Enhancing Interaction Flow Modeling Language Metamodels for Designing Features of Rich Internet Applications

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) became to standard of interactive web applications on the internet fastly. It is a complex application with a rich user interface that distributed the data between client and server also allowing an asynchronous communication between them, but web engineering methods are not able to design and implement these features impeccably. The recent web engineering method is Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) which adopted by Object Management Group (OMG). It has many features for developing interactions in web application compared with other web engineering methods but also has limitation for designing RIA features. In this paper, we enhance IFML method through extension the metamodels by using UML extension mechanism, in which, we define new IFML metamodel and some new elements to cope RIA features designing in data distribution between client and server. The results show that this enhancement enables IFML to develop the new types of web applications efficiently

Quality Assessment of Borehole Water in-Terms of Selected Physicochemical Parameters in Maiduguri Urban Areas, Borno State, Nigeria

In Nigeria, over 120 million peoples use boreholes as their main source of drinking water and in-view of the increasing volume of solid waste materials in Maiduguri, it has become exigencies to evaluate the quality of borehole waters in the city. The objective of this paper is therefore to evaluate some physicochemical characteristic of borehole water samples in Maiduguri urban areas Borno State, Nigeria using standard methods. Result obtained revealed that the pH of all the water samples was within the range of 6.5 to 8.5 as recommended limit by World Health Organization (WHO). Except for the pH of borehole water at Bulumkutu ward which is acidic (6.2). The pHs of all the water from the three wards were alkaline. The total dissolved solid and the electrical conductivity of water samples from the three wards fall within the limit of WHO, except water samples from Ngarannam (1100 mg/l) and (2220 uS/cm). The concentration of major ions (Na, Mg and K) fall far below the WHO recommended limit and thus the water can said to be excellent in terms of these elements. Except for Cl ion (262 mg/g) at borehole water in Gwange ward fall above the permissible limit by WHO. The study recommends performing regular testing of different water sources within the study area to ensure that commensurate attention given is maintaining a healthy population

Comparative analysis of interaction flow modeling language tools

Modeling approaches based on standards are of paramount importance in the field of front-end design for web and mobile applications. Problems are often encountered during the selection of tools for designing applications for developers and researchers, particularly applications that are related to time and cost in the market and academia. The Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) is a recently standardized modeling language designed for managing the content expression, user interaction and behavior control of front-end applications. IFML brings several benefits to the development process of web and mobile front-end applications. Thus, several tools have been developed for the exploitation of technical artifacts offered by current specifications. In this study, we discuss the tools proposed for modeling IFML to provide a comparative analysis while considering various criteria. The result can be used as a basis of tool selection for specific aspects

The impact of dividend policy on the shareholders value of listed firms in the Nigerian petroleum marketing industry

Dividend policy is directed towards establishing the proportion of current income that should be retained in the firm and the proportion that should be distributed among its shareholders. This study, therefore, assessed the impact of dividend policy on the value of listed firms in the Nigerian petroleum marketing industry. six firms, out of eight that are quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) were selected as sample for the study. Data were collected from secondary sources. Annual reports and accounts of the selected firms, daily official lists and facts books of the NSE for the period of 2008-2017 form the source of the data. egression was used in analyzing the data. The findings revealed that payment of dividend by petroleum marketing firms in Nigeria positively influence the market price of their shares. Based on these findings, the study concluded that dividend policy of petroleum marketing firms in Nigeria affects the value of the firms. Based on this conclusion, the study recommends that management need to identify the shareholder’s interest in setting up a dividend policy that would balance their needs and retention for recapitalization to maximize value of the firms

Detection of Defects on Cold Rolling Mill (CRM) Rolls with Ultrasonic and Eddy Current Flaw Dectors

The service induced defects in CRM rolls, due to them being subjected to complex mechanical & thermal stresses in cold rolling of steel strips or coils, if not removed completely during roll grinding, become primarily respo-nsible for roll spalling. The high instances of roll spalling lead to increased specific roll consumption and production delays. The inspection of some 15-20% of CRM work rolls with portable Ultrasonic and Eddy Current flaw detectors was undertaken to detect and remove the service induced defects on surface & sub-surface regions of rolls which would otherwise have remained undetected leading to roll spalling and other associated failures. The incid-ences of spalling has reduced by up to 38% during the period of roll inspection compared to the spalling incid-ences in the prior periods of time leading to prolonged uses of rolls. Although no reduction in Specific Roll Consumption (SRC) has been observed, the loss of useful roll materials due to reduced incidences of spalling has reduced. The reduced occurences of roll spalling have also resulted in savings of premature roll changing time lead-ing to increased mill availibility

Time-Fractional KdV Equation: Formulation and Solution using Variational Methods

In this work, the semi-inverse method has been used to derive the Lagrangian of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. Then, the time operator of the Lagrangian of the KdV equation has been transformed into fractional domain in terms of the left-Riemann-Liouville fractional differential operator. The variational of the functional of this Lagrangian leads neatly to Euler-Lagrange equation. Via Agrawal's method, one can easily derive the time-fractional KdV equation from this Euler-Lagrange equation. Remarkably, the time-fractional term in the resulting KdV equation is obtained in Riesz fractional derivative in a direct manner. As a second step, the derived time-fractional KdV equation is solved using He's variational-iteration method. The calculations are carried out using initial condition depends on the nonlinear and dispersion coefficients of the KdV equation. We remark that more pronounced effects and deeper insight into the formation and properties of the resulting solitary wave by additionally considering the fractional order derivative beside the nonlinearity and dispersion terms.Comment: The paper has been rewritten, 12 pages, 3 figure

Correction: A european spectrum of pharmacogenomic biomarkers: Implications for clinical pharmacogenomics (PLoS ONE (2016) 11:9 (e0162866) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162866)

The thirty-Third author's name is spelled incorrectly. The correct name is: Jadranka Sertić

A European spectrum of pharmacogenomic biomarkers: Implications for clinical pharmacogenomics

Pharmacogenomics aims to correlate inter-individual differences of drug efficacy and/or toxicity with the underlying genetic composition, particularly in genes encoding for protein factors and enzymes involved in drug metabolism and transport. In several European populations, particularly in countries with lower income, information related to the prevalence of pharmacogenomic biomarkers is incomplete or lacking. Here, we have implemented the microattribution approach to assess the pharmacogenomic biomarkers allelic spectrum in 18 European populations, mostly from developing European countries, by analyzing 1,931 pharmacogenomics biomarkers in 231 genes. Our data show significant interpopulation pharmacogenomic biomarker allele frequency differences, particularly in 7 clinically actionable pharmacogenomic biomarkers in 7 European populations, affecting drug efficacy and/or toxicity of 51 medication treatment modalities. These data also reflect on the differences observed in the prevalence of high-risk genotypes in these populations, as far as common markers in the CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP3A5, VKORC1, SLCO1B1 and TPMT pharmacogenes are concerned. Also, our data demonstrate notable differences in predicted genotype-based warfarin dosing among these populations. Our findings can be exploited not only to develop guidelines for medical prioritization, but most importantly to facilitate integration of pharmacogenomics and to support pre-emptive pharmacogenomic testing. This may subsequently contribute towards significant cost-savings in the overall healthcare expenditure in the participating countries, where pharmacogenomics implementation proves to be cost-effective

Pituitary surgery for small prolactinomas as an alternative to treatment with dopamine agonists

Despite the fact that consensus guidelines recommend long-term dopamine agonist (DA) therapy as a first-line approach to the treatment of small prolactinoma, some patients continue to prefer a primary surgical approach. Concerns over potential adverse effects of long-term medical therapy and/or the desire to become pregnant and avoid long-term medication are often mentioned as reasons to pursue surgical removal. In this retrospective study, 34 consecutive patients (30 female, 4 male) preferably underwent primary pituitary surgery without prior DA treatment for small prolactinomas (microprolactinoma 1–10 mm, macroprolactinoma 11–20 mm) at the Department of Neurosurgery, University of Bern, Switzerland. At the time of diagnosis, 31 of 34 patients (91%) presented with symptoms. Patients with microprolactinomas had significantly lower preoperative prolactin (PRL) levels compared to patients with macroprolactinomas (median 143 μg/l vs. 340 μg/l). Ninety percent of symptomatic patients experienced significant improvement of their signs and symptoms upon surgery. The postoperative PRL levels (median 3.45 μg/l) returned to normal in 94% of patients with small prolactinomas. There was no mortality and no major morbidities. One patient suffered from hypogonadotropic hypogonadism after surgery despite postoperative normal PRL levels. Long-term remission was achieved in 22 of 24 patients (91%) with microprolactinomas, and in 8 of 10 patients (80%) with macroprolactinomas after a median follow-up period of 33.5 months. Patients with small prolactinomas can safely consider pituitary surgery in a specialized centre with good chance of long-term remission as an alternative to long-term DA therapy