Evaluation impact strength on particulate reinforced (25% and 33%) vinyl ester composite cured under microwave conditions

The use of composites plays an important role in the fields of Mechanical and Civil Engineering. The idea of using composite materials in the two afore mentioned fields are no longer new. In the Fibre Composite Design and Development (FCDD), University of Southern Queensland (USQ) many researches and experiments on new lightweight materials and structures have been carried out. In the research, FCDD found that the composites made from vinylester resins suffer considerable shrinkage during hardening. With this issue in mind, research on the methods to decrease the shrinkage of the composites had been carried out. Ku (2002) claimed that by having vinyl ester composites cured under microwave conditions, such shrinkage can be reduced. The material used was thirty three percent by weight flyash particulate reinforced vinyl ester composite VE/FLYASH (33%). Unfortunately, the impact strength of the composites cured under microwave conditions with power level 540 Watts as compared to the composites cured under microwave conditions with power level 180 Watts and 360 Watts is still in doubt. With the above doubt in mind, this project was carried out to determine whether impact strength of the composites cured under microwave with power level 540 Watts, 360 Watts and also 180 Watts. Drop weight impact test was used to carry out the impact strength test. It was found that having the specimens cured with power level of 540 Watt, the impact strength had on these specimens were alike the one cured with power level 360 Watts and 180 Watts

Semantic and phonetic elements of chemistry terms in English-Chinese translation

Translation covers a variety of disciplines or fields, including politics, philosophy, economics, art, science and religion to name a few. When one comes across different languages with two distinct cultures, translation appears to be the most frequently practiced method to introduce a common novel term. This paper examines the translation from English into Chinese. The data for this study are the Chinese translation of 112 chemical elements from a periodic table. This study uses a qualitative descriptive approach to examine the grammatical features of Chinese translation of chemical elements from the semantic and phonological perspectives. The analysis of data revealed that the unique property of Chinese radicals has been fully utilised in the Chinese translation. Consequently, the semantic aspects of the chemical elements are well informed in the translation. On the other hand, the phonological elements in Chinese translation have been simplified and reduced to only one sound which is represented by only one character. The translation of chemical elements is considered unique, both semantically and phonologically, in achieving the equivalence in the Chinese language

Integrating anticipative replenishment-allocation with reactive fulfillment for online retailing using robust optimization

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier 1; Lee Kong Chian Fellowship; MPA Research Fellowshi

Elucidation Of The Expression And Role Of Carotenogenic Genes In Astaxanthin Production In A Hyper-Producing Mutant Of Xanthophyllomyces Dendrorhous

Astaxanthin is a red xanthophyll pigment which is commercially used in aquaculture as feed additive and in pharmaceutical industries due to its strong antioxidant properties. Synthetic astaxantin is limited by its properties, production requirements and also the strict regulations concerning the safety of synthetic chemicals as food additives. This has led to the alternative microbial production of natural astaxanthin. Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous has desirable properties and commercial value as a dietary source of natural astaxanthin, but it has relatively low content of astaxanthin

Understanding Singleness: A Phenomenological Study of Single Women in Beijing and Singapore

The aim of this phenomenological study was to gain a better understanding in the lives of single women by exploring their thoughts and experiences of being single. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews of a group of six well-educated, ethnic Chinese single women aged between 30 and 45 living in Beijing and Singapore. Transcribed interviews were analysed through reading and rereading and culling for like phrases and themes that are then grouped to form clusters of meaning. Through this process, we found four salient themes: (a) the women had equivocal feelings over the reasons they were single; (b) they recognized the advantages, disadvantages, and ambivalence of singlehood; (c) they took a pragmatic approach towards their singleness; and (d) they coped singleness with various practical strategies. Implications related to clinical practice and areas of further research are discussed

Blending big data analytics : review on challenges and a recent study

With the collection of massive amounts of data every day, big data analytics has emerged as an important trend for many organizations. These collected data can contain important information that may be key to solving wide-ranging problems, such as cyber security, marketing, healthcare, and fraud. To analyze their large volumes of data for business analyses and decisions, large companies, such as Facebook and Google, adopt analytics. Such analyses and decisions impact existing and future technology. In this paper, we explore how big data analytics is utilized as a technique for solving problems of complex and unstructured data using such technologies as Hadoop, Spark, and MapReduce. We also discuss the data challenges introduced by big data according to the literature, including its six V's. Moreover, we investigate case studies of big data analytics on various techniques of such analytics, namely, text, voice, video, and network analytics. We conclude that big data analytics can bring positive changes in many fields, such as education, military, healthcare, politics, business, agriculture, banking, and marketing, in the future. © 2013 IEEE

Differences in psychosocial determinants of hand hygiene between health care professional groups: insights from a mixed-methods analysis

Background: Good hand hygiene (HH) prevents health care-associated infections. We compared psychosocial and organizational factors associated with HH compliance and perceived need for improvement among physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals (AHPs). Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study in a 1,600-bed adult tertiary-care hospital in Singapore. Seven focus group discussions were conducted and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The subsequent cross-sectional survey involved 1,064 staff members. Principal components analysis was performed to derive the latent factor structure that was applied in multivariable analyses. Results: All staff members acknowledged that HH was an integral part of their work, but were noncompliant due to competing priorities. Physicians were forgetful but appreciated reminders. Nurses were intrinsically motivated for HH. After adjusting for gender, staff category, seniority, and dermatitis history, having positive knowledge-attitudes-behaviors (odds ratio [OR], 1.44; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23-1.69), personal motivators-enablers (OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.38-1.86), and emotional motivators (OR, 1.62; 95% CI 1.40-1.88) were positively associated with good HH compliance. Women (OR, 3.91; 95% CI, 1.37-11.11), seniors (OR, 2.88; 95% CI, 1.08-7.68), nurses (OR, 4.05; 95% CI, 1.51-10.87), and staff with personal motivators-enablers for HH (OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.08-2.37) were more likely to perceive a need for improvement. Conclusions: Factors influencing self-reported HH differed between health care professional groups. Group-specific interventions are needed to improve compliance

Differential expression patterns of leukaemia associated genes in leukaemia cell lines compared to healthy controls

Introduction: The phenotype and genotype of cancer cells portray hallmarks of cancer which may have clinical value. Cancer cell lines are ideal models to study and confirm these characteristics. We previously established two subtracted cDNA libraries with differentially expressed genes from an acute myeloid leukaemia patient with poor prognosis (PP) and good prognosis (GP). Objective: To compare gene expression of the leukaemia associated genes with selected biological characteristics in leukaemia cell lines and normal controls. Methodology: Expression of 28 PP genes associated with early fetal/embryonic development, HOX-related genes, hematopoiesis and aerobic glycolysis/hypoxia genes and 36 GP genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation, protein synthesis, chromatin remodelling and cell motility were examined in B-lymphoid (BV173, Reh and RS4;11) and myeloid (HL-60, K562) leukaemia cell lines after 72h in culture as well as peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy controls (N=5) using semi-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. Cell cycle profiles were analysed on flow cytometry while MTT cytotoxicity assay was used to determine drug resistance to epirubicin. Results: Genes expressed significantly higher in B-lymphoid leukaemia cell lines compared to healthy controls were mostly of the GP library i.e. oxidative phosphorylation (3/10), protein synthesis (4/11), chromatin remodelling (3/3) and actin cytoskeleton genes (1/5). Only two genes with significant difference were from the PP library. Cancer associated genes, HSPA9 and PSPH (GP library) and BCAP31 (PP library) were significantly higher in the B-lymphoid leukemia cell lines. No significant difference was observed between myeloid cell lines and healthy controls. This may also be due heterogeneity of cell lines studied. PBMC from healthy controls were not in cell cycle. G2/M profiles and growth curves showed B-lymphoid cells just reaching plateau after 72 hour culture while myeloid cells were declining. IC50 values from cytotoxicity assay revealed myeloid cell lines had an average 13-fold higher drug resistance to epirubicin compared to B-lymphoid cell lines. Only CCL1, was expressed at least two-fold higher in myeloid compared to B-lymphoid cell lines. In contrast, MTRNR2, EEF1A1, PTMA, HLA-DR, C6orf115, PBX3, ENPP4, SELL, and IL3Ra were expressed more than 2-fold higher in B-lymphoid compared to myeloid cell lines studied here. Conclusion: Thus, B-lymphoid leukaemia cell lines here exhibited active, proliferating characteristics closer to GP genes. Higher expression of several genes in B-lymphoid compared to myeloid leukaemia cell lines may be useful markers to study biological differences including drug resistance between lineages

Robust Storage Assignment in Unit-Load Warehouses

Published version made available in SMU repository with permission of INFORMS, 2014, February 28</p