On an elliptic equation with singular cylindrical growth

In the present paper, an elliptic equation with singular cylindrical grouwth, is considered. By using the Nehari manifold and mountain pass theorem, the existence of at least four distinct solutions is obtained. The result depends crucially on the parameters k, λ, g and u

The Constitutional Court\u27s Role in Consolidating Democracy and Reforming Local Election

Within the same group as the USA and India Indonesia is one of the largest democracies in the world. After experiencing authoritarian rule for a few decades since its independence the country finally at the beginning of the twenty first century managed to chart along its new direction along democratic course and values. More than a decade has passed since the democratic transition begun yet the country still faces various constitutional dilemmas and enigmas. One of organs of the government which has been entrusted to transform the country into a democratic nation is the Constitutional Court. The objective of this paper is to provide critical analyses of the role of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia in the process of consolidating local democracy. The scope of analysis is confined to a number of important cases heard by the court on local election disputes from the year 2008 to 2013. The rationale to focus on local election is because local government provides the second layer of government for this unitary country making the governance more democratic and more in touch with local population. The result of the study is the Constitutional Court through its decisions has created conducive political situation and has provided significant contributions in the process of consolidating local democracy. In spite of limited number of judges and short period of settlement to disputes brought before it the Court have settled all disputes regarding local elections without much delay and complaint. Nevertheless there are some areas that need to be addressed by the court to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness. A few factors have been identified to be the cause of the problems namely problem of design of structure of the Court, extension of the scope of authority, period of settlement, over-dosis of authority and the breach of code of ethics of the judges.Thus it is recommended that in order to perpetuate the excellent achievements of the court the institution need to be strengthened by addressing the problems

A Conceptual Framework for Knowledge Management Implementation in Organizations

This study aimed to identify the processes associated with knowledge management implementation and develop a framework with different stages that combines these processes to guide the initiative for implementing knowledge management in organizations. The study was approached from a theoretical perspective. The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by developing a conceptual framework of knowledge management. A comprehensive review was conducted of recent progress and the rapidly growing number of published studies on knowledge management implementation. The review revealed ten critical processes that should be considered to ensure successful knowledge management initiatives. Based on that, a framework for knowledge management implementation is proposed. Specifically, the processes associated with implementing knowledge management are logically distributed among the PDCA framework promulgated and reflecting the four domains of the Plan–Do–Check–Act, which has consistently shown the capability to encompass all processes of effective knowledge management implementation. The framework can be used as a reference for implementing knowledge management initiatives in organizations. Finally, this study emphasizes that continuous process methods are significant in implementing knowledge management initiatives. By placing knowledge management implementation processes in the PDCA cycle, task-based knowledge can be better recognized and understood

The influence of surfactant/co-surfactant hydrophilic-lipophilic balance on the formation of limonene-based microemulsion as vitamin C carrier

This research was conducted to produce a limonene-based microemulsion system as vitamin C carrier. The microemulsion was produced using limonene as the oil phase, tween20 and tween80 as surfactants while propylene glycol, polyethylene glycol 400 and glycerol as co-surfactants. Pseudo-ternary phase diagrams were constructed to determine the microemulsion area by using the water titration method at 25°C. The effect of hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) value of the mixture of S/CoS on the formation of limonene-based microemulsion was studied. The HLB value calculated for the mixture of tween20/propylene glycol in the different ratio was between 10.1 and 13.4. From the experiment, the preparation of limonene-based microemulsion system with tween20/propylene glycol was able to provide large and high stability of microemulsion region on ternary phase diagram (23.6%) while higher HLB value resulted in larger microemulsion area in ternary phase diagrams. The sole formulation with propylene glycol was further selected to carry out the physicochemical characterization of system’s stability, particle size and electrical conductivity. All microemulsion systems showed good stability for four weeks at temperature of 4, 25 and 40°C without any phase change and separation. Particle size characterization results elucidated that all microemulsion systems consisted particle size between 20 and 100 nm. The study of electrical conductivity showed that water-in-oil microemulsion was formed from 5-45% wt. of water whereas bicontinuous microemulsion was formed from 50-90% wt. of water content. Overall, the result showed that microemulsion tween20/propylene glycol/limonene/water was potential as a carrier system of vitamin C

Value of Serum Growth Differentiation Factor 15 in diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer

Background: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is considered the third most deadly and fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world.Objective: The aim of the present study was to compare serum levels of growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) in patients with CRC and in those healthy control subjects.Patients and methods: The study included 60 subjects that were divided in two groups: Group Ι included 30 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer and group ΙΙ that included 30 healthy volunteers as control group. They didn`t have any acute or chronic diseases. All subjects of this study were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination and laboratory investigations. The study was conducted at Internal Medicine Department (gastroenterology and endoscopy unit), Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University. Results: The study comprised 35 males (58.3%) and 25 females (41.7%), with a mean age of 61 ± 9 years. Twenty-six participants were from urban areas (43.3%) and 34 from rural areas (56.7%). Thirteen participants had a suspicious occupational exposure (21.7%) and 27 were smokers (45%). Mean BMI of all participants was 31 ± 6 kg/m2 with no statistically significant differences between the studied groups. Regarding Hb level and GDF-15, there were statistically significant differences between CRC group and control group where Hb was higher in the control group, while GDF15 was higher in CRC group. Conclusion: Growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) could be used as a valuable independent biomarker for screening CRC

Evaluation of different time domain peak models using extreme learning machine-based peak detection for EEG signal

Various peak models have been introduced to detect and analyze peaks in the time domain analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In general, peak model in the time domain analysis consists of a set of signal parameters, such as amplitude, width, and slope. Models including those proposed by Dumpala, Acir, Liu, and Dingle are routinely used to detect peaks in EEG signals acquired in clinical studies of epilepsy or eye blink. The optimal peak model is the most reliable peak detection performance in a particular application. A fair measure of performance of different models requires a common and unbiased platform. In this study, we evaluate the performance of the four different peak models using the extreme learning machine (ELM)-based peak detection algorithm. We found that the Dingle model gave the best performance, with 72 % accuracy in the analysis of real EEG data. Statistical analysis conferred that the Dingle model afforded significantly better mean testing accuracy than did the Acir and Liu models, which were in the range 37–52 %. Meanwhile, the Dingle model has no significant difference compared to Dumpala model

Advanced degradation of organic pollutants using sonophotocatalytic peroxymonosulfate activation with CoFe2O4/Cu- and Ce-doped SnO2 composites

The rampant upsurge of organic pollutants in aqueous media has become one of the major concerns nowadays. Finding non-specific catalysts that can target a wide range of organic pollutants is a key challenge. Eco-friendly oxidative radicals, such as promoted by peroxymonosulfate (PMS), are necessary for efficient water decontamination. We propose a multicomponent composite catalyst for activating PMS using a dual strategy of sonophotocatalysis. The composite integrates cobalt ferrite and Cu- or Ce-doped SnO2, with the at. % of doping metal and the mixture ratio carefully balanced. The top-performing architectures were able to decompose rhodamine B (20 ppm), a representative pollutant, in under 3 min and achieve over 70% mineralization in just 5 min. The synthesized nanocomposites demonstrated exceptional sonophotocatalytic performance, even when treating complex and diverse multipollutant solutions (80 ppm), achieving over 75% mineralization after 150 min. Considering their high stability and reusability, the proposed CoFe2O4/Cu- and Ce-doped SnO2 materials are among the state-of-the-art heterogeneous catalysts for mineralizing organic pollutants through PMS activation