Maximizing Daylight Use Potential in Retail Shopping Environments in the Context of Dhaka, Bangladesh

In recent times with the increase in the population, the number of retail shopping environments has increased significantly in Dhaka city. But these shopping environments are developing into high consumption areas of electricity resulting from artificially light design approach. In this study, it was found that energy consumption is rising because of the minimal or no use of daylight and natural ventilation. A field-based case study was conducted to review the daylight inclusion in the design of retail shopping environments representing the historical periods of 1950-70, 1971-80, 1981-90, 1991-2000, 2001-2011. In this research, in addition to field work, parametric study was done to identify the effect of design factors/parameters relating to daylight. The main focus was to develop a causal relation between the parameters of the shopping environments to maximize the use of daylight. The parameters which were considered in this study were: width, height and depth of the shops; the depth of the corridor between two rows of shops; and the height and width of the light wells. All the parametric relations were derived to the width of the shop. Daylight level were measured and compared with the given level in the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) code. It was found that shopping environments play an important role in energy consumption in urban areas and little or no utilization of daylight contributes to this energy demand. This is of particular significance in an environment where dwindling fossil sources of energy and an increasing energy demand created by positive economic growth pose a challenge for the building industry stakeholders. 765-77

Higher Fertilizer Inputs Increase Fitness Traits of Brown Planthopper in Rice.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the primary staple food source for more than half of the world's population. In many developing countries, increased use of fertilizers is a response to increase demand for rice. In this study, we investigated the effects of three principal fertilizer components (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) on the development of potted rice plants and their effects on fitness traits of the brown planthopper (BPH) [Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Homoptera: Delphacidae)], which is a major pest of rice in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Compared to low fertilizer inputs, high fertilizer treatments induced plant growth but also favored BPH development. The BPH had higher survival, developed faster, and the intrinsic rate of natural increase (r m ) was higher on well-fertilized than under-fertilized plants. Among the fertilizer inputs, nitrogen had the strongest effect on the fitness traits of BPH. Furthermore, both the "Plant vigor hypothesis" and the "Plant stress hypothesis" were supported by the results, the former hypothesis more so than the latter. These hypotheses suggest that the most suitable/attractive hosts for insect herbivores are the most vigorous plants. Our findings emphasized that an exclusive focus on yield increases through only enhanced crop fertilization may have unforeseen, indirect, effects on crop susceptibility to pests, such as BPH

Genospecies and virulence factors of Aeromonas species in different sources in a North African country

Introduction: Aeromonads of medical importance have been reported from numerous clinical, food, and water sources, but identification of genospecies and virulence factors of Aeromonas species from countries in North Africa and the Middle East are few.Methods: In total 99 Aeromonas species isolates from different sources (diarrheal children [n=23], nondiarrheal children [n=16], untreated drinking water from wells [n=32], and chicken carcasses [n=28]) in Tripoli, Libya, were included in the present investigation. Genus identification was confirmed by biochemical analysis, and genospecies were determined using a combination of 16S rDNA variable region and gyrB sequence analysis. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect genes encoding toxins from 52 of the isolates.Results: We identified 44 isolates (44%) as A. hydrophila (3 [3.0%] subspecies anaerogenes, 23 [23%] subspecies dhakensis, and 18 [18%] subspecies ranae); 27 isolates (27%) as A. veronii; 23 isolates (23%) as A. caviae; and 5 isolates (5.0%) as other genospecies. The genes encoding aerolysin (aer), cytolytic enterotoxin (act), and A. hydrophila isolate SSU enterotoxin (ast) were detected in 45 (87%), 4 (7.7%), and 9 (17%) of the 52 isolates tested, respectively. The gene encoding an extracellular lipase (alt) was not detected.Conclusion: The majority of aeromonads from Libya fall within three genospecies (i.e. A. hydrophila, A. veronii, and A. caviae), and genes coding for toxin production are common among them.Keywords: Aeromonas; genospecies; virulence factors; Liby

SYNTHESIS, INSILICO DOCKING AND ADMET STUDIES OF ARYL ACETIC ACID DERIVATIVES AS PROSTAGLANDIN ENDOPEROXIDE H SYNTHASE-2 INHIBITORS

Objectives: To study the inhibition of prostaglandin endoperoxide H synthase-2 (PHSH-2) for arylacetic acid derivatives. Methods: This study was performed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activity of the synthesized arylacetic acid erivatives through molecular docking via Discovery Studio 4.0 and Schrodinger Software. ADMET study was conducted to find the assessment on genotoxicology.Results: The synthesized arylacetic acid derivatives were confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and purity by high-performance liquid chromatography. The synthetic pathway is economical, industrial scalability and is achieved with high yield and purity. The in silico studies identified the active pocket and compared with the standard drug.Conclusion: Results from this work conclude that the arylacetic acid derivatives have very good inhibition and very low binding energy toward the active pocket, hence can be considered as good inhibitors of PHSH-2 on comparison with iodosuprofen. The compounds qualified Lipinski rule of five and the ADMET results were non-mutagenic and non-carcinogenic.Keywords: Arylacetic acid, 1 phenyl glycidyl ether protein, ADMET, In silico docking, Anti-inflammatory

Formal Availability Analysis using Theorem Proving

Availability analysis is used to assess the possible failures and their restoration process for a given system. This analysis involves the calculation of instantaneous and steady-state availabilities of the individual system components and the usage of this information along with the commonly used availability modeling techniques, such as Availability Block Diagrams (ABD) and Fault Trees (FTs) to determine the system-level availability. Traditionally, availability analyses are conducted using paper-and-pencil methods and simulation tools but they cannot ascertain absolute correctness due to their inaccuracy limitations. As a complementary approach, we propose to use the higher-order-logic theorem prover HOL4 to conduct the availability analysis of safety-critical systems. For this purpose, we present a higher-order-logic formalization of instantaneous and steady-state availability, ABD configurations and generic unavailability FT gates. For illustration purposes, these formalizations are utilized to conduct formal availability analysis of a satellite solar array, which is used as the main source of power for the Dong Fang Hong-3 (DFH-3) satellite.Comment: 16 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1505.0264

Lorentz-violating vs ghost gravitons: the example of Weyl gravity

We show that the ghost degrees of freedom of Einstein gravity with a Weyl term can be eliminated by a simple mechanism that invokes local Lorentz symmetry breaking. We demonstrate how the mechanism works in a cosmological setting. The presence of the Weyl term forces a redefinition of the quantum vacuum state of the tensor perturbations. As a consequence the amplitude of their spectrum blows up when the Lorentz-violating scale becomes comparable to the Hubble radius. Such a behaviour is in sharp contrast to what happens in standard Weyl gravity where the gravitational ghosts smoothly damp out the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, REVTeX 4.

Gauged Flavor Group with Left-Right Symmetry

We construct an anomaly-free extension of the left-right symmetric model, where the maximal flavor group is gauged and anomaly cancellation is guaranteed by adding new vectorlike fermion states. We address the question of the lowest allowed flavor symmetry scale consistent with data. Because of the mechanism recently pointed out by Grinstein et al. tree-level flavor changing neutral currents turn out to play a very weak constraining role. The same occurs, in our model, for electroweak precision observables. The main constraint turns out to come from WR-mediated flavor changing neutral current box diagrams, primarily K - Kbar mixing. In the case where discrete parity symmetry is present at the TeV scale, this constraint implies lower bounds on the mass of vectorlike fermions and flavor bosons of 5 and 10 TeV respectively. However, these limits are weakened under the condition that only SU(2)_R x U(1)_{B-L} is restored at the TeV scale, but not parity. For example, assuming the SU(2) gauge couplings in the ratio gR/gL approx 0.7 allows the above limits to go down by half for both vectorlike fermions and flavor bosons. Our model provides a framework for accommodating neutrino masses and, in the parity symmetric case, provides a solution to the strong CP problem. The bound on the lepton flavor gauging scale is somewhat stronger, because of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis constraints. We argue, however, that the applicability of these constraints depends on the mechanism at work for the generation of neutrino masses.Comment: 1+23 pages, 1 table, 5 figures. v3: some more textual fixes (main change: discussion of Lepton Flavor Violating observables rephrased). Matches journal versio

Association of high sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) with established cardiovascular risk factors in the Indian population

Introduction Inflammation, the key regulator of C-reactive protein (CRP) synthesis, plays a pivotal role in atherothrombotic cardiovascular disease. Methods High sensitivity CRP (hsCRP) analysis was carried out in randomly selected 600 individuals from the sentinel surveillance study in Indian industrial population (SSIP). The hsCRP was measured quantitatively by turbid metric test using kits from SPINREACT, Spain. We analyzed the association between hsCRP and traditional CVD risk factors in this sub-sample. Results Complete risk factor data and CRP levels were available from 581/600 individuals. One half (51.2%) of the study subjects were males. Mean age of the study group was 39.2 ± 11.2 years. The Pearson correlation coefficients were in the range of 0.12 for SBP (p = 0.004) to 0.55 for BMI (p < 0.001). The linear regression coefficients ranged from 0.01 for SBP, PG and TC (p < 0.001) to 0.55 for logeTAG (p < 0.001) after adjustment for age, sex and education. The mean of logehsCRP significantly increased (P < 0.001) from individuals with ≤1 risk factors (-0.50) to individuals with three or more risk factors (0.60). In the multivariate model, the odds ratios for elevated CRP (CRP ≥ 2.6 mg/dl) were significantly elevated only in females in comparison to males (1.63, 95% CI; 1.02-2.58), overweight individuals in comparison to normal weight individuals (3.90, 95% CI; 2.34-6.44, p < 0.001), and abdominal obese individuals (1.62, 95% CI; 1.02-2.60, p = 0.04) in comparison to non-obese individuals. Conclusion Clinical measurements of adiposity (body mass index and abdominal obesity) correlate well and can be surrogate for systemic inflammatory state of individuals

Frequently Encountered Animal Diseases at Animal Hospital Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State - Nigeria

Data from the clinical record of the Animal Hospital Birnin Kebbi was used to determine the frequency of occurrence of various diseases of animals from February 2009 to January 2010. A total of 794 cases were presented. 155 (19.5%) for routine check and vaccination, while the bulk 639 (80.5%)were presented as a result of disease conditions. Diseases diagnosed include; helminthoses 141(22%), followed by fowl pox 65(10.2%), lousiness 61(9.5%), traumatic injuries 46(7.2%), enteritis 32(5.0%), upper respiratory tract infection 29(4.5%), mite/mange 24(3.8%), septicemia22(3.4%), bloat 19(3.0%), and abscess 17(2.7%). Other moderately occurring, disorders included dystocia & post partum complications 14(2.2%) each, mal-directed horn/hooves 12(1.9%), tick infestation 10(1.6%), coccidiosis 9(1.4%), fracture 8(1.3%), hernia, PPR, pregnancy toxemia & castration 7(1.1%) each. Poisoning, infectious coryza, arthritis, rumen impaction & vaginal prolapse were 6(0.9%) each, pneumonia and mastitis 5(0.8%) each. The less occurring disorders included urinarytract infection, Gumboro disease, black leg, abortion, paraphimosis & dog bite 4(0.6%) each. Rhinitis & chronic respiratory diseases 3(0.5%) each, Foot and Mouth disease, New castle disease, cowdriosis, and hygroma numbering 2(0.3%) each. The least occurring disorders were Fowltyphoid, dislocation, trypanasomosis, pyometra, orf, stomatitis, grass tetany, canine distemper, atresia ani and rectal prolapse 1(0.2%) case each. Information generated can be useful to Government agencies involved in formulating policies and guidelines for prevention andcontrol of animal diseases