Forecasting of water intake and supply in water plant in Johor

The safety and availability of water are important for public health, domestic use, food, and drink production process. Since water is essential in daily life, the demand for water intake and water supply are increasing. Moreover, it must be ensured that the water intake is sufficient to supply water towards the consumers. This is vital to avoid water scarcity in society. Thus, the main objective of this research is to forecast the water intake and water supply by adopting exponential smoothing and Box-Jenkins methods. Then, the forecast performance is evaluated by using mean error (ME), mean absolute scaled error (MASE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). Further, the best model is used to forecast water intake and water supply for the next seven days. The daily data for three years of water intake and water supply in one of the water plants in Johor was collected. The forecast capabilities of the two different methods were compared. Both methods are fitted well but, in overall, the triple exponential smoothing method is outperformed compared to the Box-Jenkins method. This is due to the exponential smoothing method to produce less MAPE and ME values. Both datasets shared the same model which imply the water treatment system used is stable and in good condition. Besides, the water intake and water supply by using triple exponential smoothing method is predicted to be decreased in the following seven days

MATLAB*G: A Grid-Based Parallel MATLAB

This paper describes the design and implementation of MATLAB*G, a parallel MATLAB on the ALiCE Grid. ALiCE (Adaptive and scaLable internet-based Computing Engine), developed at NUS, is a lightweight grid-computing middleware. Grid applications in ALiCE are written in Java and use the distributed shared memory programming model. Utilizing existing MATLAB functions, MATLAB*G provides distributed matrix computation to the user through a set of simple commands. Currently two forms of parallelism for distributed matrix computation are implemented: task parallelism and job parallelism. Experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of MATLAB*G on each type of parallelism. Results indicate that for large matrix sizes MATLAB*G can be a faster alternative to sequential MATLAB.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Expression of human cathepsin B protein in Escherichia coli

AbstractA cDNA fragment containing the coding sequence for the mature enzyme of human lysosomal proteinase cathepsin B was inserted in the pET plasmid expression vectors, so that it was placed under the control of transcription and translation signals from bacteriophage T7. Upon induction, cathepsin B antigen was detected by in situ immunoscreening of lysed E. coli and by Western blot analysis of bacterial lysates. To our knowledge this is the first report of abundant synthesis of cloned cathepsin B in any expression system. Subfragments of cathepsin B can also be generated by this technique and will be used to study cathepsin B structure and function

Citizenship as perceived in the social media during the civil disobedience movement

Before the happening of Umbrella Movement, a civil disobedience movement in September 2014, political engagement of Hongkongers was not in a high priority. With the emphasis on economic prosperity and materialistic life, most of Hong Kong people seldom take risk to strike for political rights through unlawful action. However, in this occupying movement, over 10,000 participants occupied the road and protested for more participation in Chief Executive Election 2017. After the start of Umbrella movement, social media become the most vital communication tool that speeded information and provided a platform for citizen to discuss their viewpoints towards this social movement. With the fast pace of information flow, political discourse in social media with various aims, use of language and structure become influential factors on shaping the online citizenship. Although citizenship is an abstract concept, nurturing ‘good citizen’ is necessary to build up a civic society with democracy system. In this study, we are going to examine the pattern of various citizenship in social media and understand the formation of those citizenship concepts, therefore we can take advantages of motivate the citizen towards the solution of conflicts and maximize the social good.published_or_final_versionEducationBachelorBachelor of Education in Liberal Studie

Rapid, efficient, and economical synthesis of PET tracers in a droplet microreactor: application to O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine ([18F]FET).

BackgroundConventional scale production of small batches of PET tracers (e.g. for preclinical imaging) is an inefficient use of resources. Using O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine ([18F]FET), we demonstrate that simple microvolume radiosynthesis techniques can improve the efficiency of production by consuming tiny amounts of precursor, and maintaining high molar activity of the tracers even with low starting activity.ProceduresThe synthesis was carried out in microvolume droplets manipulated on a disposable patterned silicon "chip" affixed to a heater. A droplet of [18F]fluoride containing TBAHCO3 was first deposited onto a chip and dried at 100 °C. Subsequently, a droplet containing 60 nmol of precursor was added to the chip and the fluorination reaction was performed at 90 °C for 5 min. Removal of protecting groups was accomplished with a droplet of HCl heated at 90 °C for 3 min. Finally, the crude product was collected in a methanol-water mixture, purified via analytical-scale radio-HPLC and formulated in saline. As a demonstration, using [18F]FET produced on the chip, we prepared aliquots with different molar activities to explore the impact on preclinical PET imaging of tumor-bearing mice.ResultsThe microdroplet synthesis exhibited an overall decay-corrected radiochemical yield of 55 ± 7% (n = 4) after purification and formulation. When automated, the synthesis could be completed in 35 min. Starting with < 370 MBq of activity, ~ 150 MBq of [18F]FET could be produced, sufficient for multiple in vivo experiments, with high molar activities (48-119 GBq/μmol). The demonstration imaging study revealed the uptake of [18F]FET in subcutaneous tumors, but no significant differences in tumor uptake as a result of molar activity differences (ranging 0.37-48 GBq/μmol) were observed.ConclusionsA microdroplet synthesis of [18F]FET was developed demonstrating low reagent consumption, high yield, and high molar activity. The approach can be expanded to tracers other than [18F]FET, and adapted to produce higher quantities of the tracer sufficient for clinical PET imaging

Modeling Paying Behavior in Game Social Networks

Online gaming is one of the largest industries on the Internet, generating tens of billions of dollars in revenues annually. One core problem in online game is to find and convert free users into paying customers, which is of great importance for the sustainable development of almost all online games. Although much research has been conducted, there are still several challenges that remain largely unsolved: What are the fundamental factors that trigger the users to pay? How does users? paying behavior influence each other in the game social network? How to design a prediction model to recognize those potential users who are likely to pay? In this paper, employing two large online games as the basis, we study how a user becomes a new paying user in the games. In particular, we examine how users' paying behavior influences each other in the game social network. We study this problem from various sociological perspectives including strong/weak ties, social structural diversity and social influence. Based on the discovered patterns, we propose a learning framework to predict potential new payers. The framework can learn a model using features associated with users and then use the social relationships between users to refine the learned model. We test the proposed framework using nearly 50 billion user activities from two real games. Our experiments show that the proposed framework significantly improves the prediction accuracy by up to 3-11% compared to several alternative methods. The study also unveils several intriguing social phenomena from the data. For example, influence indeed exists among users for the paying behavior. The likelihood of a user becoming a new paying user is 5 times higher than chance when he has 5 paying neighbors of strong tie. We have deployed the proposed algorithm into the game, and the Lift_Ratio has been improved up to 196% compared to the prior strategy

Laparoendoscopic Single-Site Surgery (LESS) for a Large Ovarian Tumour: First Clinical Case Report

Objective. To report the feasibility of removing a 10 cm ovarian fibroma via a laparoendoscopic single-site trocar through trans-umbilical access. Design. Case report. Setting. Teaching and research hospital. Patient. A 64-year-old patient affected by a large 10 cm ovarian tumour. Intervention(s). Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy a large 10 cm ovarian tumour, using a laparoendoscopic single-site approach with a Covidien SILS multitrocar access device and standard laparoscopic instruments. Main Outcome Measure(s). Conversion to standard laparoscopic technique or laparotomy, estimated blood loss, operative time , extent of scarring, occurrence of intra- and perioperative surgical complications, technical adequacy, and clinical outcome. Result(s). No conversion to standard laparoscopic technique or laparotomy, and no intraoperative or postoperative complications were observed. Total operative time was 99 minutes. The patient was discharged home on postoperative day one. Conclusion(s). Laparoendoscopic single-site bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy of a large ovarian tumour is feasible with standard laparoscopic instruments. It is safe and effective, with good results in terms of excellent cosmesis and minimal postoperative pain

Synthesis and Cell Adhesive Properties of Linear and Cyclic RGD Functionalized Polynorbornene Thin Films

Described herein is the efficient synthesis and evaluation of bioactive arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) functionalized polynorbornene-based materials for cell adhesion and spreading. Polynorbornenes containing either linear or cyclic RGD peptides were synthesized by ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) using the well-defined ruthenium initiator [(H_(2)IMes)(pyr)_(2)(Cl)_(2)Ru═CHPh]. The random copolymerization of three separate norbornene monomers allowed for the incorporation of water-soluble polyethylene glycol (PEG) moieties, RGD cell recognition motifs, and primary amines for postpolymerization cross-linking. Following polymer synthesis, thin-film hydrogels were formed by cross-linking with bis(sulfosuccinimidyl) suberate (BS^3), and the ability of these materials to support human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) adhesion and spreading was evaluated and quantified. When compared to control polymers containing either no peptide or a scrambled RDG peptide, polymers with linear or cyclic RGD at varying concentrations displayed excellent cell adhesive properties in both serum-supplemented and serum-free media. Polymers with cyclic RGD side chains maintained cell adhesion and exhibited comparable integrin binding at a 100-fold lower concentration than those carrying linear RGD peptides. The precise control of monomer incorporation enabled by ROMP allows for quantification of the impact of RGD structure and concentration on cell adhesion and spreading. The results presented here will serve to guide future efforts for the design of RGD functionalized materials with applications in surgery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine

Transcriptome profiling of endothelial cells during infections with high and low densities of Candida albicans cells

Systemic infections of Candida albicans, the most prevalent fungal pathogen in humans, are on the rise in recent years. However, the exact mode of pathogenesis of this fungus is still not well elucidated. Previous studies using C. albicans mutants locked into the yeast form via gene deletion found that this form was avirulent and did not induce significant differential expression of host genes in vitro. In this study, a high density of C. albicans was used to infect human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), resulting in yeast-form infections, whilst a low density of C. albicans resulted in hyphae infections. Transcriptional profiling of HUVEC response to these infections showed that high densities of C. albicans induced a stronger, broader transcriptional response from HUVEC than low densities of C. albicans infection. Many of the genes that were significantly differentially expressed were involved in apoptosis and cell death. In addition, conditioned media from the high-density infections caused a significant reduction in HUVEC viability, suggesting that certain molecules released during C. albicans and HUVEC interactions were capable of causing cell death. This study has shown that C. albicans yeast-forms, at high densities, cannot be dismissed as avirulent, but instead could possibly contribute to C. albicans pathogenesis