An Investigation into how concepts of modularity affect the evolution of complex morphologies

There are many different ways in which complex morphologies can be represented. While a simple string representation could be sufficient, often the most impressive artificial life simulations utilise. Context Free Grammars (1994, Karl Sims) or Recursive Tree Structures. When modelling a complex morphology using these encodings, it is possible to harness the creatures complex modularity to create more sensible and fit individuals. This article aims to compare and contrast the varying affects of evolutionary algorithms which utilise or disregard the organisms modularity

Comparison dietary assessment methods in Sri Lankan adults: use of 24-hour dietary recall and 7-day weighed intake

BACKGROUND: Misreporting, recalling and overestimation are common problems with dietary assessment methods currently available. The 7-day weighed food record (7DWR) method involves an individual weighing of each and every food item prior to consumption, and is considered as a reference method in many situations. The present study aims to compare the energy and nutrient intakes, estimated from 7DWR and 24-hour dietary recall (24DR), among a group of adults. METHODS: One hundred adults were randomly selected from a representative sample from Sri Lanka. The 24DRs were performed on a random day and the subjects were instructed to complete 7DWR from the next day onwards. The nutrients were analyzed using Nutrisurvey Software. In addition, qualitative data were collected from 30 participants, chosen randomly, on the feasibility of the 7DWR as a dietary assessment method. RESULTS: A total of 76 participants completed both 24DR and 7DWR. Mean (SD) values for energy and major macronutrients were significantly lower for 24DR as compared to 7DWR. However, there was no statistically significant difference in energy percentages for macronutrients, between the two methods. Several participants reported difficulties in using the 7DWR method and some reported an alteration in their diet pattern when this method was used. CONCLUSION: Results obtained from 24DR method under-estimated the nutrient intakes as compared to the 7DWFR method

Essays in decision-making and organizational behaviour in public bureaucracies

Public servants, no matter how carefully they are selected or incentivized, are only imperfectly able to discharge the objectives of the organizations they work for. They may suffer from bounded rationality, or make systematically biased decisions. They may be pursuing goals at odds with the stated or implied organizational mandate. Or they may suffer from low engagement in their work, and be difficult to retain over time. Through three quantitative essays, I examine how decisions are made in public sector organizations, and in particular how the behaviour of agents who vary in their ability, motivation and the incentives they are responding to contribute to public service (dys)function. In my first paper, a survey experiment in a large UK public sector organization, I find exposure to politician preferences (orthogonal to organizational mandate) increases the rate at which junior decision-makers provide advice contrary to the evidence they are provided with, but no such effect is found for senior officials. In my second paper, an observational study drawing on a large and novel dataset on projects implemented by the same organization, I show that a peer review process induced substantial avoidance of the system around the threshold for eligibility, but available metrics of project quality show only weak evidence of an effect around this threshold. And in my third paper, I use a survey experiment with a sample of public servants from 28 countries to investigate the effect of varying the framing of the gains to organizational initiatives on likelihood of participation, finding few overall effects but some heterogeneity according to pre-existing variation in public servant characteristics. These three papers have implications for how public organizations should structure their work

Membrane distillation for treating hydraulic fracturing produced waters

The reuse of wastewater for beneficial uses has become increasingly important in recent years. There is an urgent need to develop innovative and more effective technologies for treatment of wastewaters. Many of these wastewaters such as hydraulic fracturing produced waters, contain very high total dissolved solids (TDS). Treatment of hydraulic fracturing produced waters can be very challenging as not only can they exhibit very high TDS, in excess of 200,000 ppm, they also contain surfactants and small organic compounds. Pressure driven membrane processes such as reverse osmosis are impractical for treating very high salinity wastewaters due to the high osmotic back pressure that must be overcome. Membrane distillation has been proposed as a new unit operation for treatment of very high TDS wastewaters. Vapor pressure is the driving force for water recovery in membrane distillation. An advantages of membrane distillation is the fact that low grade waste heat may be used. Here we have screened a number of commercially available microporous hydrophobic membranes. We have characterized membrane surface as well as bulk properties. Using bulk membrane properties, we calculate a structural parameter that indicates membranes that display high permeate flux. Next these membranes were challenged with feed streams containing 100,000 ppm (1.7 M) NaCl. The feeds stream was concentrated until breakthrough of the feed liquid into the permeate. Breakthrough occurred when the permeate flux rose rapidly while the conductivity of the permeate increased above 50 mS cm-1. Finally, these membranes were tested with real produced waters. Membranes that enabled the greatest concentration of TDS were selected for testing. While membrane distillation could be used to concentrate the feed to the solubility limit of the dissolved species present, leakage of feed water through the membrane pores into the distillate often occurs well before this level of water recovery. Leakage occurs due the presence of oil and suspended solids in the feed which can adsorb on the membrane surface. Thus pretreatment of the feed is essential. Here we have investigated the use of electrocoagulation as a pretreatment step for membrane distillation. Suspended solids and oil can be effectively coagulated followed by sedimentation prior to membrane distillation. A laboratory scale electrocoagulation system containing aluminum electrodes was designed, optimized and employed successfully to pretreat the feed. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Project Triton : A study into delivering targeted information to an individual based on implicit and explicit data.

The World Wide Web is frequently seen as a source of knowledge, however much of this remains undiscovered by its users. In recent times, recommender systems (e.g. Digg and Last.fm) have attempted to bridge this gap, alerting users to previously untapped knowledge. As more socially oriented services appear on the Web (e.g. Facebook and MySpace), it has never been easier to obtain information pertaining to an individual’s interests. At present, solutions for automated data recommendation tend to be highly topic specific (recommending only a certain topic such as news) and often only allow access to the system using monolithic interfaces. This report hopes to detail the stages from research to evaluation involved in creating an extensible framework, which will operate without the need for human intervention. The framework will feature several proof-of-concept plugins residing in a custom workflow, which target information that is useful to the user. Information will be retrieved automatically through plugins involved with data gathering (such as feed processing and page scraping), while users’ interests will be obtained implicitly (for example, using header information to derive location) or explicitly (taking advantage of Social Network APIs such as Facebook Connect). Finally, Third Parties will be able to integrate the framework into their own solutions using the customisable XML API (written in PHP), so that their products can provide custom user interfaces without style constraints

Perceived stress among Sri Lankans during the economic crisis: an online survey

Background: The Sri Lankan population's mental health was undoubtedly significantly impacted by the county’s economic crisis. This study investigated the prevalence of perceived stress and its socio-demographic predictor.  Methods: A web-based cross-sectional survey was undertaken in July-August 2022, using google forms. The respondents were assessed for socio-demographics, and the level of stress experienced over the previous month. Ten-item self-reported perceived stress scale (PSS) was used to assess stress levels analysis. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis were used. Results: A total of 1214 respondents, aged ≥18 years were included in the survey. The majority were females (60%). The mean PSS score of this population was 21.95 ±6.09. More than half of the respondents reported moderate levels of stress (68.5%), while 23% registered high levels. A significant association was demonstrated between stress levels and variables age, gender, and residential area. Respondents below the age of 40 years (OR 1.936, 95% CI, 1.365-2.748, P<0.001) were more likely to report higher odds of having increased PSS scores, while men (OR 0.640, 95% CI, 0.491-0.835, P=0.001), and those without children (OR 0.556, 95% CI, 0.409-0.756, P<0.001) had significantly lower odds of reporting PSS. Conclusion: Respondents experienced moderate to high levels of stress during the financial crisis in Sri Lanka. Higher stress was predicted by younger age, female gender, and having children. The results highlight the urgent need for stress management interventions to boost resilience and improve psychological well-being in this situation.

noteEd - A web-based lecture capture system

Electronic capture and playback of lectures has long been the aim of many academic projects. Synote is an application developed under MACFoB (Multimedia Annotation and Community Folksonomy Building) project to synchronise the playback of lecture materials. However, Synote provides no functionality to capture such multimedia. This project involves the creation of a system called noteEd, which will capture a range of multimedia from lectures and make them available to Synote. This report describes the evolution of the noteEd project throughout the design and implementation of the proposed system. The performance of the system was checked in a user acceptance test with the customer, which is discussed after screenshots of our solution. Finally, the project management is presented containing a final project evaluation

Effect of Chia Flour Incorporation on the Nutritive Quality and Consumer Acceptance of Chips

Gluten free, antioxidant, calcium and dietary fibre rich, chia is known to contain the highest level of omega-3 available in any cultivated plant source. The objective of this research was to develop a high protein, high dietary fibre, gluten free and omega-3 fatty acid rich chips. Four different levels of whole chia flour (5%, 10%, 12%, and 15%) were incorporated to produce chia chip. There were no significant differences in appearance, colour, flavour and overall liking between a commercial chip sample and the 5% chia chips. The chemical analysis indicated that all four trial chips are excellent sources of omega-3 and the baking process has a limited impact on their nutritional profile. For optimal consumer acceptance and nutritional benefits, the incorporation of 5% chia is recommended. With limited chia based food products currently available, a chia chip would be a well-accepted and healthy alternative to the common unhealthy chips

Proceedings of the 38th Annual Biochemical Engineering Symposium

The 38th Annual Biochemical Engineering Symposium was held at the Pingree Park Campus and Conference Center, Colorado State University, 22-23 May 2009. The following institutions were represented; Colorado State University, Iowa State University, Kansas State University and the South Dakota School of Mines. This Proceeding contains papers based on most of the oral presentations. The first symposium was first held in 1971. It has been held annually since then except for a one year break. The following institutions have hosted the symposium. Contents History of the Annual Biochemical Engineering Symposium - Larry E. Erickson, Department of Chemical Engineering Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506 Enhanced Solid-Liquid Clarification of Lignocellulosic Slurries Using Polyelectrolyte Flocculating Agents - Devon R. Burke, Jason Anderson, Patrick C. Gilcrease and Todd J. Menkhaus, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SO 57701 Removal and Recovery of Inhibitory Compounds from Pine Slurry Hydrolysates using a Polyelectrolyte Flocculating Agent - Brian Carter, Todd J. Menkhaus, and Patrick C. Gilcrease Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SO 57701 The thioesterases: A new perspective based on their primary and tertiary structures - David C. Cantu, Yingfei Chen, and Peter J. Reilly Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, lA 50011 Tailoring Polysaccharide-Based Nanostructured Biomaterials for Guided Mesenchymal Stem Cell (MSC) Response - Jorge Almodóvar, Matt J. Kipper, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado State University, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1370 Nanoassembly of polysaccharide based polyelectrolytes: Tuning morphology and Size - Soheil Boddohit, Jorge Almodóvar, Hao Zhang, Patrick A. Johnson, and Matt J. Kipper, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado State University, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO, 80523, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie WY, 82071 Vertical Cell Assembly of Colloidal Crystal Films for Making Inverse Colloidal Crystal Membrane: A New Generation Ultrafiltration Membrane for Protein Separation - Xinying Wang, Scott M. Husson, Xianghong Qian, S. Ranil Wickramasinghe, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/bce_proceedings/1037/thumbnail.jp

Surface engineering for developing new membrane adsorbers

Significant increases in product titers during cell culture means that development of purification processes that can efficiently recover and purify high titer feed streams is a major challenge in the biopharmaceutical industry. On the other hand, introduction of new unit operations is complicated by the significant cost involved in meeting the regulatory requirements for validation and approval of a new unit operation. Recently the development of bio-similars or clones of products for which patent protection has expired, has provided an added competitive incentive for the development of low cost, high efficiency purification processes. Membrane adsorbers are routinely used in the downstream processing of biopharmaceuticals in flow through mode to remove contaminants e.g. host cell proteins, DNA and virus particles. Membrane adsorbers overcome the limitations of resin-based chromatography. Convective flow through the membrane pores overcomes the problems associated with slow internal pore diffusion that plagues resin particles. In addition, scale up of membrane devices is simpler than packed beds. Nevertheless use of membrane adsorbers in bind and elute mode remains limited. This presentation focuses on the importance of engineering membrane surface ligands in order to maximize capacity and recovery in bind and elute operation. Two examples are presented. Bisphosphonate derived ligands have been grafted from the surface of regenerated cellulose membranes. The capacity and flexibility of the ligands are enhanced by copolymerization of N(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide (HPMA). These ligands selectively bind arginine rich proteins. Binding studies indicate the importance of tailoring the three dimensional structure of the ligands in order to maximize capacity and recovery. The mechanism for poly(bisphosphonate-co-polyHMPA) binding has been determined by molecular dynamic simulations. The results obtained highlight the importance of the phosphonate groups as well as HPMA for strong binding interactions and high recoveries. The second example uses responsive ligands that change their conformation in response to changes in external conditions. Membrane based hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) has been conducted using poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL) and its copolymers grafted from the surface of regenerated cellulose membranes. PVCL displays a lower critical solution temperature (LCST). The LCST depends on salt type and concentration. At high salt concentration e.g. 1.8 M (NH4)2SO4, used during loading in HIC, the ligand is above its LCST. Consequently it adopts a dehydrated conformation enhancing protein binding. At low ionic strength, during elution, the ligand is below its LCST. It adopts a hydrated conformation leading to protein desorption