Low income housing in Abu Dhabi

The provision of houses for the tribal society in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi constitutes a major problem which greatly aggravates the housing problem in general. The major cause of this problem is that the designers of housing schemes have no sufficient understanding of the tribal traditions and requirements, necessary to provide the local people with convenient dwelling units that correspond with their social behaviour pattern. Ever since oil was discovered in Abu Dhabi, the government has developed an ambitious housing policy to serve the provision of local people with houses. The policy has been carried out for the last 25 years, where the government decided to :- 1. design convenient dwelling units for the local people; 2. plan new neighbourhoods and supply them with a sufficient infrastructure; 3. construct the dwelling units and maintain them once the local people have become their legal owners. The objectives of this policy were to provide the proper environment for the local people. There has been a great change in the design of housing schemes ever since this policy started. A number of foreign architects were involved in the development of a variety of low cost housing types, and inevitably their different cultural backgrounds influenced the design solutions. Many of their schemes use layouts and construction systems which contradict local bahaviour patterns and climatic conditions. During this period of 25 years Abu Dhabi has developed extensive experience in the field of housing but it is not always positive. This experience is worth registering, analysing and evaluating.The provision of houses for the tribal society in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi constitutes a major problem which greatly aggravates the housing problem in general. The major cause of this problem is that the designers of housing schemes have no sufficient understanding of the tribal traditions and requirements, necessary to provide the local people with convenient dwelling units that correspond with their social behaviour pattern. Ever since oil was discovered in Abu Dhabi, the government has developed an ambitious housing policy to serve the provision of local people with houses. The policy has been carried out for the last 25 years, where the government decided to :- 1. design convenient dwelling units for the local people; 2. plan new neighbourhoods and supply them with a sufficient infrastructure; 3. construct the dwelling units and maintain them once the local people have become their legal owners. The objectives of this policy were to provide the proper environment for the local people. There has been a great change in the design of housing schemes ever since this policy started. A number of foreign architects were involved in the development of a variety of low cost housing types, and inevitably their different cultural backgrounds influenced the design solutions. Many of their schemes use layouts and construction systems which contradict local bahaviour patterns and climatic conditions. During this period of 25 years Abu Dhabi has developed extensive experience in the field of housing but it is not always positive. This experience is worth registering, analysing and evaluating

Special Libraries, April 1933

Volume 24, Issue 3https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1933/1002/thumbnail.jp

NTIRE 2020 Challenge on Spectral Reconstruction from an RGB Image

This paper reviews the second challenge on spectral reconstruction from RGB images, i.e., the recovery of whole- scene hyperspectral (HS) information from a 3-channel RGB image. As in the previous challenge, two tracks were provided: (i) a "Clean" track where HS images are estimated from noise-free RGBs, the RGB images are themselves calculated numerically using the ground-truth HS images and supplied spectral sensitivity functions (ii) a "Real World" track, simulating capture by an uncalibrated and unknown camera, where the HS images are recovered from noisy JPEG-compressed RGB images. A new, larger-than-ever, natural hyperspectral image data set is presented, containing a total of 510 HS images. The Clean and Real World tracks had 103 and 78 registered participants respectively, with 14 teams competing in the final testing phase. A description of the proposed methods, alongside their challenge scores and an extensive evaluation of top performing methods is also provided. They gauge the state-of-the-art in spectral reconstruction from an RGB image

Co-Delivery of Ylang Ylang Oil of Cananga odorata and Oxaliplatin Using Intelligent pH-Sensitive Lipid-Based Nanovesicles for the Effective Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Smart pH-responsive niosomes loaded with either Oxaliplatin (Ox), Ylang ylang essential oil (Y-oil), or co-loaded with both compounds (Ox-Y) (Ox@NSs, Y@NSs, and Ox-Y@NSs, respectively) were formulated utilizing the thin film method. The developed nanocontainers had a spherical morphology with mean particle sizes lower than 170 nm and showed negative surface charges, high entrapment efficiencies, and a pH-dependent release over 24 h. The prepared pH-responsive niosomes’ cytotoxicity was tested against the invasive triple-negative breast cancer (MDA-MB-231) cells, compared to free OX and Y-oil. All niosomal formulations loaded with Ox and/or Y-oil significantly improved cytotoxic activity relative to their free counterparts. The Ox-Y@NSs demonstrated the lowest IC50 (0.0002 �g/mL) when compared to Ox@NSs (0.006 �g/mL) and Y@NSs (18.39 �g/mL) or unloaded Ox (0.05 �g/mL) and Y-oil (29.01 �g/mL). In addition, the percentages of theMDA-MB-231 cell population in the late apoptotic and necrotic quartiles were profoundly higher in cells treated with the smart Ox-Y@NSs (8.38% and 5.06%) than those exposed to free Ox (7.33% and 1.93%) or Y-oil (2.3% and 2.13%) treatments. Gene expression analysis and protein assays were performed to provide extra elucidation regarding the molecular mechanism by which the prepared pH-sensitive niosomes induce apoptosis. Ox-Y@NSs significantly induced the gene expression of the apoptotic markers Tp53, Bax, and Caspase-7, while downregulating the antiapoptotic Bcl2. As such, Ox-Y@NSs are shown to activate the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. Moreover, the protein assay ascertained the apoptotic effects of Ox-Y@NSs, generating a 4-fold increase in the relative protein quantity of the late apoptotic marker Caspase-7. Our findings suggest that combining natural essential oil with synthetic platinum-based drugs in pH-responsive nanovesicles is a promising approach to breast cancer therapy

On-chip antenna: Practical design and characterization considerations

[abstract not available

New proapoptotic chemotherapeutic agents based on the quinolone-3-carboxamide scaffold acting by VEGFR-2 inhibition

Abstract In the current study, we designed and synthesized a series of new quinoline derivatives 10a-p as antiproliferative agents targeting cancer through inhibition of VEGFR-2. Preliminary molecular docking to assess the interactions of the designed derivatives with the binding site of VEGFR-2 (PDB code: 4ASD) displayed binding poses and interactions comparable to sorafenib. The synthesized compounds exhibited VEGFR-2 inhibitory activity with IC50 ranging from 36 nM to 2.23 μM compared to sorafenib (IC50 = 45 nM), where derivative 10i was the most potent. Additionally, the synthesized derivatives were evaluated in vitro for their cytotoxic activity against HepG2 cancer cell line. Seven compounds 10a, 10c, 10d, 10e, 10i, 10n and 10o (IC50 = 4.60, 4.14, 1.07, 0.88, 1.60, 2.88 and 2.76 μM respectively) displayed better antiproliferative activity than sorafenib (IC50 = 8.38 μM). Compound 10i was tested against Transformed Human Liver Epithelial-2 normal cell line (THLE-2) to evaluate its selective cytotoxicity. Furthermore, 10i, as a potent representative of the series, was assayed for its apoptotic activity and cell cycle kinetics’ influence on HepG2, its effects on the gene expression of VEGFR-2, and protein expression of the apoptotic markers Caspase-7 and Bax. Compound 10i proved to have a potential role in apoptosis by causing significant increase in the early and late apoptotic quartiles, a remarkable activity in elevating the relative protein expression of Bax and Caspase-7 and a significant reduction of VEGFR-2 gene expression. Collectively, the obtained results indicate that compound 10i has a promising potential as a lead compound for the development of new anticancer agents