Sustainable building production adopting an optimized BIM phasing system

Sustainable building production could be achieved through better economic efficiency, reduced site waste, and a safe working environment. The identification of the creation phase for each element in the building information model (BIM) is manually done by experienced engineers able to integrate technical construction constraints and an appropriate workflow of construction activities. It is a difficult and complex task to be done. Experienced engineers iterate this operation several times until an adequate solution is achieved without real possibility of optimization. The development of an assistance tool to optimize phase identification of BIM elements included in the repetitive floor plan considering varied evaluation criteria and technical construction constraints should lead to significant economic and environmental profits: reduction of needed construction resources and related waste, improvement of construction quality, and better conditions of site safety. The optimization tool presented in this paper provides better solutions for repetitive floor plans specifically through balanced quantities of work hours and a lower quantity of needed formworks. A reduction of around 10% of labour and 25% of non-used formwork is achieved, which significantly improves site safety, productivity, and profitability. The validity of the presented results is substantiated by multiple examples from real construction sites that have been analyzed in this study

Ligand-independent oligomerization of TACI is controlled by the transmembrane domain and regulates proliferation of activated B cells.

In mature B cells, TACI controls class-switch recombination and differentiation into plasma cells during T cell-independent antibody responses. TACI binds the ligands BAFF and APRIL. Approximately 10% of patients with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) carry TACI mutations, of which A181E and C172Y are in the transmembrane domain. Residues A181 and C172 are located on distinct sides of the transmembrane helix, which is predicted by molecular modeling to spontaneously assemble into trimers and dimers. In human B cells, these mutations impair ligand-dependent (C172Y) and -independent (A181E) TACI multimerization and signaling, as well as TACI-enhanced proliferation and/or IgA production. Genetic inactivation of TACI in primary human B cells impaired survival of CpG-activated cells in the absence of ligand. These results identify the transmembrane region of TACI as an active interface for TACI multimerization in signal transduction, in particular for ligand-independent signals. These functions are perturbed by CVID-associated mutations

Identification and characterization of antibacterial compound(s) of cockroaches (Periplaneta americana)

Infectious diseases remain a significant threat to human health, contributing to more than 17 million deaths, annually. With the worsening trends of drug resistance, there is a need for newer and more powerful antimicrobial agents. We hypothesized that animals living in polluted environments are potential source of antimicrobials. Under polluted milieus, organisms such as cockroaches encounter different types of microbes, including superbugs. Such creatures survive the onslaught of superbugs and are able to ward off disease by producing antimicrobial substances. Here, we characterized antibacterial properties in extracts of various body organs of cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) and showed potent antibacterial activity in crude brain extract against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and neuropathogenic E. coli K1. The size-exclusion spin columns revealed that the active compound(s) are less than 10 kDa in molecular mass. Using cytotoxicity assays, it was observed that pre-treatment of bacteria with lysates inhibited bacteria-mediated host cell cytotoxicity. Using spectra obtained with LC-MS on Agilent 1290 infinity liquid chromatograph, coupled with an Agilent 6460 triple quadruple mass spectrometer, tissues lysates were analyzed. Among hundreds of compounds, only a few homologous compounds were identified that contained isoquinoline group, chromene derivatives, thiazine groups, imidazoles, pyrrole containing analogs, sulfonamides, furanones, flavanones, and known to possess broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties, and possess anti-inflammatory, anti-tumour, and analgesic properties. Further identification, characterization and functional studies using individual compounds can act as a breakthrough in developing novel therapeutics against various pathogens including superbugs

Looking around with your brain in a virtual world

Contains fulltext : 83539.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)eNTERFACE'1

Looking around with your brain in a virtual world

IEEE Computational Intelligence SocietySymposium Series on Computational Intelligence, IEEE SSCI 2011 - 2011 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence, Cognitive Algorithms, Mind, and Brain, CCMB 2011 -- 11 April 2011 through 15 April 2011 -- Paris -- 85913Offline analysis pipelines have been developed and evaluated for the detection of covert attention from electroen-cephalography recordings, and the detection of overt attention in terms of eye movement based on electrooculographic measurements. Some additional analysis were done in order to prepare the pipelines for use in a real-time system. This real-time system and a game application in which these pipelines are to be used were implemented. The game is set in a virtual environment where player is a wildlife photographer on an uninhabited island. Overt attention is used to adjust the angle of the first person camera, when the player is tracking animals. When making a photograph, the animal will flee when it notices it is looked at directly, so covert attention is required to get a good shot. Future work will entail user tests with this system to evaluate usability, user experience, and characteristics of the signals related to overt and covert attention when used in such an immersive environment. © 2011 IEEE

The interference of piperidinopropionaphthone hydrochloride in mammalian type I and type II DNA topoisomerase reactions

Majority of anti-cancer drugs were shown to exert their activities by interfering with DNA topoisomerase reactions. Since the identification of Camptothecin as the topoisomerase I targeting compound, these enzymes are widely utilized in biological assays to assess the pharmaceutical significance of the synthetic and natural agents. Because a considerable number of compounds were shown to have cytostatic activities via blocking topoisomerase reactions, we aimed to identify if the previously-reported physiological activities of acetonapthones involves the interference with topoisomerase reactions. We covered topoisomerase activity and cytostatic activity evaluation of piperidinopropionaphthone hydrochloride type Mannich base (MB) to compare its bioactivities to the starting propionaphtone in order to assess the contribution of aminomethyl moiety of the compound on its bioactivity. MB was synthesized and characterized in our laboratory. Supercoiled plasmid relaxation and decatenation assays were carried out to evaluate their biological activities in mammalian DNA topoisomerases. We also assayed the cytostatic activities using HeLa, MCF7 and A431 cell lines. Our data showed a considerable inhibition of MB on type I and type II DNA topoisomerases without a correlation to cytostatic assays. MB exerted a modest activity against the proliferation of MCF7 cells with an IC50 value of 27.62 μM. The presence of MB inhibited topo II decatenation activity as well. Results offer no direct explanation for the contradictory effects on the DNA topoisomerases and the proliferation of cancer cells in vitro. Our results are discussed in relation to potential significance of aminomethyl group of Mannich base in the course of drug-development studies. © 2015, Marmara University. All rights reserved