Rowell Syndrome in a 4-Year-Old Male Child: A Rare Case Report

Rowell syndrome is an unusual disease entity characterized by the occurrence of erythema multiforme(EM) in association with lupus erythematosus(LE). The syndrome occurs mostly in middle aged women. We are reporting this case in a 4 year old child

Towards Computer-Generated Cue-Target Mnemonics for E-Learning

A novel method to generate memory aids for general forms of knowledge is presented. Mnemonic phrases are constructed using constraints of phonetic similarity to learning material, grammar, semantics, and factual consistency. The method has been implemented in Python using the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, the CYC AI knowledge base, and Kneser-Ney 5-gram probabilities built from the large-scale COCA text corpus. Initial tests have produced encouraging output

How bloggers use geography to develop online destination image for Malaysian Borneo / Siao Fui Wong, Balvinder Kaur Kler and Stephen Laison Sondoh, Jr.

This paper provides an understanding of how one single brand effectively represents two places drawing from location branding for tourist destinations. How are images and stories within blogs used to create online destination image (ODI)? A qualitative content analysis (QCA) explored a purposive sample of 25 blogs (in English) to evaluate Malaysian Borneo’s image. The QCA indicates that Sabah and Sarawak are identifiable for unique experiences related to three tourism attributes: nature, adventure, and culture (NAC). Specifically, Sabah is known for its iconic orangutan and Sarawak for its wilderness. This paper contributes to the practical and theoretical development of one brand for two destinations in two ways. First, findings indicate it is possible for one brand to be shared by two competing destinations. Findings also propose bloggers use geographical characteristics to produce an induced image because descriptions and experiences focus on the physical, human-environment, and human geography. The findings of this paper provide a solid foundation for future research to explore the role played by bloggers in creating ODI based on geographical characteristics

Sense of Place: Narrating Emotional Experiences of Malaysian Borneo through Western Travel Blogs

Tourists’ sense of place or destination attachment could play an important role in destination branding. Yet, sense of place literature focuses on residents as the concept originates from a long-term residence in one place. This study explores the role of destination attachment based on tourist experience for branding based on a case study in Malaysian Borneo. A qualitative content analysis using QCAmap of 34 blogs extracted 116 blogposts with narratives containing emotional sentiments from international tourists. Findings uncovered six important attributes: namely nature, adventure, environment, culture, conservation, and education associated with destination attachment. Findings show that these attributes are interconnected as the main attribute, nature, produces other attributes. A tourists’ sense of place model for destination attachment is proposed to understand how tourists develop attachment to a place

A panel of blood-based circulatory miRNAs with diagnostic potential in patients with psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with keratinocyte hyperproliferation and T cells as key mediators of lesional and systemic inflammatory changes. To date, no suitable differential biomarkers are available for the disease diagnosis. More recently, microRNAs have been identified as critical regulators of lesional and systemic immune changes in psoriasis with diagnostic potential. We have performed expression profiling of T cell-specific miRNAs in 38 plasma samples from psoriasis vulgaris patients and an equal number of age- and gender-matched healthy subjects. Our findings have identified a panel of five blood-based circulatory miRNAs with a significant change in their expression levels, comprising miR-215, miR-148a, miR-125b-5p, miR-223, and miR-142-3p, which can differentiate psoriasis vulgaris patients from healthy individuals. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for all five miRNAs individually and in combination exhibited a significant disease discriminatory area under the curve with an AUC of 0.762 and a p < 0.0001 for all the miRNAs together. Statistically, all five miRNAs in combination depicted the best-fit model in relation to disease severity (PASI) compared with individual miRNAs, with the highest R2 value of 0.94 and the lowest AIC score of 131.8. Each of the miRNAs also exhibited a significant association with at least one of the other miRNAs in the panel. Importantly, the five miRNAs in the panel regulate one or more immune-inflammation pathways based on target prediction, pathway network analysis, and validated roles in the literature. The miRNA panel provides a rationalized combination of biomarkers that can be tested further on an expanded cohort of patients for their diagnostic value

Rebellious daughters, sisters and wives : non-conforming women in South Asian diaspora fiction

This dissertation explores how identity is defined in contemporary South Asian diaspora fiction with an emphasis on female protagonists who rebel against traditional expectations of their familial roles. Drawing from a range of critical studies and fictional narratives, I explore the narrative shifts that occur when these daughters, sisters and wives reject patriarchal ownership in their bid for individuality. The dissertation comprises two main components: an extract of an original work of fiction written by me, and a critical exegesis that contextualises my fiction. My creative work is a novel titled The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. The novel follows three British-Indian sisters on a pilgrimage to Punjab, India to fulfill their late mother’s last wishes and perform her final rites. My critical exegesis will explore the relevant themes and ideas that contributed to the creation of this narrative. Chapter One is an analysis of women’s roles in Indian migrant success narratives. Chapter Two explores how minority characters and stories are represented in Western publishing. Chapter Three reflects on the process of writing and researching The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters.Doctor of Philosoph

A receiver-initiated MAC protocol with enhancements for multi-hop wireless networks

Multiple channel access interference is a major cause of throughput degradation in wireless networks because of the shared channel. IEEE 802.11 MAC is a standard for medium access in wireless LANs, butsuffersfrom channel contention and co-channel interference and thus, performs poorly. The focus of this thesis is to design and study a medium access control protocol that mitigates the effect of multiple channel interference. We propose to use a receiver-initiated MAC protocol, instead of the sender-oriented 802.11 MAC. Our protocol is based on carrier sensing and resolves collisions among senders based on a deterministic tree splitting algorithm. By doing collision resolutions, we aim to use time efficiently otherwise wasted in 802.11 MAC for random backoffs, particularly in cases when the channel contention is high. Receiver-initiated based collision resolutions guarantee that, no data packets collide at a receiver because of interference from its own senders: a major cause of hidden node problem. Further, the protocol is enhanced to have multiple subchannels by dividing the common communication channel. All the subchannels serve the purpose for both control as well as data packets. A subchannel assignment scheme is proposed to exploit the parallel transmissionsthat are possible in multi-channel networks. This should help in reducing the co-channel interference and thereby, improve the throughput. In order to handle the unfairness issues associated with receiver-initiated protocols, we propose a third enhancement: an adaptive approach of deliberate transitions between receiving and sending modes. These mode transitions force nodes to spend fixed time in each mode, thereby giving a fair chance to become a sender as well as a receiver. We also present simulation results using ns2 simulator, varying several system parameters to evaluate our approach and compare it with standard IEEE 802.11. The simulation results indicate that collision resolution with multiple subchannel access provides throughput enhancement and better packet delays than 802.11 MAC. We also observe that the maximum throughput is achieved when the channel is divided into three or four subchannels irrespective of the size, shape of the network, and traffic load. The results also indicate that we further improve on throughput by doing deliberate transitions and, that the protocol has better fairness for QoS assurance as compared to standard 802.11 MAC