Cloud Computing Adoption: An Effective Tailoring Approach

Many organisations are currently moving their legacy systems to the cloud as it offers on-demand, elastic, and pay-as-you-go service models. However, different cloud migration scenarios can involve different activities during the migration process using one of many existing migration methods to make legacy cloud-compliant. There is no universally superior or applicable method for all cloud migration scenarios. In situations like this, designing situation-specific methods that fit several existing migration scenarios would be beneficial to the industry. The literature review reveals that issues surrounding the method tailoring for the cloud migration have not been addressed yet. To effectively harness this shortcoming, the idea of situational method engineering approach is applied to develop a framework for designing and maintaining bespoke methods for moving legacies to the cloud. The paper demonstrates the applicability of the framework via presenting two scenarios of creating, configuring, and sharing situational methods

Passive Solar Building Design Using Genetic Programming

Passive solar building design is the process of designing a building while considering sunlight exposure for receiving heat in winter and rejecting heat in summer. The main goal of a passive solar building design is to remove or reduce the need of mechanical and electrical systems for cooling and heating, and therefore saving energy costs and reducing environmental impact. This research will use evolutionary computation to design passive solar buildings. Evolutionary design is used in many research projects to build 3D models for structures automatically. In this research, we use a mixture of split grammar and string-rewriting for generating new 3D structures. To evaluate energy costs, the EnergyPlus system is used. This is a comprehensive building energy simulation system, which will be used alongside the genetic programming system. In addition, genetic programming will also consider other design and geometry characteristics of the building as search objectives, for example, window placement, building shape, size, and complexity. In passive solar designs, reducing energy that is needed for cooling and heating are two objectives of interest. Experiments show that smaller buildings with no windows and skylights are the most energy efficient models. Window heat gain is another objective used to encourage models to have windows. In addition, window and volume based objectives are tried. To examine the impact of environment on designs, experiments are run on five different geographic locations. Also, both single floor models and multi-floor models are examined in this research. According to the experiments, solutions from the experiments were consistent with respect to materials, sizes, and appearance, and satisfied problem constraints in all instances

The Right to Access The Vaccine as a Human Right

This article aims to address the human rights obligations of pharma companies regarding access to vaccines and other drugs that are produced for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. It seems that the UN Guidelines on Trade and Human Rights are among the most important documents and organizations which give pharma and vaccine companies some responsibility and fair access to vaccines and special medicines, in case of emergency. Since the right of access to vaccines is a fundamental human right, access must be provided fairly in the emergency conditions of a pandemic virus. Besides, discrimination, monopolies and nationalism must be avoided as much as possible. The results illustrate that public access to the COVID-19 vaccine is justified under the heading of social contract and it persuades human rights to support the idea of corporate social responsibility more broadly. Other results of this article indicate that there are many challenges to achieving universal access to vaccines, including nationalism, monopolies, exorbitant pricing, and the spread of corruption. It is hoped that, with proper monitoring by international organizations and the World Health Organization, these challenges can be reduced to pave the way for fair access to vaccines as a fundamental human right

Combined Economic and Emission Dispatch Incorporating Renewable Energy Sources and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Conventional transportation and electricity industries are considered as two major sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission. Improvement of vehicle’s operational efficiency can be a partial solution but it is necessary to employ Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) and Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) in the network to slow the increasing rate of the GHGs emission. However, it is crucial to investigate the effectiveness of each solution. In this paper, a combination of generation cost and GHGs emission of the two mentioned industries, as economic and environmental aspects of using PHEVs and RESs will be analyzed. The effectiveness of five different scenarios of utilizing the mentioned elements is studied on a test system. To have a realistic evaluation, an extended cost function model of wind farm is employed in optimal power dispatch calculations. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to the combined economic and emission dispatch (CEED) non- linear problem

Evaluation of Diethyl phthalate and Diallyl phthalate biodegradation mechanisms in the treatment of synthetic wastewater

Background and Aims: Over the last few years, Phethalic Acid Esters (PAEs) have attracted a widespread attention due to their widespread production and use. These compounds are not only linked to endocrine disruption and cancer but also considered as emerging and hazardous pollutants. Large amounts of PAEs have been detected in industrial wastewaters. Given the widespread use of biological processes in industrialwastewater treatment, this study aimed to identify biodegradation pathways of PAEs and their potential metabolites.Materials and Methods: Two short-chain esters from phthalic acid esters including diethyl phthalate (DEP) and diallyl phthalate (DAP) were selected in the present study. We used the survey of metabolites in a moving bed biofilm reactor effluent to determine biodegradation pathways of designated esters at hydraulic retention times of 1 to 12 hours. Influent concentration of 100 mg/l was also considered throughout the study.Results: Phthalic acid, mono-methyl phthalate, dimethyl phthalate and catechol were identified as the most noteworthy metabolites in biodegradation of both esters. The degradation pathway of both studied compounds was similar and involves either detachment of ester-chain or removal of methyl group, followed by few decomposition steps resulting in the production of benzene ring. The degradation can proceed further with ring cleavage and it ends with 2-hydroxy muconic semi-aldehyde.Conclusion: The main route for removal of studied compounds was de-esterification followed by demethylation. According to identifies degradation pathways and metabolites produced, biodegradation can be considered as a reliable treatment process for industrial wastewaters containing PAEs.Key words: Biodegradation, Phthalic Acid Esters, Synthetic wastewater

Evaluation of PECAM-1 Gene Polymorphism in Patients with Periodontal Disease and Healthy Individuals

Objective. Our aim in this paper was to investigate the possible genetic association between three Ser563Asn, Leu125Val and Arg670Gly polymorphisms of the PECAM-1 gene and periodontitis. Methods. Genomic DNA was isolated from whole blood of 105 periodontal patient (52 with chronic periodontitis and 53 with aggressive periodontitis) and 101 healthy individuals. Samples were genotyped and analyzed for the three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of PECAM-1 using polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSPs). Results. A statistically significant difference was found between the genotypic distribution of the Ser563Asn polymorphism in patients with periodontitis compared to controls (P = 0.02). But there were no statistically significant difference between the allele frequencies in the different groups (P = 0.05). The other two polymorphisms did not show a statistically significant difference in their allele and genotype frequencies between the groups. There was no statistically significant difference found for any of the polymorphisms allele and genotype distribution in aggressive and chronic periodontitis either. Conclusions. No significant association was found between the polymorphism tested and the subgroups of periodontitis, further research is still necessary to determine whether this polymorphism can be used as a genetic marker of periodontitis

Prevalence of Impacted Teeth among Young Adults: A Retrospective Radiographic Study

Objectives: The prevalence of impacted teeth fluctuates across various ethnicities and geographical regions. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence and patterns of impacted teeth among patients living in the central part of Iran. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted on 3632 patients within the age group of 17-30 years. The frequency and pattern of the impaction were determined using orthopantomogram (OPG). Results: According to the results of the study, 56.3% of the patients were female (n=2046). Out of the 3632 OPGs, 1602 cases (44.1%) were detected with at least one impacted tooth. No significant difference was observed between the males (n=682; 42.6%) and females (n=920; 57.4%) in this regard (P=0.237). Furthermore, the third molars were the most common impacted teeth found in 1156 radiographs (31.8%) with no significant difference between the males (n=358; 30%) and females (n=798; 70%) (P=0.386). Mesioangular and distoangular impactions were detected to be the most frequent angulation of the impacted third molars in the mandible (49%) and maxilla (41%), respectively. Additionally, 357 (9.8%) and 78 (2.1%) cases showed at least one impacted maxillary canine and one impacted mandibular second premolar, respectively. Moreover, impacted ectopic teeth were observed in 11 (0.3%) individuals. Conclusion: Based on the findings of the present study, the third molar was the most common impacted tooth observed in the people living in the central region of Iran, followed by canine and second premolar impaction. The prevalence of the third molar impaction in the females was nearly twice as much as that in the males

Bone-added periodontal plastic surgery: a new approach in esthetic dentistry

This article proposes a combined technique including bone grafting, connective tissue graft, and coronally advanced flap to create some space for simultaneous bone regrowth and root coverage. A 23 year-old female was referred to our private clinic with a severe class II Miller recession and lack of attached gingiva. The suggested treatment plan comprised of root coverage combined with xenograft bone particles. The grafted area healed well and full coverage was achieved at 12-month follow-up visit. Bone-added periodontal plastic surgery can be considered as a practical procedure for management of deep gingival recession without buccal bone plate