Variants of CTGF are associated with hepatic fibrosis in Chinese, Sudanese, and Brazilians infected with Schistosomes

Abnormal fibrosis occurs during chronic hepatic inflammations and is the principal cause of death in hepatitis C virus and schistosome infections. Hepatic fibrosis (HF) may develop either slowly or rapidly in schistosome-infected subjects. This depends, in part, on a major genetic control exerted by genes of chromosome 6q23. A gene (connective tissue growth factor [CTGF]) is located in that region that encodes a strongly fibrogenic molecule. We show that the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs9402373 that lies close to CTGF is associated with severe HF (P = 2 × 10−6; odds ratio [OR] = 2.01; confidence interval of OR [CI] = 1.51–2.7) in two Chinese samples, in Sudanese, and in Brazilians infected with either Schistosoma japonicum or S. mansoni. Furthermore, SNP rs12526196, also located close to CTGF, is independently associated with severe fibrosis (P = 6 × 10−4; OR = 1.94; CI = 1.32–2.82) in the Chinese and Sudanese subjects. Both variants affect nuclear factor binding and may alter gene transcription or transcript stability. The identified variants may be valuable markers for the prediction of disease progression, and identify a critical step in the development of HF that could be a target for chemotherapy

Electro-osmotic flow of couple stress fluids in a microchannel propagated by peristalsis

A mathematical model is developed for electro-osmotic peristaltic pumping of a non-Newtonian liquid in a deformable micro-channel. Stokes’ couple stress fluid model is deployed to represent realistic working liquids. The Poisson-Boltzmann equation for electric potential distribution is implemented owing to the presence of an electrical double layer (EDL) in the micro-channel. Using long wavelength, lubrication theory and Debye-Huckel approximations, the linearized transformed dimensionless boundary value problem is solved analytically. The influence of electro-osmotic parameter (inversely proportional to Debye length), maximum electro-osmotic velocity (a function of external applied electrical field) and couple stress parameter on axial velocity, volumetric flow rate, pressure gradient, local wall shear stress and stream function distributions is evaluated in detail with the aid of graphs. The Newtonian fluid case is retrieved as a special case with vanishing couple stress effects. With increasing couple stress parameter there is a significant elevation in axial pressure gradient whereas the core axial velocity is reduced. An increase in electro-osmotic parameter induces both flow acceleration in the core region (around the channel centreline) and also enhances axial pressure gradient substantially. The study is relevant to simulation of novel smart bio-inspired space pumps, chromatography and medical microscale devices

Application of Quality of Experience in Networked Services: Review, Trend & Perspectives

Full text embargoed until 17.10.2019 (publisher's embargo period, 12 months

Intelligent multi-objective classifier for breast cancer diagnosis based on multilayer perceptron neural network and differential evolution

Diagnosis of breast cancer disease depends on human experience. It is time consuming and has an element of human error in the results. This paper presents an intelligent multi-objective classifier to Diagnose breast cancer diseases using multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network with Differential Evolution technique. The Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm is used to solve multi-objective optimization problems by tuning MLP neural network parameters. The proposed intelligent multi-objective classifier is used for diagnosis of breast cancer disease. In addition, it utilizes the advantages of multi-objective differential evolution to optimize the number of hidden nodes in the hidden layer of the MLP neural network and also to reduce network error rate. The results indicate that the proposed intelligent multi-objective classifier is viable in breast cancer diagnosis

Epidemiology of ocular emergencies in the Egyptian population: a five-year retrospective study

Hany E El-Mekawey¹, Khaled G Abu El Einen¹, Mohammad Abdelmaboud¹, Amr Khafagy¹, Eman M Eltahlawy²¹Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, ²National Research Center, Cairo, EgyptBackground: The purpose of this study was to determine the epidemiology of ocular lesions seen in the ophthalmic casualty room of the largest referral hospital in Egypt over 5 years from 2004 to 2008.Methods: This epidemiologic database study used the medical records at Cairo University Hospital. Data were recorded using the ICD10 classification. Statistical analysis was based on diagnosis, age, gender, residential area, and year of admission.Results: Over 5 years, 8361 ocular emergencies were admitted as inpatients. Open globe injuries were the most prevalent, comprising 33.46% of emergencies. Most cases were males (69%), in whom the most frequent lesions were open globe injuries, infective keratitis, and lid injuries. The most common ocular emergencies in females were open globe injuries, infective keratitis, endophthalmitis, and glaucoma. The age group 6–16 years accounted for 24% of emergencies, and patients over 45 years accounted for 26.8%. Under the age of 45 years, the most common lesions were open globe injuries (36%), and over this age, the most common lesions were infective keratitis (34.4%). Patients from Upper Egypt accounted for 56.2% of emergencies. A superficial corneal foreign body was the most common reason for attending the ophthalmic casualty room, with 24,844 cases seen over the 5 years of the study, all of which were managed as outpatient procedures. Deep corneal foreign bodies were more common than intraocular foreign bodies. The most common ocular hemorrhage was hyphema. The most common type of glaucoma was acute angle closure.Conclusion: Superficial corneal foreign bodies, open globe injuries, and infective keratitis are the main ocular emergencies seen in the Egyptian population. Corneal foreign bodies are mostly the result of occupational accidents in workers not wearing protective goggles. Violent altercations (41.9%), occupational accidents (26.3%), and motor vehicle accidents (24.4%) were the main circumstances involved in open globe injuries. The most common admissions were for open globe injuries under the age of 45 years and infective keratitis above this age. Upper Egypt was the main referring geographic area.Keywords: ocular casualties, foreign body, open globe, infective keratitis, lid injurie

An effective model-based integration testing technique for component-based software

Recently, many issues and challenges have been identified in integration testing of current Component-Based Software Systems (CBSS), that lead to ineffective testing and, ultimately, to CBSS of poor quality. In this research, a model-based integration testing technique for CBSS has been proposed by combining model learning and testing techniques for the formal analysis and testing of a system of integrated black-box software components. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is evaluated by applying a case study, namely, the elevator system. The performance analysis is carried out by performing a comparative analysis of proposed technique and existing techniques by using three evaluation parameters. The results of the comparison showed that the proposed technique is effective and outperforms the existing well-known technique in terms of learned components that performance is 100% better, output queries that performance is 25.01% better, as well as error detection capability that is 75%

An effective model-based integration testing technique for component-based software

Recently, many issues and challenges have been identified in integration testing of current Component-Based Software Systems (CBSS), that lead to ineffective testing and, ultimately, to CBSS of poor quality. In this research, a model-based integration testing technique for CBSS has been proposed by combining model learning and testing techniques for the formal analysis and testing of a system of integrated black-box software components. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is evaluated by applying a case study, namely, the elevator system. The performance analysis is carried out by performing a comparative analysis of proposed technique and existing techniques by using three evaluation parameters. The results of the comparison showed that the proposed technique is effective and outperforms the existing well-known technique in terms of learned components that performance is 100% better, output queries that performance is 25.01% better, as well as error detection capability that is 75%

Quality of service approaches in cloud computing: a systematic mapping study

Context: Cloud computing is a new computing technology that provides services to consumers and businesses. Due to the increasing use of these services, the quality of service (QoS) of cloud computing has become an important and essential issue since there are many open challenges which need to be addressed related to trust in cloud services. Many research issues have been proposed in QoS approaches in the cloud computing area. Objective: The aim of this study is to survey current research on QoS approaches in cloud computing in order to identify where more emphasis should be placed in both current and future research directions. Method: A systematic mapping study was performed to find the related literature, and 67 articles were selected as primary studies that are classified in relation to the focus, research type and contribution type. Result: The majority of the articles are of the validation research type (64%). Infrastructure as a service (48%) was the largest research focus area, followed by software as a service (36%). The majority of contributions concerned methods (48%), followed by models (32%). Conclusion: The results of this study confirm that QoS approaches in cloud computing have become an important topic in the cloud computing area in recent years and there remain open challenges and gaps which require future research exploration. In particular, tools, metrics and evaluation research are needed in order to provide useful and trustworthy cloud computing services that deliver appropriate QoS

Ensembling artificial bee colony with analogy-based estimation to improve software development effort prediction

Analogy-Based Estimation (ABE) is one of the promising estimation models used for predicting the software development effort. Researchers proposed different variants of the ABE model, but still, the most suitable procedure could not be produced for accurate estimation. In this study, an artificial Bee colony guided Analogy-Based Estimation (BABE) model is proposed which ensembles Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) with ABE for accurate estimation. ABC produces different weights, out of which the most appropriate is infused in the similarity function of ABE during the stage of model training, which are later used in the testing stage for evaluation. There are six real datasets utilized for simulating the model procedure. Five of these datasets are taken from the PROMISE repository. The predictive performance is improved for BABE over the existing ones. The most significant of its performance is found on the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) dataset

Lightweight and Efficient Dynamic Cluster Head Election Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have gained great significance from researchers and industry due to their wide applications. Energy and resource conservation challenges are facing the WSNs. Nevertheless, clustering techniques offer many solutions to address the WSN issues, such as energy efficiency, service redundancy, routing delay, scalability, and making WSNs more efficient. Unfortunately, the WSNs are still immature, and suffering in several aspects. This paper aims to solve some of the downsides in existing routing protocols for WSNs; a Lightweight and Efficient Dynamic Cluster Head Election routing protocol (LEDCHE-WSN) is proposed. The proposed routing algorithm comprises two integrated methods, electing the optimum cluster head, and organizing the re-clustering process dynamically. Furthermore, the proposed protocol improves on others present in the literature by combining the random and periodic electing method in the same round, and the random method starts first at the beginning of each round/cycle. Moreover, both random and periodic electing methods are preceded by checking the remaining power to skip the dead nodes and continue in the same way periodically with the rest of the nodes in the round. Additionally, the proposed protocol is distinguished by deleting dead nodes from the network topology list during the re-clustering process to address the black holes and routing delay problems. Finally, the proposed algorithm’s mathematical modeling and analysis are introduced. The experimental results reveal the proposed protocol outperforms the LEACH protocol by approximately 32% and the FBCFP protocol by 8%, in terms of power consumption and network lifetime. In terms of Mean Package Delay, LEDCHE-WSN improves the LEACH protocol by 42% and the FBCFP protocol by 15%, and regarding Loss Ratio, it improves the LEACH protocol by approximately 46% and FBCFP protocol by 25%