Distance decay and coverage in facility location planning

An important consideration in urban and regional planning is where to locate facilities providing services. Location models are typically used to support facility siting decisions. This paper develops general models that simultaneously addresses issues involving potential demand as a function of distance, coverage range, and partial regional service in facility siting. The developed models are general in that they can be utilized for siting both desirable and undesirable facilities. Application results are presented for a discrete linear model to locate park-and-ride facilities (desirable) and recycling facilities (undesirable) in Columbus, Ohio. The findings illustrate the flexibility and usefulness of the developed modeling approach for addressing a wide range of planning issues.

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The Solvation of the E. coli CheY Phosphorylation Site Mapped by XFMS

The Escherichia coli CheY protein belongs to a large bacterial response regulator superfamily. X-ray hydroxy radical foot-printing with mass spectroscopy (XFMS) has shown that allosteric activation of CheY by its motor target triggers a concerted internalization of aromatic sidechains. We reanalyzed the XFMS data to compare polar versus non-polar CheY residue positions. The polar residues around and including the 57D phosphorylated site had an elevated hydroxy radical reactivity. Bioinformatic measures revealed that a water-mediated hydrogen bond network connected this ring of residues with the central 57D. These residues solvated 57D to energetically stabilize the apo-CheY fold. The abundance of these reactive residues was reduced upon activation. This result was supported by the bioinformatics and consistent with the previously reported activation-induced increase in core hydrophobicity. It further illustrated XFMS detection of structural waters. Direct contacts between the ring residues and the phosphorylation site would stabilize the aspartyl phosphate. In addition, we report that the ring residue, 18R, is a constant central node in the 57D solvation network and that 18R non-polar substitutions determine CheY diversity as assessed by its evolutionary trace in bacteria with well-studied chemotaxis. These results showcase the importance of structured water dynamics for phosphorylation-mediated signal transduction.     

WebMAC: A web based clinical expert system

Disease diagnosis at early stages can enable the physicians to overcome the complications and treat them properly. The diagnosis method plays an important role in disease diagnosis and accuracy of its treatment. A diagnosis expert system can help a great deal in identifying those diseases and describing methods of treatment to be carried out; taking into account the user capability in order to deal and interact with expert system easily and clearly. A good way to improve diagnosis accuracy of expert systems is use of ensemble classifiers. The proposed research presents an expert system using multi-layer classification with enhanced bagging and optimized weighting. The proposed method is named as “M2-BagWeight” which overcomes the limitations of individual as well as other ensemble classifiers. Evaluation of the proposed model is performed on two different liver disease datasets, chronic kidney disease dataset, heart disease dataset, diabetic retinopathy debrecen dataset, breast cancer dataset and primary tumor dataset obtained from UCI public repository. It is clear from the analysis of results that proposed expert system has achieved high classification and prediction accuracy when compared with individual as well as ensemble classifiers. Moreover, an application named “WebMAC” is also developed for practical implementation of proposed model in hospital for diagnostic advice.     

Current state and prospects of nano-delivery systems for sorafenib

Sorafenib is the only approved targeted agent against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It has several limitations predominantly poor aqueous solubility and hepatic first-pass effect that limits its oral delivery leading to low bioavailability, large inter-subject variability, narrow therapeutic window and side effects. Tosylate is used to improve its solubility, which is practically insoluble in water (60?µg/mL) so problems with sorafenib solubility persist. To improve the paharmacokinetic profile, minimize the side effects, and targeting drug to the tumor tissues, several polymeric nano-formulations are being evaluated. In this comprehensive review, various reported polymeric nano-delivery systems for sorafenib are comprehensively covered.     

Cost Analysis of Water Quality Assessment Using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

In modern competitive markets, cost and quality parameters are the two main factors. So, it is essential to study their relationship, especially in leading industries such as urban public service companies. Consequently, manufacturers always try to reduce production costs and improve product quality and services to consumer expectations. Also, the concerns of the new century in the field of fresh water and the reduction of its resources related to global warming have increased the costs of quality and supply of freshwater. Therefore, in this research, in order to estimate the quality costs in the field of water resources and wastewater management and identify the option that creates the most cost, in the first step, the “Prevention, Assessment, and Failure (PAF)” model was used to select cost-imposing options in organizational quality analysis. After determining the main options, appropriate criteria and sub-criteria were selected under the main study area (water and wastewater resources management). In the next step, a “Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) “ method based on the “Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP)” and “Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)” method was used to identify the option that creates the most cost. The results show that The highest cost of quality in the water and wastewater industry and its management are related to “Assessment Costs” and account for 36.55% of total costs. Also, The lowest cost of quality in the water and wastewater industry is related to “Preventive Costs” and accounts for only 12.18% of the total cost. In addition, the expert’s opinion shows that the effect of increasing credit with 34.01% has the greatest weight, and this criterion is the most essential in water and wastewater resources management.

     

Non-Newtonian nanofluid characteristics over a melting wedge: A numerical study

A study is conducted to determine the impact of joule heating, thermo-diffusion, and chemical reaction effect on wedge flow with melting. Using similarity transformation, the nonlinear PDEs regulate nanofluid flow is converted to nonlinear ODEs. The MATLAB solver is used to solve the boundary value problem numerically. The interaction of relevant physical entities on nanoparticle concentration, nanofluid temperature, nanofluid velocity, skin friction, rate of heat, and mass transfer is graphically portrayed. This study will aid in the development of cooling devices and various shapes in heat sinks, as well as improving the heat transfer characteristics of Casson flow and strengthening formerly industrial uses. In the limiting situation, current findings are compared to analysis of findings. Flow velocity and concentration compacts in association with enhancing values of chemical reaction factor while temperature increases with enhancing the values of chemical reaction parameter. An upsurge in the temperature of the fluid is seen with the increasing Eckert number. It is found that the melting process increases the thicknesses of Solutal, thermal, and momentum boundary layers while it reduces mass transfer rate, heat transfer rate, and Skin friction. The Casson fluid displays a superior heat transfer mechanism than the Newtonian fluid. This study would be valuable in designing cooling gadgets and heat sinks of various shapes which will enhance the heat transfer properties of Casson nanofluids thereby increasing their applications in industrial perspectives. Moreover, the study reveals the novel applications of Casson nanofluids in cooling devices and heat sinks.