Investment analysis project for Petrofac Ltd.

My dissertation is an analysis for Petrofac which is a leading service provider to the oil and gas production and processing industry. The aim of this dissertation is to value the company and give a BUY or SELL or HOLD recommendation. The dissertation starts with a company overview, and I analyze it from the overall economics, industry and the Petrofac’s financial statement. The projection is based on the macroeconomics, industry and the Petrofac’s development goal. The valuation in the final part is based on the projection by using Discount Dividend Model, Discount Cash Model and Abnormal Earnings Model. The final conclusion of the share price is given as BUY.A minha dissertação consiste numa análise para a Petrofac, empresa líder no fornecimento para a produção de petróleo e gás. O principal objectivo desta dissertação é avaliar a firma mencionada e emitir uma recomendação de BUY, SELL ou HOLD. Começarei por dar uma visão geral e analisar de forma global a indústria, a empresa ao nível financeiro e operacional. A projeção é baseada em factores macroeconômicos, industriais e nos objectivos de desenvolvimento da Petrofac’s. A avaliação apresentada na parte final é efectuada através do Dividend Discount Model, Discount Cash Model e Abnromal Earns Model. A conclusão final dada o preço actual da ação é BUY

Quality of Community Sports Service Distribution and Behavior Intention of the Elderly

The purpose of this study was to explore the quality of community sports distribution service through the evaluation and satisfaction of the elderly in Yangpu District of Shanghai on the quality of community sports service and explore the relationship between the quality of community sports distribution service, satisfaction, and behavioral intention. Data were collected by using surveys and analyzed using mathematical statistics. The survey refers to SERVPERF model to design a six-dimension, intermediary variable satisfaction and behavioral intention five-point scale for the service quality of community sports distribution. The sample size was 261. SPSS25.0 was used to conduct data analysis. Reliability and validity test and correlation analysis of service quality and satisfaction and behavior intention of the elderly were conducted. The Cronbach\u27s Alpha value of the scale was 0.932. The KMO value was above 0.8, and Bartlett sphericity test was significant, indicating high reliability and validity of the scale. The analysis results showed that the mean values of the six dimensions of service quality and satisfaction were higher than 4.2, indicating that the elderly had a high evaluation of community sports distribution service quality. Community sports service delivery service quality dimensions and satisfaction and behavior intention between different degree of correlation, in addition to the tangibility of community sports service reliability of distribution service quality, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and practicality for older people to participate in community sports service satisfaction and behavior intention of distribution had significant positive correlations. More women than men participated in community sports service delivery among the elderly since most of the delivery items are dance and martial arts. The elderly had a good participation in community sports service distribution, with the frequency and duration of weekly participation basically meeting the requirements of China\u27s sports population within 4-5 years. They had more than 30 minutes of moderate intensity training at least three times a week. According to the evaluation and satisfaction of the elderly on the service quality of community sports service delivery, community sports service delivery was of high service quality. The service quality of community sports service delivery had a positive impact on the sustainability of elderly people\u27s participation in community sports service delivery, and they were willing to recommend it to people around them to participate. Community sports service distribution activities should be publicized and promoted on the Internet so that more people can participate in the willingness

Theoretical Investigation of the Black-body Zeeman Shift for Microwave Atomic Clocks

With the development of microwave atomic clocks, the Zeeman shifts for the spectral lines of black-body radiation need to be investigated carefully. In this Letter, the frequency shifts of hyperfine splittings of atomic ground states due to the magnetic field of black-body radiation are reported. The relative frequency shifts of different alkali atoms and alkali-like ions, which could be candidates of microwave atomic clocks, were calculated. The results vary from $-0.977\times10^{-17}[T(K)/300]^{2}$ to $-1.947\times10^{-17}[T(K)/300]^{2}$ for different atoms considered. These results are consistent with previous work but with greater precision, detailed derivations, and a clear physical picture

Intelligent Agents for Negotiation and Recommendation in Mass Customization

Mass customization, as a means to meet individual consumer’s need on a large scale, has recently attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners. However, as customers and their needs grow increasingly diverse, meeting every consumer’s need has become a surefire way to add unnecessary cost and complexity to operations. Furthermore, consumers are not all really ready for mass customization. They have to face inconveniences such as expensive price, delay delivery and they have to spend time “designing” their product. In order to solve this problem, we proposed a way of intelligent agent assisted negotiation and recommendation. The recommendation is a preference elicitation process, while the negotiation is a communication process based on the situation of manufacturer, such as the inventory level, production cost and lead time. With the aid of intelligent agent of negotiation and recommendation, a good balance between efficiency and customer satisfactions of mass customization can be reached

Effect of fucoidan on B16 murine melanoma cell melanin formation and apoptosis

Background：Fucoidan is a complex sulfated polysaccharide extracted from brown seaweed and has a wide variety of biological activities. It not only inhibits cancer cell growth but also inhibits tyrosinase in vitro. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate the effect of fucoidan on B16 murine melanoma cells as the findings may provide new insights into the underlying mechanism regarding the inhibition of melanin formation by fucoidan. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the anti-melanogenic effect of fucoidan and its inhibitory effect on B16 cells.Materials and Methods: The influence of fucoidan on B16 melanoma cells and cellular tyrosinase was examined. Cell viability was examined by the cell counting kit-8 assay. Cellular tyrosinase activity and melanin content were determined using spectrophotometric methods and protein expression was analyzed by immunoblotting. Morphological changes in B16 melanoma cells were examined by phase contrast microscopy and apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry.Results: In vitro studies were performed using cell viability analysis and showed that fucoidan significantly decreased viable cell number in a dose-response manner with an IC50 of 550 ±4.3 μg/mL. Cell morphology was altered and significant apoptosis was induced when cells were exposed to 550 μg/mL fucoidan for 48 h.Conclusion: This study provides substantial evidence to show that fucoidan inhibits B16 melanoma cell proliferation and cellular tyrosinase activity. Fucoidan may be useful in the treatment of hyperpigmentation and as a skin-whitening agent in the cosmetics industry.Keywords: B16 melanoma cells, Fucoidan, Melanogenesis, Tyrosinas

MicroRNA miR-103a-3p targets NPAS3 to regulate progression of Alzheimer’s disease

Purpose: This study aimed at investigating miR-103a-3p expression, functional roles and underlying mechanism in regulating Alzheimer’s progression.Methods: RT-qPCR was used to assessed miR-103a-3p and NPAS3 expression in human neuroblastoma cells. Cell transfection of overexpressed or knocked down genes and CCK-8 assay measured cell viability while RT-qPCR was used to detect proliferation and apoptosis in biomarkers, Ki87 and PCNA, caspase-8 and caspase-3, respectively. Furthermore, luciferase assay was used to evaluate the luciferase activity while western blotting  analysis was applied to determine protein biomarkers regarding proliferation and apoptosis.Results: Expression of miR-103a-3p decreased but NPAS3 increased in AD cell lines. Overexpressed miR-103a-3p attenuated cell viability and NPAS3 bound miR-103a-3p to regulate AD progression. The inhibitory effect of miRNA on cell viability in AD was reversed by NPAS3.Conclusion: miR-103a-3p/NPAS3 might help to enrich knowledge on treatment of AD. Keywords: Alzheimer’s development, cell growth, cell proliferatio

On-Farm-Produced Organic Amendments on Maintaining and Enhancing Soil Fertility and Nitrogen Availability in Organic or Low Input Agriculture

Maintaining and enhancing soil fertility are key issues for sustainability in an agricultural system with organic or low input methods. On-farm–produced green manure as a source of soil organic matter (SOM) plays a critical role in long-term productivity. But producing green manure requires land and water; thus, increasing biodiversity, such as by intercropping with green manure crops, could be an approach to enhance the efficiency of renewable resources especially in developing countries. This article discusses soil fertility and its maintenance and enhancement with leguminous intercropping from four points of view: soil fertility and organic matter function, leguminous green manure, intercropping principles, and soil conservation. Important contributions of leguminous intercropping include SOM enhancement and fertility building, biological nitrogen (N) and other plant nutrition availability. Under a well-designed and managed system, competition between the target and intercropping crops can be reduced. The plant uptake efficiency of biologically fixed N is estimated to be double that of industrial N fertilizers. After N-rich plant residues are incorporated into soil, the carbon (C):nitrogen ratio of added straw decreases. Another high mitigation potential of legume intercropping lies in soil conservation by preventing soil and water erosion. Many opportunities exist to introduce legumes in short-term rotation, intercropping, living mulch, and cover crops in an organically managed farm system. Worldwide, long-term soil fertility enhancement remains a challenge due to the current world population and agricultural practices. Cropping system including legumes is a step in the right direction to meeting the needs of food security and sustainability

Cloning of neuraminidase (NA) gene and identification of its antiviral activity

Neuraminidase not only works as an antigen, inducing target-specific antibodies, but also plays a role of  enzyme activity and destroys the sialic acid receptor required by virus infection of the host cell surface which  protects the host from virus damage. In order to explore a new idea to use neuraminidase (NA) gene and  produce disease-resistant transgenic poultry, prokaryotic expression vector pGEX-NA was constructed to  make NA polyclone antibody. Eukaryotic expression vector pcDNA3.0-NA and pcDNA3.0/EGFP-NA was  constructed to reveal its subcelluar location by immunofluorescence and enhanced green fluorescent fusion  protein (EGFP). Chicken embryonic fibroblast (CEF) cells were transfected with pcDNA3.0-NA and selected by  G418 for two weeks, the transfected cells were challenged by Newcastle disease virus (NDV), the morphology of CEF cells were observed to detect the antiviral ability of NA gene. CEF cells were incubated by the cell  lysates extracted from the NIH 3T3 cells, which were transfected with pcDNA3.0-NA. The results show that  pGEX-NA could express NA protein in vitro and NA polyclone antibody worked very well; immunofluorescence and EGFP fusion protein revealed that NA protein located at the cytoplasm near the membrane; NDV-CEF  inhibition experiment showed the NA protein could resist and delayed CEF cells from NDV infection.Key words: Neuraminidase (NA), newcastle disease virus (NDV), antiviral activity, chicken embryonic fibroblast (CEF)