Driving factors for attracting creative knowledge workers in the Amsterdam metropolitan area. The views of high-skilled employees, managers and transnational migrants

This report is a synthesis of three previous studies which analysed the attractiveness of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA) for three groups: creative knowledge workers and graduates, managers in selected creative knowledge industries and transnational migrants in the creative knowledge industry who are working in the creative knowledge sectors. The studies were conducted between July 2007 and December 2008. One of the main aims of all three studies was to tease out of the proposed growing importance of the creative knowledge workers goes in hand with a change of the evaluation of the location factors in metropolitan regions. Florida proposed in his books a presentation that Amsterdam can be seen as a model for the future development. It is a compact city which oriented towards cycling. It has one of the highest shares of foreign population. Looking at the path development of Amsterdam, we also expected that the AMA would score high on soft factors like tolerance and diversity. The results, however, bring other points to the fore. Still, the labour market is reported to be the most important factor. This is followed by other hard factors such as the availability of educational institutions and the situation of the housing market. The latter, however, works as a push factor. Since not all creative knowledge workers can be conceived as affluent and especially starters, creative workers and also some groups of transnational migrants (PhDstudents) receive about average income, some groups of the creative knowledge workers are sensitive in this respect. The housing market in Amsterdam in particular is divided between a large, inexpensive social housing segment which is not accessible for most of the average earning creative knowledge workers and a small segment of expensive private sectors housing. The evaluation of the soft factors showed that soft factors alone hardly motivate creative knowledge workers to accommodate in Amsterdam. Also the named soft factors often vary between the groups. Unexpectedly, the importance of personal trajectories and personal networks was often reported as one of the most important reasons to live, work and stay in the AMA. Florida appears to construct our temporary society as fluent and he portrays the individuals as socially and spatially independent. The results of the studies however show that the embeddedness of persons in a local and regional life world with strong personal ties is a more accurate portrayal of the contemporary society in the AMA

Analysis of Qos Aware Cloud Based Routing for Improved Security

The recent advances and the convergence of micro electro-mechanical systems technology, integrated circuit technologies, microprocessor hardware and Nano-technology, wireless communications, Ad-hoc networking routing protocols, distributed signal processing, and embedded systems have made the concept of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Sensor network nodes are limited with respect to energy supply, restricted computational capacity and communication bandwidth. Most of the attention, however, has been given to the routing protocols since they might differ depending on the application and network architecture. To prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes, designing efficient routing protocols is critical. Even though sensor networks are primarily designed for monitoring and reporting events, since they are application dependent, a single routing protocol cannot be efficient for sensor networks across all applications. In this paper, we analyze the design issues of sensor networks and present a classification and comparison of routing protocols. This comparison reveals the important features that need to be taken into consideration while designing and evaluating new routing protocols for sensor networks. A reliable transmission of packet data information, with low latency and high energy-efficiency, is truly essential for wireless sensor networks, employed in delay sensitive industrial control applications. The proper selection of the routing protocol to achieve maximum efficiency is a challenging task, since latency, reliability and energy consumption are inter-related with each other. It is observed that, Quality of Service (QoS) of the network can improve by minimizing delay in packet delivery, and life time of the network, can be extend by using suitable energy efficient routing protocol

Formulation and characterization of an apigenin-phospholipid phytosome (APLC) for improved solubility, in vivo bioavailability, and antioxidant potential

The apigenin-phospholipid phytosome (APLC) was developed to improve the aqueous solubility, dissolution, in vivo bioavailability, and antioxidant activity of apigenin. The APLC synthesis was guided by a full factorial design strategy, incorporating specific formulation and process variables to deliver an optimized product. The design-optimized formulation was assayed for aqueous solubility, in vitro dissolution, pharmacokinetics, and antioxidant activity. The pharmacological evaluation was carried out by assessing its effects on carbon tetrachloride-induced elevation of liver function marker enzymes in a rat model. The antioxidant activity was assessed by studying its effects on the liver antioxidant marker enzymes. The developed model was validated using the design-optimized levels of formulation and process variables. The physical-chemical characterization confirmed the formation of phytosomes. The optimized formulation demonstrated over 36-fold higher aqueous solubility of apigenin, compared to that of pure apigenin. The formulation also exhibited a significantly higher rate and extent of apigenin release in dissolution studies. The pharmacokinetic analysis revealed a significant enhancement in the oral bioavailability of apigenin from the prepared formulation, compared to pure apigenin. The liver function tests indicated that the prepared phytosome showed a significantly improved restoration of all carbon tetrachloride-elevated rat liver function marker enzymes. The prepared formulation also exhibited antioxidant potential by significantly increasing the levels of glutathione, superoxide dismutase, catalase, and decreasing the levels of lipid peroxidase. The study shows that phospholipid-based phytosome is a promising and viable strategy for improving the delivery of apigenin and similar phytoconstituents with low aqueous solubility

Predicting toric soft lens acuity by attenuated cylinder refraction

Purpose: As variability in vision with a toric soft contact lens is related to cylinder power, providing the lowest acceptable amount of cylinder correction is sometimes a useful strategy. It would be useful clinically to have a reliable method of testing the acceptability of reduced cylinder correction prior to actually selecting and placing a trial soft toric contact lens on the eye. It would be useful to determine a patient\u27s potential acceptance of a cylinder power and axis that is adjusted to those available in the soft contact lens. Method: 18 myopic subjects (29 eyes), with astigmatism between 0.50D and 1.75D were evaluated. After determining optimal manifest refraction, the cylinder component of the refraction was adjusted to comply with those available in a single use toric soft lens such that the cylinder values and axes in the phoropter were set at -0.75 axis 180 degrees for with-the-rule eyes and -0.75 axis 90 degrees for against-the-rule eyes. Sphere power was then adjusted to best subjective acuity. High and low contrast visual acuity was determined through this attenuated refraction. Focus Dailies Toric lenses with power corresponding to the attenuated refraction were applied and allowed to settle. High and low contrast acuity were determined again, and compared with acuity obtained with the attenuated refraction. Results: Analysis showed a reasonably linear relationship between the visual acuities obtained from the adjusted refraction and the trial contact lens, with a trend to better acuity with the contact lens. Acuity with the contact lens was the same or better than the attenuated refraction for 93% of eyes. Conclusion: Practitioners performing an attenuated cylinder refraction prior to selecting a soft toric contact lens should be able to reliably predict the patient\u27s visual acuity with the contact lenses

Kaempferol-Phospholipid Complex: Formulation, and Evaluation of Improved Solubility, In Vivo Bioavailability, and Antioxidant Potential of Kaempferol

The current work describes the formulation and evaluation of a phospholipid complex of kaempferol toenhance the latter’s aqueous solubility, in vitro dissolution rate, in vivo antioxidant and hepatoprotectiveactivities, and oral bioavailability. The kaempferol-phospholipid complex was synthesized using a freeze-drying method with the formulation being optimized using a full factorial design (32) approach. The resultsinclude the validation of the mathematical model in order to ascertain the role of specific formulation andprocess variables that contribute favorably to the formulation’s development. The final product wascharacterized and confirmed by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier Transform InfraredSpectroscopy (FTIR), Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (1H-NMR), and Powder X-rayDiffraction (PXRD) analysis. The aqueous solubility and the in vitro dissolution rate were enhanced comparedto that of pure kaempferol. The in vivo antioxidant properties of the kaempferol-phospholipid complex wereevaluated by measuring its impact on carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-intoxicated rats. The optimizedphospholipid complex improved the liver function test parameters to a significant level by restoration of allelevated liver marker enzymes in CCl4-intoxicated rats. The complex also enhanced the in vivo antioxidantpotential by increasing levels of GSH (reduced glutathione), SOD (superoxide dismutase), catalase anddecreasing lipid peroxidation, compared to that of pure kaempferol. The final optimized phospholipidcomplex also demonstrated a significant improvement in oral bioavailability demonstrated by improvementsto key pharmacokinetic parameters, compared to that of pure kaempferol

Comparative Analysis of Algorithm for Cluster Head Selection in Wireless Sensor Network

One of the challenging issues to be studied in WSN is its energy saving so as to extend lifetime. The primary goal of node clustering is network preprocessing that is used to obtain information and limit energy consumed. To support high adaptability and better accumulation of information data, sensor nodes are often grouped into disconnected, non overlapping batches, groups of nodes called clusters. Clusters design hierarchical WSNs which incorporate adequate performance of finite reserves of sensor nodes and thus enhance network lifetime. In this paper different clustering algorithm are compared having different cluster head selection approach. Our paper presents review of different energy efficient cluster head selection algorithms in WSNs. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150312