Utility of mass spectrometry for the diagnosis of the unstable coronary plaque.

Mass spectrometry is a powerful technique that is used to identify unknown compounds, to quantify known materials, and to elucidate the structure and chemical properties of molecules. Recent advances in the accuracy and speed of the technology have allowed data acquisition for the global analysis of lipids from complex samples such as blood plasma or serum. Here, mass spectrometry as a tool is described, its limitations explained and its application to biomarker discovery in coronary artery disease is considered. In particular an application of mass spectrometry for the discovery of lipid biomarkers that may indicate plaque morphology that could lead to myocardial infarction is elucidated

Enumeration and estimation of insect attack fruits of some cultivars of Punica granatum.

In this study, five cultivars of Punica granatum identified (two of which are endemic, while the other three are new) were grown in certain farms at Al-Taif, Saudi Arabia. Enumeration to the insects attack its' fruits illustrated that, there are three insects, namely, Virchola livia, Ectomyelois ceratonia and Pseudococcus maitimus (or/and Pseudococcus citri) infested both cracked and healthy pomegranate fruits. The population density of immature stage of V. livia was noticed in healthy fruit more than cracked fruit, while E. ceratonia was shown the converse. Besides, there is high infection by the three insects at 2008 more than 2009. Measurement susceptibility of the five cultivars showed that, Al- Taif cultivar was the most resistant one to V. livia infestation, being 3.5 and 1.8% of immature stage/20 healthy or cracked fruits. While the most resistance one to immature stages of E. ceratonia was Wonderful-mangulatory cultivar recording infestation of 0.0 and 2.4% of immature stage/20 healthy or cracked fruits during 2008 and 2009.Key word: Pomegranate cultivars, Virchola livia, Ectomyelois ceratonia, mealy bugs, susceptibility

Allogeneic cell therapy bioprocess economics and optimization: downstream processing decisions

To develop a decisional tool to identify the most cost effective process flowsheets for allogeneic cell therapies across a range of production scales

Prevalence of Newcastle disease virus antibodies in sera and eggs of helmeted guinea fowls (Numida meleagris galeata pallas) in Borno and Yobe States, Nigeria

The seroprevalence and maternal antibody profiles to Newcastle disease virus infection of guinea fowls  were studied using haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, in Borno and Yobe States of Nigeria. Of 822 sera  and 354 egg yolk extracts tested, 327 (39.8%) and 242 (68.4%) were positive for NDV antibodies  respectively. The seroprevalence was significantly higher (P< 0.05) in the dry (47%) than in the rainy  (32.8%) seasons. Maternal antibodies in egg yolk extract (sampled during the rainy season), were  significantly (P< 0.05) higher (68.4%) than the seroprevalence. The frequency distribution of antibody  titers were skewed with 79.8% and 63.2 % of sera and egg yolk respectively having reciprocal antibody  titres ≤ 20. The geometric mean antibody titre was higher (P< 0.05) in the dry season (3.7±2.0) than in  the rainy season (2.5 ±1.7). The geometric mean titre was also higher (P<0.05) in egg (8.9±2.5) than in  sera (3.1±1.9). These results showed that Newcastle disease virus is enzootic among guinea fowls in Borno and Yobe states, especially in the dry season. The geometric mean titer of antibodies from egg yolk (8.9)  was below the protective reciprocal titres ≥35.4, suggesting the need for control measures immediately  after hatching. In addition, birds with titers ≤ 35.4 are partially immune and may shed the virus without a clinical disease when infected thereby becoming a risk to in-contact birds.Keywords: Egg, Guinea fowls, Maternal antibodies Newcastle disease, Seroprevalenc

Critical slowing down in an optical bistable model with Kerr-nonlinear blackbody reservoir

We investigate switching response for an Optical Bistable (OB) device consisting of homogeneously broadened two-level atoms in a ring cavity supported by a Kerr Nonlinear Blackbody (KNB) radiation reservoir in the high-Q cavity regime for both absorptive and dispersive cases. In the resonant case and below a transition temperature, faster switching processes for OB devices with KNB can be triggered by a small perturbation of the incident field in the vicinity of the critical transition point. The switching time increases with increasing atomic detuning parameter. A thermal switching process is obtained for a fixed incident field and is triggered by small perturbation in the relative reservoir temperature, say. The switching time is reduced considerably by slightly increasing the temperature . Comparison with other cases of radiation reservoir is made, namely, normal, thermal and squeezed vacuum

The global field of multi-family offices: An institutionalist perspective

We apply the notion of the organisational field to internationally operating multi-family offices. These organisations specialise on the preservation of enterprising and geographically dispersed families’ fortunes. They provide their services across generations and countries. Based on secondary data of Bloomberg’s Top 50 Family Offices, we show that they constitute a global organisational field that comprises two clusters of homogeneity. Clients may decide between two different configurations of activities, depending on their preferences regarding asset management, resource management, family management, and service architecture. The findings also reveal that multi-family offices make relatively similar value propositions all over the world. The distinctiveness of the clusters within the field is not driven by the embeddedness of the multi-family offices in different national environments or their various degrees of international experience. Rather, it is weakly affected by two out of four possible value propositions, namely the exclusiveness and the transparency of services

Micropropagation and production of eurycomanone, 9- methoxycanthin-6-one and canthin-6-one in roots of Eurycoma longifolia plantlets

Eurycoma longifolia or Tongkat Ali is a well known medicinal plant in Malaysia. The plants are used as main portion in herbal preparation, and have been extensively harvested. Generally, most of the raw materials required by the industries are heavily collected from the natural forests, thereby resulting in the uncontrolled exploitation of the plant in the wild. Hence, there is a need to ensure adequate supply of quality E. longifolia for the use of the related industries and for conservation purposes. Micropropagation has proved to be an alternative for the multiplication of medicinal and aromatic plants and it can allow the future commercial use of E. longifolia in the herbal industries. In this study, E. longifolia plantlets were successfully mass-produced using axillary shoot multiplication techniques, and the production of eurycomanone, 9-methoxycanthin-6-one and canthin-6-one compounds of E. longifolia were detected in roots of tissue culture plantlets.Key words: E. longifolia, Tongkat Ali, micropropagation, eurycomanone, 9-methoxycanthin-6-one, canthin-6- one

The effect of time delay on control stability of an electromagnetic active tuned mass damper for vibration control

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of time delays on the stability of a zero-placement position and velocity feedback law for a vibratory system comprising harmonic excitation equipped with an electromagnetic active tuned mass damper (ATMD). The purpose of the active control is broadening the vibration attenuation envelope of a primary mass to a higher frequency region identified as from 50±0.5Hz with a passive tuned mass damper (TMD) to a wider range of 50±5Hz with an ATMD. Stability conditions of the closed-loop system are determined by studying the position of the system closed-loop poles after the introduction of time delays for different excitation frequencies. A computer simulation of the model predicted that the proposed control system is subject to instability after a critical time delay margin dependent upon the frequency of excitation and the finding were experimentally validated. Three solutions are derived and experimentally tested for minimising the effect of time delays on the stability of the control system. The first solution is associated with the introduction of more damping in the absorber system. The second incorporates using a time-delayed ATMD by tuning its original natural resonant frequency to beyond the nominal operational frequency range of the composite system. The third involves an online gain tuning of filter coefficients in a dual arrangement of low-pass and high-pass filters to eliminate the effect time delays by manipulating the signal phase shifts

Deep Learning-Based Cell Outage Detection in Next Generation Networks

5G and beyond wireless networks will support high data rate, seem-less connectivity and a massive number of users as compared to 4G network. It is also expected that the end-to-end latency in transferring data will also reduce significantly, i.e., 5G will support ultra-low latency services. To provide the users with all these advantages, 5G utilizes the Ultra-Dense Networks (UDN) technique. UDN helps manage the explosive traffic data of users as multiple small cells are deployed in both indoor and outdoor areas, for seamless coverage. However, outage is difficult to detect in these small cells as these small cells have high density of users. To overcome this hindrance, Cell Outage Detection (COD) technique is utilized which aims to detect outage autonomously. This reduces maintenance cost and outages can be detected beforehand. In this paper, Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) is used for outage detection. The LSTM network is trained and tested on subscriber activities values which include SMS, Call and Internet activity. Our proposed LSTM model has classification accuracy of 85% and a FPR of 15.7303%