Techniques for the Fast Simulation of Models of Highly dependable Systems

With the ever-increasing complexity and requirements of highly dependable systems, their evaluation during design and operation is becoming more crucial. Realistic models of such systems are often not amenable to analysis using conventional analytic or numerical methods. Therefore, analysts and designers turn to simulation to evaluate these models. However, accurate estimation of dependability measures of these models requires that the simulation frequently observes system failures, which are rare events in highly dependable systems. This renders ordinary Simulation impractical for evaluating such systems. To overcome this problem, simulation techniques based on importance sampling have been developed, and are very effective in certain settings. When importance sampling works well, simulation run lengths can be reduced by several orders of magnitude when estimating transient as well as steady-state dependability measures. This paper reviews some of the importance-sampling techniques that have been developed in recent years to estimate dependability measures efficiently in Markov and nonMarkov models of highly dependable system

Antimicrobial drug sensitivity pattern of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in respiratory infections

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative pathogen commonly associated with nosocomial infections is the most widespread multidrug-resistant pathogen causing pneumonia in hospitalized patients. Inadequate empirical therapy has been associated with high mortality and morbidity. Objective: To evaluate and analyze the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of P. aeruginosa in respiratory infections in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: The study was carried out at Kasturba Hospital, Manipal from Jan 2011 to Dec 2011. Specimens of 63 in-patients were analyzed who were culture positive for P. aeruginosa.Results: Majority of patients were aged above 40yrs with a male preponderance. Specimens were taken from patients who were diagnosed with bronchiectasis, pneumonia, COPD, bronchial asthma etc. Overall the organism was most sensitive to carbapenems (87.3%) followed by cefoperazone-sulbactam combination (85.7%). Sensitivity to ceftazidime and cefepime was equal (82.5%) and was more when compared to piperacillin-tazobactam (81.5%). Overall resistance rate was highest for fluoroquinolones (23.8%) followed by aztreonam (22.2%).Conclusions: Hence we would like to recommend cefoperazone-sulbactam as the preferred antipseudomonal agent and carbapenems as reserved drugs in treating pseudomonal lung infections. Use of fluoroquinolones and aztreonam as monotherapy in resistant P. aeruginosa infections should be restricted

Role of leptin and its receptors in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer

Leptin is a multifunctional adipose-derived cytokines that play a critical role in bodyweight homeostasis and energy balance. Recently, leptin and leptin receptor dysreulation have been reported in variety of malignant cells including thyroid. Leptin modulates growth and proliferation of cancer cells via activation of various growth and survival signaling pathways including JAK/STAT, PI3-kinase/AKT and/or Map kinases. In this review, current understanding of leptin\u27s role in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer has been described

IN-VIVO CHARACTERIZATION OF TOTAL PROTEIN, ALBUMIN CONTENT, LIPID PROFILE AND ENZYMATIC PROPERTY OF BALAJIRAKADI KVATHA CURNA (BLJ) IN ALBINO RAT PLASMA

The study was devised to evaluate the effect of total protein, albumin content, enzymatic property and lipid profile in rats plasma after chronic administration of Balajirakadi Kvatha Curna (BLJ), a classical Ayurvedic preparation that is widely used in cough. The drug was administered per oral route at a dose of 40 ml/kg of the body weight for 45 consecutive days. Eight-week old albino rats (Rattus novergicus : Sprague - Dawley strain,) of both sexes, bred and maintained at the Animal House of the Department of Pharmacy, Jahangirnagar University were used for the experiment. All experiments on rats were carried out in absolute compliance with the ethical guide for care and use of laboratory animals. After the administration of BLJ preparation for a period of 45 days, the following biochemical parameters (protein, albumin, triglyceride, cholesterol, LDL, VLDL, HDL, sGPT sGOT and ALP) in the plasma of both the male and female rats were determined. An increased level of Total protein, the Albumin content and triglyceride in the plasma found in the both male and female rats, none of these changes were significantly different from their corresponding control values but noticeable. On the contrary in both female and male rats the decreased level in the total Cholesterol, VLDL, LDL and HDL was noticed and among which Total Cholesterol and VLDL are significant. Surprisingly the LDL content was almost similar to the corresponding control value and decrease in HDL was not significant. A statistically very highly significant increase in the sGPT sGOT and ALP activities in the plasma of male rats was found while in the female rats it has been showed a statistically very highly significant decrease in sGPT and sGOT but ALP activities in the plasma was statistically insignificant

A Brief Review on Thermal Behaviour of PANI as Additive in Heat Transfer Fluid

Since a decade ago, investigation on nanofluids has grown significantly owing to its enhanced thermal properties compared to conventional heat transfer fluids. This engineered nanofluid has been widely used in the thermal engineering system to improve their energy consumption by improving the thermal efficiency of the system. The addition of nano-size particles as additives dispersed in the base fluids proved to significantly either improve or diminish the behaviour of the base fluids. The behaviour of the base fluid highly depends on the properties of the additives material, such as morphology, size, and volume fraction. Among the variety of nanoparticles studied, the conducting polymers have been subject of high interest due to its high environmental stability, good electrical conductivity, antimicrobial, anti-corrosion property and significantly cheap compared to other nanoparticles. As such, the main objective of the present review is to provide an overview of the work performed on thermal properties performance of conducting polymers based nanofluids

A brief review on thermal behaviour of PANI as additive in heat transfer fluid

Since a decade ago, investigation on nanofluids has grown significantly owing to its enhanced thermal properties compared to conventional heat transfer fluids. This engineered nanofluid has been widely used in the thermal engineering system to improve their energy consumption by improving the thermal efficiency of the system. The addition of nano-size particles as additives dispersed in the base fluids proved to significantly either improve or diminish the behaviour of the base fluids. The behaviour of the base fluid highly depends on the properties of the additives material, such as morphology, size, and volume fraction. Among the variety of nanoparticles studied, the conducting polymers have been subject of high interest due to its high environmental stability, good electrical conductivity, antimicrobial, anti-corrosion property and significantly cheap compared to other nanoparticles. As such, the main objective of the present review is to provide an overview of the work performed on thermal properties performance of conducting polymers based nanofluids

Effects of brand awareness, religious belief, and brand trust on purchase intentions of halal products among young consumers

Halal brands are gaining popularity among Muslim consumers across the world. This study aims to explore the effect of brand awareness, religious belief, and brand trust on young Muslim consumers’ willingness to purchase halal-branded products. The electronic questionnaires were distributed to participants through Google Forms via a popular social media platform. The survey sample consisted of university students from Bangladesh who identified as Muslims. The paper utilized a purposive sampling technique to select participants for the study, resulting in a total of 517 respondents being included in the sample. Finally, 479 responses were found usable for this study, with a response rate of 92.70%. Among 479, 300 participants were male, while 179 students were female university students. The latest edition of the software SPSS has been employed to examine hypotheses and correlations, with a confidence level of 95%. The results showed a significant impact of brand awareness, religious belief, and brand trust on purchase willingness. Moreover, it indicates that consumers’ brand awareness about halal products (β = 0.392) has a greater effect on their purchase willingness. These findings have the potential to provide valuable insights for halal brands, as they can have a substantial impact on the purchasing choices of young Muslim consumers, particularly regarding their religious and halal concerns

Anisotropic Vortex Dynamics Related to Screening Currents and Microwave Currents under Magnetic Fields on High T C Superconductors

Abstract Modulated microwave absorption (MA) was measured under magnetic field sweeping at liquid nitrogen temperature on superconducting c-oriented and a-oriented YBCO thin films for various filed configurations. The both samples show strong low-field MA peaks resulted from the surface Meissner current. The MAs for the perpendicular field to the superconducting plane increase with increasing the sweep rate, indicating the stronger transient screening current due to viscous vortex motion. Anisotropic vortex dynamics were clarified on the a-YBCO

Boron nitride doped polyhydroxyalkanoate/chitosan nanocomposite for antibacterial and biological applications

The present research focused on the fabrication of biocompatible polyhydroxyalkanoate, chitosan, and hexagonal boron nitride incorporated (PHA/Ch-hBN) nanocomposites through a simple solvent casting technique. The fabricated nanocomposites were comprehensively characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (FT-IR), field emission scanning electroscope (FESEM), and elemental mapping and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The antibacterial activity of nanocomposites were investigated through time-kill method against multi drug resistant (MDR) microbes such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) K1 strains. In addition, nanocomposites have examined for their host cytotoxicity abilities using a Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay against spontaneously immortalized human keratinocytes (HaCaT) cell lines. The results demonstrated highly significant antibacterial activity against MDR organisms and also significant cell viability as compared to the positive control. The fabricated PHA/Ch-hBN nanocomposite demonstrated effective antimicrobial and biocompatibility properties that would feasibly suit antibacterial and biomedical applications

Minimisation of image watermarking side effects through subjective optimisation

This study investigates the use of structural similarity index (SSIM) on the minimised side effect to image watermarking. For the fast implementation and more compatibility with the standard discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based codecs, watermark insertion is carried out on the DCT coefficients and hence an SSIM model for DCT-based watermarking is developed. For faster implementation, the SSIM index is maximised over independent 4 × 4 non-overlapped blocks, but the disparity between the adjacent blocks reduces the overall image quality. This problem is resolved through optimisation of overlapped blocks, but, the higher image quality is achieved at a cost of high computational complexity. To reduce the computational complexity while preserving the good quality, optimisation of semi-overlapped blocks is introduced. The authors show that while SSIM-based optimisation over overlapped blocks has as high as 64 times the complexity of the 4 × 4 non-overlapped method, with semi-overlapped optimisation the high quality of overlapped method is preserved only at a cost of less than 8 times the non-overlapped method