Investigation of migration-related challenges in order to develop an online information network for Persian immigrants

Dissertação de mestrado em International BusinessInternational migration is one of the most challenging issues of recent decades which has led to plenty of research on various aspects of migration. Many researchers conducted investigations to recognize the needs and impediments in the migration process as well as proposing suggestions to tackle the problem of adaptation and integration of immigrants to the new environment. Internet as a vehicle of communication and a platform for information retrieval has become the most popular medium among immigrants, facilitating the transnational practices and their adaptation process to the new society. Iran is one of the countries with the high rate of immigration, intensified following the 1979 Islamic revolution. While the Iranian immigrants as a minority group in most countries are not well organized and suffer from lack of social supports, there is no comprehensive informative online platform in which they can acquire their necessary information and communicate with fellow immigrants. We therefore aimed to propose a Persian information network for Iranian immigrants to meet their needs of information and communication in their new society. The first part of this study was investigating the literature upon different aspects of migration and Iranian immigrants‟ needs and barriers throughout their migration process. The second part included the development of a survey to explore the sample of Iranian immigrants‟ needs and impediments during their post-migration life and their attitude and behavior toward an online co-creative website. To this aim, we recruited 201 Persian immigrant individuals to participate in our research for examining the possibility of developing a Persian information network in order to present free information and social support to Iranian immigrants. Our results showed that the majority of the sample population had positive attitude toward using and contributing to such a network with the purpose of value co-creation through exchanging and integrating of knowledge and experiences.A migração internacional é um dos maiores desafios das últimas décadas, a qual tem levado a várias pesquisas sobre os vários aspetos relacionados com a migração. Muitos investigadores levaram a cabo investigações de modo a reconhecerem as necessidades e impedimentos associados ao processo de imigração, bem como propuseram sugestões sobre como enfrentar o problema da adaptação e integração dos imigrantes ao novo ambiente. A internet é um veículo de comunicação e uma plataforma de recuperação de informação que se tornou no meio mais popular entre os imigrantes, facilitando as práticas transnacionais e o seu processo de adaptação à nova sociedade. O Irão é um dos países com maior taxa de imigração, a qual se intensificou após a revolução Islâmica de 1979. Os imigrantes iranianos como grupos maioritários na maioria dos países não se encontram bem organizados e sofrem com a falta de apoios sociais, não existe nenhuma plataforma online que os permita adquirir as informações necessárias e comunicar com os seus companheiros imigrantes. Por isso no presente trabalho de investigação temos como objetivo propor uma rede de informação persa para os imigrantes iranianos, de modo a satisfazer as suas necessidades de informação e comunicação na sua nova sociedade. A primeira parte deste estudo recaiu sobre a investigação da literatura sobre os diferentes aspetos da migração e as necessidades e barreiras que os imigrantes iranianos enfrentam ao longo do seu processo de migração. A segunda parte incluiu o desenvolvimento de uma pesquisa através do uso de uma amostra de modo a explorar as necessidades e impedimentos da vida dos imigrantes iranianos após a sua migração, bem como as suas atitudes e comportamentos em relação a um site online co-criativo. Para este fim, recrutamos 201 imigrantes persas para participar numa pesquisa exploratória com o intuito de examinar a possibilidade do desenvolvimento de uma rede de informação persa que ofereça informação e apoio social gratuito aos imigrantes iranianos. Os nossos resultados mostraram que a maioria da população da amostra tinha uma atitude positiva relativamente ao uso e contribuição de uma rede que tenha como objetivo a cocriação de valor através da troca e integração de conhecimentos e experiências

RF Location Tracking: A Modular Antenna System Implementation

From the Amazon Prime Air drone delivery service to the usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in military operations, recent years have seen the development of autonomous flight technologies becoming one of the major research topics in the drone industry. Tracking the geographic position of drones is a crucial part of any autonomous flight, but the common methods of drone location tracking either have too large of an error margin or require extensive environmental setup. The aforementioned issues are major roadblocks in the advancement of autonomous flight operations. The proposed solution is a new and improved method to track the location of a drone relative to a single reference point. This method will not require any environmental setup and offers a greater degree of precision than the commonly used Global Positioning System (GPS). The designed proof of concept model, which is a completely modular and self-reliant radio-frequency (RF) based location tracking system, was built to show the viability of this new drone tracking method. The tracking system can determine the relative location of a radio-frequency source with only one receiver module. By requiring only one receiver, this tracking system eliminates the need to set up a triangulation zone. Additionally, optimizing the tracking system to generate a location from the RF telemetry signals needed in user-drone communication, the solution effectively presents an efficient manner to track a drone without the need for additional attachments. The proposed solution introduces a novel method that has the potential to vastly improve autonomous flight development and push it to full realization and fruition

IJMC Computing Chemical Properties of Molecules by Graphs and Rank Polynomials

ABSTRACT The topological index of a graph G is a numeric quantity related to G which is invariant under automorphisms of G. The Tutte polynomial of is a polynomial in two variables defined for every undirected graph contains information about connectivity of the graph. The Padmakar-Ivan, vertex Padmakar-Ivan polynomials of a graph are polynomials in one variable defined for every simple connected graphs that are undirected. In this paper, we compute these polynomials of two infinite classes of dendrimer nanostars

Note on PI and Szeged indices

In theoretical chemistry molecular structure descriptors are used for modeling physico-chemical, pharmacological, toxicologic, biological and other properties of chemical compounds. In this paper we study distance-based graph invariants and present some improved and corrected sharp inequalities for PI, vertex PI, Szeged and edge Szeged topological indices, involving the number of vertices and edges, the diameter, the number of triangles and the Zagreb indices. In addition, we give a complete characterization of the extremal graphs.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Barriers to Implementing Performance-Based Budgeting at Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: A performance-based budgeting system provides the link between performance indicators and resource allocation. This study aimed to identify the barriers to implementing performance-based budgeting at Iranian universities of medical sciences. Method: In this qualitative study with the framework analysis approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 university professors and directors of the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education using purposive sampling and snowball model. MAXQDA-10 software was used to apply the codes and manage the data. The codes were extracted using deductive and inductive methods. Results: Barriers of performance-based budgeting were classified in three main areas including elements of environmental, human, and organizational management, and 14 themes. Conclusion: Having a deep understanding of the barriers to implementing evidence-based budgeting can help managers and policymakers to reach careful planning and successful implementation of budgeting. Paying attention to the environmental, human, and organizational infrastructure is essential for the successful deployment of performance-based budgeting at Iranian universities of medical sciences. Keywords: Budget, Budgeting, Universities, Ira

Effects of mutations in the helix G region of horseradish peroxidase

Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) has long attracted intense research interest and is used in many biotechnological fields, including diagnostics, biosensors and biocatalysis. Enhancement of HRP catalytic activity and/or stability would further increase its usefulness. Based on prior art, we substituted solvent-exposed lysine and glutamic acid residues near the proximal helix G (Lys 232, 241; Glu 238, 239) and between helices F and F′ (Lys 174). Three single mutants (K232N, K232F, K241N) demonstrated increased stabilities against heat (up to 2-fold) and solvents (up to 4-fold). Stability gains are likely due to improved hydrogen bonding and space-fill characteristics introduced by the relevant substitution. Two double mutants showed stability gains but most double mutations were non-additive and non-synergistic. Substitutions of Lys 174 or Glu 238 were destabilising. Unexpectedly, notable alterations in steady-state Vm/E values occurred with reducing substrate ABTS (2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid)), despite the distance of the mutated positions from the active site

How modification of accessible lysines to phenylalanine modulates the structural and functional properties of horseradish peroxidase: a simulation study.

Horseradish Peroxidase (HRP) is one of the most studied peroxidases and a great number of chemical modifications and genetic manipulations have been carried out on its surface accessible residues to improve its stability and catalytic efficiency necessary for biotechnological applications. Most of the stabilized derivatives of HRP reported to date have involved chemical or genetic modifications of three surface-exposed lysines (K174, K232 and K241). In this computational study, we altered these lysines to phenylalanine residues to model those chemical modifications or genetic manipulations in which these positively charged lysines are converted to aromatic hydrophobic residues. Simulation results implied that upon these substitutions, the protein structure becomes less flexible. Stability gains are likely to be achieved due to the increased number of stable hydrogen bonds, improved heme-protein interactions and more integrated proximal Ca2+ binding pocket. We also found a new persistent hydrogen bond between the protein moiety (F174) and the heme prosthetic group as well as two stitching hydrogen bonds between the connecting loops GH and F'F″ in mutated HRP. However, detailed analysis of functionally related structural properties and dynamical features suggests reduced reactivity of the enzyme toward its substrates. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that substitutions narrow the bottle neck entry of peroxide substrate access channel and reduce the surface accessibility of the distal histidine (H42) and heme prosthetic group to the peroxide and aromatic substrates, respectively. Results also demonstrated that the area and volume of the aromatic-substrate binding pocket are significantly decreased upon modifications. Moreover, the hydrophobic patch functioning as a binding site or trap for reducing aromatic substrates is shrunk in mutated enzyme. Together, the results of this simulation study could provide possible structural clues to explain those experimental observations in which the protein stability achieved concurrent with a decrease in enzyme activity, upon manipulation of charge/hydrophobicity balance at the protein surface