου

Οι χημικές ουσίες οι οποίες προκαλούν μία σειρά από ενδοκρινικές διαταραχές, ή αλλιώς «ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες» αποτελούν πλέον ένα ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό παγκόσμιο περιβαλλοντικό πρόβλημα, αλλά ταυτόχρονα και σημαντικό πρόβλημα για την ανθρώπινη υγεία. Οι ουσίες αυτές μπορούν να οριστούν ως «εξωγενείς χημικές ουσίες, ή μείγμα εξωγενών χημικών ουσιών, οι οποίες έχουν την ικανότητα να παρεμβαίνουν σε οποιαδήποτε πτυχή της δράσης των ορμονών του συστήματος ενδοκρινών οργάνων του ανθρώπινου οργανισμού». Με την παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία θα πραγματοποιηθεί μία αφηγηματική ανασκόπηση της πρόσφατης βιβλιογραφίας σε σχέση με την επίδραση που προκαλούν οι ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες στο αναπαραγωγικό σύστημα και επομένως και στην γονιμότητα ανδρών και γυναικών. Ανεξάρτητα από τα αντικρουόμενα, σε αρκετές των περιπτώσεων, ευρήματα των πρόσφατα δημοσιευμένων κλινικών μελετών, το γενικό συμπέρασμα το οποίο μπορεί να εξαχθεί από αυτές είναι ότι υπάρχει θετική συσχέτιση της έκθεσης στους EDCs και εμφάνισης μίας σειράς διαταραχών του ανθρώπινου αναπαραγωγικού συστήματος, στις οποίες περιλαμβάνονται η γυναικεία υπογονιμότητα, αυξημένα ποσοστά αποβολών και ενδομητρίωσης, αύξηση της εμφάνισης νεοπλασμάτων, επιδείνωση της ποιότητας του σπέρματος αλλά και δυσγενεσία των όρχεων. Στον άνθρωπο, η δράση μιας σειράς ενδοκρινικών διαταρακτών φανερώνει ξεκάθαρα την συσχέτισή τους με διαταραχές τόσο του ανδρικού όσος και του γυναικείου αναπαραγωγικού συστήματος. Είναι σαφές ότι οι επιστημονικές μελέτες στο άμεσο μέλλον θα πρέπει να επικεντρωθούν στην θέσπιση ενός ενιαίου συστήματος εκτίμησης των επιδράσεων των συγκεκριμένων χημικών ουσιών στον ανθρώπινο πληθυσμό σε σχέση με την επίδραση που έχουν αυτοί στο αναπαραγωγικό σύστημα των αρρένων και των θήλεων.Chemical substances which cause a range of endocrine disrupting chemicals, or "endocrine disruptors", are now a particularly important global environmental problem, but also a significant human health problem. Those substances can be defined as “exogenous chemicals, or a mixture of exogenous chemicals, which have the ability to interfere with any aspect of the action of the hormones of the endocrine system of the human body” This thesis will provide a narrative review of the recent literature in relation to the effects of endocrine disruptors on the reproductive system and therefore on fertility in men and women. Regardless of the conflicting findings of the recently published clinical studies, the general conclusion that can be drawn from them is that there is a positive association between exposure to endocrine disruptors and the occurrence of a number of disorders of the human reproductive system, which include female infertility, increased rates of miscarriages and endometriosis, increased incidence of neoplasms, deterioration of sperm quality and testicular dysgenesis. In humans, the action of a number of endocrine disruptors clearly reveals their association with disorders of both the male and female reproductive systems. It is clear that scientific studies in the near future should focus on establishing a uniform system for assessing the effects of these chemicals in the human population in relation to their effect on the reproductive system of males and females

Explainable AI-based identification of contributing factors to the mood state change in children and adolescents with pre-existing psychiatric disorders in the context of COVID-19-related lockdowns in Greece

The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have significantly impacted people’s lives globally. There is an increasing interest in examining the influence of this unprecedented situation on our mental well-being, with less attention towards the impact of the elongation of COVID-19-related measures on youth with a pre-existing psychiatric/developmental disorder. The majority of studies focus on individuals, such as students, adults, and youths, among others, with little attention being given to the elongation of COVID-19-related measures and their impact on a special group of individuals, such as children and adolescents with diagnosed developmental and psychiatric disorders. In addition, most of these studies adopt statistical methodologies to identify pair-wise relationships among factors, an approach that limits the ability to understand and interpret the impact of various factors. In response, this study aims to adopt an explainable machine learning approach to identify factors that explain the deterioration or amelioration of mood state in a youth clinical sample. The purpose of this study is to identify and interpret the impact of the greatest contributing features of mood state changes on the prediction output via an explainable machine learning pipeline. Among all the machine learning classifiers, the Random Forest model achieved the highest effectiveness, with 76% best AUC-ROC Score and 13 features. The explainability analysis showed that stress or positive changes derived from the imposing restrictions and COVID-19 pandemic are the top two factors that could affect mood state

Antibiotic prescriptions in primary health care in a rural population in Crete, Greece

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antibiotic over-prescribing has generally been considered to be common in Greece, however not much is known about current antibiotic use.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The aim of this study was to investigate antibiotic prescribing in a well-defined rural population of 159 adults and 99 children over a 12-month period in Crete, Greece. The daily-defined doses (DDD) for 1000 people/day (DID) were 22.1 and 24.2 for children and adults respectively. The overall DID was 23.4, markedly lower than that previously reported for Greece. The use of penicillins was 49.5% of DDD in children and 31.7% in adults. Quinolones represented 2.2% of the total antibiotics (0% in children). Prescriptions of antibiotics were more common during the 3-month period from January to March for both children and adults.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The findings of this study confirm the seasonal distribution of antibiotics used and the predominance of prescribing for respiratory tract infections. In the area of the study, antibiotic use seems to be lower than that previously reported for Greece, probably as a result of the recently established net of well-trained primary health physicians.</p

Preschool hyperactivity : development of observational and self-regulation measures for detecting hyperkinetic disorder in preschool children

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Emerging Roles of TRIM Family Proteins in Gliomas Pathogenesis

Gliomas encompass a vast category of CNS tumors affecting both adults and children. Treatment and diagnosis are often impeded due to intratumor heterogeneity and the aggressive nature of the more malignant forms. It is therefore essential to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and explore the intracellular signaling pathways underlying tumor pathology to provide more promising diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic tools for gliomas. The tripartite motif-containing (TRIM) superfamily of proteins plays a key role in many physiological cellular processes, including brain development and function. Emerging evidence supports the association of TRIMs with a wide variety of cancers, exhibiting both an oncogenic as well as a tumor suppressive role depending on cancer type. In this review, we provide evidence of the pivotal role of TRIM proteins in gliomagenesis and exploit their potential as prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets