Bridging the Gap in Personalized Oncology using Omics Data and Epidemiology

As Personalized Medicine tailored the field of precision oncology, many challenges have been arising to fulfill the dream of a full personalized health integrated system in cancer therapy. Personalized oncology has been addressed through the past decades in multiple disease and various stages using high throughput technology. This review gives hand on recent advances of personalized oncology in several cancer disease models including leukemia, melanoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer. Moreover, the review enumerates technology-based assessment of personalized biomarkers, including chip micro-array, organ on chip, and next generation sequencing. Meanwhile addressing challenges faced in implementing true personalized health cancer in oncology setting, this review focuses on bridging the gap between omics data analytics and epidemiology to overcome the true challenge of direct application

African history of research ethics violations: lessons for the future

The history of colonialism, as well as the internationalisation of research over the past decades, have significantly influenced research ethics standards in African countries. (Kruger et al, 2014). Historically, developments of guidelines in research ethics, and ethics review processes, have often been reactive responses to critical events (i.e. ethics breaches) in medical research practice. According to Global Policy Forum - GPF (2014), Africa is a continent endowed with immense natural and human resources as well as great cultural, ecological and economic diversity but remains underdeveloped. World Population Review places Africa as the least- developed continent outside of Antarctica, with many of its countries still mired in issues including poverty, government corruption, and armed conflict (2022). Health is considered as a basis of development, therefore ‘‘good health is a cornerstone of economic progress, a multiplier of society’s human resources, and, ultimately, the primary objective of development’’ (Chen & Berlinguer, 2001), especially in developing countries. The capacity to develop local guidelines in developing countries may either not exist or be deemed unnecessary given the plethora of international guidelines. Despite such guidelines, there are limitations as to the extent to which they can be applied to research that involves human subjects. Research in developing countries creates a greater risk of exploitation as individuals or communities in developing countries assume the risks of research, whereas most of the benefits may accrue to people in developed countries (Wertheimer, 1999)

Behavior of steel reinforced concrete panels subjected to direct tension

Cracking of massive concrete structures like offshore and nuclear power plants structures is an important issue in designing and maintaining such structures. The low tensile strength of concrete can destroy the structural aesthetics and expose steel reinforcements to severe environmental conditions, leading to corrosion of reinforcement and other deterioration. -- The present research investigation ultimately aims to investigate the general behavior of steel-reinforced normal- and high-strength concrete panels subjected to uniaxial and biaxial direct tension loading taking into consideration the effect of the set of parameters that have the most significant effect on the cracking response. This investigation includes experimental, theoretical, and numerical modeling phases for the cracking response. -- The experimental study incorporates the effect of some important parameters such as the concrete strength, bar diameter, bar spacing, concrete cover, and reinforcement ratio on the cracking response of concrete panels. To conduct the current experimental investigation, a special test setup was designed and fabricated. The loading system was equipped to make it possible to simultaneously apply loads in both directions. Results of the experimental work will be presented in terms of cracking behavior (cracking load, crack spacing, crack width, and crack pattern and the mode of failure), stresses and strains in concrete and steel reinforcement before and after cracking. -- Compared with NSC panels, HSC panels showed lower strains and greater tension stiffening response at a given load level thanks to the corresponding improvement of the bond between the reinforcing steel bars and the high strength concrete matrix. The panels tested under biaxial loading conditions showed lower concrete tensile strength and tension stiffening response, compared with the panels subjected to uniaxial loading conditions. This reduction in the tensile strength of concrete panels subjected to biaxial loading was found to be equal to 5% - 15%. The reduction of the tension stiffening contribution of concrete between cracks due to applying the axial into biaxial direction became more significant as the reinforcing bar diameter was increased. -- An analytical study was conducted to study the bond characteristics between concrete and steel reinforcing bars. Also, a practical and new analytical model, which is capable of predicting the crack spacing of orthogonally reinforced concrete plate panels, was developed. Afterwards, this study developed a model for evaluating crack widths for thick reinforced concrete plates subjected to in-plane axial loading. The calculation procedure was supported by an evaluation of existing test data. -- Finally, the nonlinear analysis of reinforced concrete plates using the damage plasticity model was performed. The tension stiffening model developed in this study was implemented to simulate the cracking response of the concrete. The numerical results show reasonable accuracy in predicting the behavior of steel-reinforced concrete panels

Self-Tuning Fuzzy Logic Speed Control Of Induction Motor Drives

Induction motor drives are commonly applicable in various industrial applications, such as traction system, electric vehicle and home appliances. This high performance drive require robust controller to obtain satisfactory performance in terms of speed demand change, load disturbance, inertia variation and non-linearity. Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) is suitable for controller design especially when the system is difficult to be modelled mathematically due to its complexity, nonlinearity and imprecision. However, FLC with fixed parameters may experience degradation when the system operates away from the design point, and encounters parameter variation or load disturbance. The purpose of this project is to design and implement Self-Tuning Fuzzy Logic Controller (ST-FLC) for Induction Motor (IM)drives. The proposed self-tuning mechanism is able to adjust the output scaling factor of the output controller for main FLC. This process enhances the accuracy of the crisp output. This research begins by designing Indirect Field Oriented Control (IFOC) method fed by Hysteresis Current Controller (HCC) induction motor drive system. The FLC with fixed parameters for the speed controller comprises 9-rules are tuned to achieve best performance. Then, a simple self-tuning mechanism is applied to the main fuzzy logic speed controller. All simulations are executed by using Simulink and fuzzy tools in MATLAB software. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is determined by conducting a comparative analysis between FLC with fixed parameters and ST-FLC over a wide range of operating conditions, either in forward and reverse operations, load disturbance or inertia variations. Finally, experimental investigation is carried out to validate the simulation results by the aid of digital signal controller board dSPACE DS1104 with the induction motor drives system. Based on the results, ST-FLC has shown superior performance in transient and steady state conditions in term of various performance measures such as overshoot, rise time, settling time and recovery time over wide speed range operation. In comparison to fixed parameter FLC, the proposed ST-FLC reduced the settling time by 40.5%, rise time by 47.3% and speed drop by 19.2%. The proposed self-tuning mechanism is relatively simpler and consumes less computational burden compared to other self-tuning methods. This is proved by measuring the computational burden of another Self-Tuning method which used fuzzy rules to tune the output scaling factor. The execution time of the proposed self-tuning found to be 0.5 x10−3 seconds compared to 1.2 x10−3 seconds for the other self-tuning

The Value of Central Wave Segment in a Focal Nerve Entrapment (F-wave) Parameters of Both Median and Ulnar Nerves in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى معرفة تأثير إصابة العصب المتوسط ​​الموضعي في المريض المصاب ​ بمتلازمة النفق الرسغي على متوسط  الموجة ف للعصب المتوسط والعصب الزندي، تحديد أهمية  انقلاب الموجة ف في المرضى الذين يعانون من متلازمة النفق الرسغي ذو الشدة الخفيفة و دراسة  تأثير زيادة مؤشر كتلة الجسم على العصب المتوسط ​​وارتباطه بشدة الاصابة بهذه المتلازمة. أجريت هذه الدراسة في وحدة الفسلجة العصبية في مدينة مرجان الطبية، في الفترة من أيلول 2015  إلى مارس 2016. تضمنت  الدراسة مجموعة من المرضى الذين يعانون من اعراض سريرية  لمتلازمة النفق الرسغي  بالإضافة الى تأكيد هذه الاعراض عن طريق دراسة توصيل الاعصاب التي اظهرت ان جميع المرضى مصابين بالمتلازمة اعلاه ويبلغ عددهم 139 مريض  تراوحت أعمارهم بين 20-60 سنة. وتشمل الدراسة أيضا 139 شخص من الاصحاء كمجموعة مقارنة وتطابقت هذه المجموعة مع المرضى من ناحية العمر والجنس ومؤشر كتلة الجسم. أظهرت الدراسة أن علاقة الموجة ف للعصبين المتوسط  و الزندي والفرق بين الموجتين لكلا العصبين هامة جدا (P <0.01) في المرضى الذين يعانون من متلازمة النفق الرسغي بعكس مجموعة الاصحاء. كما اكدت الدراسة وجود ارتباط كبير بين متوسط كمون الموجة ف للعصب المتوسط ​​ ​​وشدة متلازمة النفق الرسغي حيث أن معظم الحالات الشديدة كانت لديها معدلات متوسط عالية للموجة ف. هناك علاقة ذات دلالة إحصائية بين انقلاب الموجة ف في الحالات خفيفة الشدة لمتلازمة النفق الرسغي مقارنة بمجموعة الاشخاص الاصحاء. كما بينت الدراسة ان مؤشر كتلة الجسم يعمل كعامل خطر لحدوث هذا المرض، ومعظم المرضى المصابين بمتلازمة النفق الرسغي يعانون من السمنة و زيادة الوزن. اكدت الدراسة وجود علاقة ارتباط كبيرة بين مؤشر كتلة الجسم وشدة متلازمة النفق الرسغي حيث ان معظم المرضى الذين يعانون من اصابات خفيفة، معتدلة وحادة كانوا يعانون من السمنة المفرطة (P <0.05). وكشفت الدراسة ان معايير الدراسة الكهروفسيولوجية  الحسية والحركية للعصب المتوسط ​​بما في ذلك (الكمون، السعة وسرعة التوصيل) بين المرضى ومجموعة الاصحاء عن تغييرات بفروقات معنوية عالية (P <0.01).This study aims to assess the effect of focal median nerve injury in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome ( CTS ) on F-wave of median and ulnar nerves, determine the importance of F-wave inversion in the patients with mild CTS and find out the effect of increasing body mass index (BMI) on median nerve and its association with the severity of CTS. The study was conducted in neurophysiological unit at Merjan Medical City, in the period from September 2015 to March 2016. Including (139) patient with clinical presentation of CTS as well as positive NCS with age ranged from (20-60) years. The study also includes(139) apparently healthy person as a control group of which were matched in age, gender and BMI to patients group. F-wave of median, ulnar and median-ulnar nerve difference are highly significant (p <0.01) in patients than control group. There is a significant association between mean median F wave minimal latency (FWML) and severity of CTS as most severe cases have higher mean. There is a significant relationship between F- wave  inversions in mild CTS as compared to control group.  Body mass index acts as  an independent risk factor to develop CTS and most of patients with CTS are obese and overweight. There is a significant association between BMI and severity of CTS and most cases with mild, moderate and severe are obese (P < 0.05). The electrophysiological findings of sensory and motor parameters of median nerve including (latency, amplitude and conduction velocity) between patients and control groups all show highly significant difference (p <0.01)

Energy-Efficient Low-Complexity Algorithm in 5G Massive MIMO Systems

Energy efficiency (EE) is a critical design when taking into account circuit power consumption (CPC) in fifth-generation cellular networks. These problems arise because of the increasing number of antennas in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, attributable to inter-cell interference for channel state information. Apart from that, a higher number of radio frequency (RF) chains at the base station and active users consume more power due to the processing activities in digital-to-analogue converters and power amplifiers. Therefore, antenna selection, user selection, optimal transmission power, and pilot reuse power are important aspects in improving energy efficiency in massive MIMO systems. This work aims to investigate joint antenna selection, optimal transmit power and joint user selection based on deriving the closed-form of the maximal EE, with complete knowledge of large-scale fading with maximum ratio transmission. It also accounts for channel estimation and eliminating pilot contamination as antennasM→∞. This formulates the optimization problem of joint optimal antenna selection, transmits power allocation and joint user selection to mitigate inter-cellinterference in downlink multi-cell massiveMIMO systems under minimized reuse of pilot sequences based on a novel iterative low-complexity algorithm (LCA) for Newton’s methods and Lagrange multipliers. To analyze the precise power consumption, a novel power consumption scheme is proposed for each individual antenna, based on the transmit power amplifier and CPC. Simulation results demonstrate that the maximal EE was achieved using the iterative LCA based on reasonable maximum transmit power, in the case the noise power is less than the received power pilot. The maximum EE was achieved with the desired maximum transmit power threshold by minimizing pilot reuse, in the case the transmit power allocation ρd = 40 dBm, and the optimal EE=71.232 Mb/j

Brain Stroke Detection Using ANN Based On EEG Signals Using CNN ‎Path

تحدث السكتة الدماغية بسبب انسداد في الشريان الذي ينقل الدم المؤكسج إلى الدماغ. السكتة الدماغية الحادة هي السكتة الدماغية الأكثر شيوعًا. يمكن أن يكون الاكتشاف المبكر للسكتة الدماغية منقذاً لحياة المرضى. تخطيط كهربية الدماغ هو تقنية لتحليل الأنشطة الكهربائية الموجودة في الأجزاء المختلفة من الدماغ البشري، وباستخدام التتبع البصري، فإنه يسجل هذه الأنشطة. يوفر EEG قياسات فعالة من حيث التكلفة ومحمولة وعالية التردد ودقيقة مقارنة بأدوات مراقبة نشاط الموجات الدماغية الأخرى. يستخدم مخطط كهربية الدماغ لتشخيص متلازمة حساسية الاندروجين. في البحث المقترح، تم تطبيق الشبكة العصبية التلافيفية لتصنيف شدة السكتة الدماغية. في هذه الخوارزمية ، يتم حساب الكثافة الطيفية للطاقة (PSD) لإشارات مخطط كهربية الدماغ بناءً على الميزات المستخرجة من الشبكة العصبية الاصطناعية. ثم تم تدريب خريطة المعالم لتصنيف البيانات إلى أربع حالات بناءً على شدة السكتة الدماغية. بالنسبة لتحليل الأداء، تتم مقارنة الخوارزمية المقترحة مع الخوارزميات الموجودة، ويلاحظ أن دقة الخوارزمية المقترحة هي 98.3٪، وهي أفضل من الخوارزمية الموجودة للكشف عن السكتة الدماغية.Brain stroke occurs because of a blockage in the artery, which delivers oxygenated blood to the brain. Acute Ischemic Stroke (AIS) is mostly occurred brain stroke. Early detection of brain stroke can be life-saving for patients. Electroencephalography is a technique to analyze electrical activities present in the different parts of the human brain, and using visual trace, it records these activities. EEG provides cost-effective, portable, high-frequency and accurate measurement as compared to other brain wave activity monitoring tools. EEG is used to diagnose AIS. In the proposed research, the convolutional neural network is applied for the classification of stroke severity. In this algorithm, the power spectral density (PSD) of EEG signals is calculated based on the extracted features from the artificial neural network. The feature map was then trained to classify the data into four instances based on the severity of the brain stroke. The effectiveness of the suggested algorithm is examined by comparing it with several similar algorithms., and it is observed that the accuracy of the proposed algorithm is 98.3% and which is better than the existing algorithm for brain stroke detection

Systemic Creativities in Sustainability and Social Innovation Education

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to aid educators in sustainability or social innovation to make sense of their creativity. We use a systems model of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1996, 1999) as an enquiring device to tease out issues that influence creativity within these realms. Data from semi-structured interviews with senior and junior educators in two geographical locations lead us to elaborate two systems models to reflect creativity. These models portray creativity as emerging from the alignment of and connections between creators, domains and field elements as suggested by Csikszentmihalyi. However, we also identify some intermediary or absent connections between the model elements which deserve further attention, as their uncritical pursuit could potentially exacerbate exclusion or marginalisation of junior educators' personal values and interests. Therefore, critically and creatively informed learning could be better cultivated in these realms. This and other insights could have important implications for how creativity and its nurturing in education could be advanced in the long run