Prospects of Mind Maps for Better Visualization of Infrastructure Literature

Literature analysis is important for the identification of the state of existing knowledge and prevailing research gaps. Effective literature analysis, however, is a lengthy process and requires a large effort to consider the information from different viewpoints and to identify areas of cross benefits. This paper represents an approach to summarize the information related to the construction and infrastructure domains by using a category of visual tools referred to as mind maps. First, the capabilities of various knowledge mapping tools for graphically representing the hierarchical concepts (keywords) of a given domain of knowledge are discussed, and example mind maps are developed for the infrastructure asset management domain. Enhancements to mind maps are then proposed on the basis of an extensive literature analysis to visually show numerical scores of various publications associated with the concepts in the mind map. This facilitates the identification of the highly relevant and the most useful knowledge in the literature. Suggestions are then presented for the use of mind maps by publishers of large literature databases to facilitate better analysis and the visual access and retrieval of information from the literature.     

Fabric objective measurement and drape

This issue of Textile Progress reviews the origins of fabric objective measurement through its research and development phases to its current use in research and industry. It then examines, in greater detail, the use of fabric objective measurement (FOM) methods for the measurement and prediction of fabric drape. Such prediction has become increasingly important in recent times, due to the push from the fashion industry for accurate three-dimensional (3-D) simulation and animation of apparel in its various forms, to allow fashion designers to visually prototype their garment creations without the need for the tedious and time-consuming steps involved in real-garment prototyping. The demand for accurate 3-D simulation and animation is occurring in the face of an ever-increasing variety of fabric types, which means that drape measurement methods must become more sensitive and more widely applicable than has been the case to date. The authors, in the light of this review and their own research experiences with fabric drape, offer the view that the measurements taken by existing methods of FOM and drape are unlikely to provide the accuracy and wide applicability required for realistic on-screen evaluation of apparel, not least because in a garment, fabric is neither draped nor supported horizontally in the way that the fabric is configured in the test methods.     

Maintenance Strategies and Failure‐Cost Model for Medical Equipment

This paper proposes a mathematical maintenance model that analyses the effect of maintenance on the survival probability of medical equipment based on maintenance history and age of the equipment. The proposed model is simulated in Scilab using real data extracted from maintenance history of anaesthesia machine from Draeger. The analysis using survival approach reveals that conducting preventive maintenance on the selected medical equipment had a positive impact on survival of equipment. The model is then used to analyse the cost of maintenance scenarios, and an appropriate scenario is proposed for anaesthesia machine. A new failure‐cost model is developed, which may be used to calculate the number of failures of equipment and the annual maintenance cost. The proposed models may be used as a planning tool for selecting maintenance strategies for various medical equipments. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Leptin Protein Expression and Promoter Methylation in Ovarian Cancer: A Strong Prognostic Value with Theranostic Promises

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the deadliest among all gynecological cancers. Epidemiological studies showed that obesity might influence many cancers including OC. One of the key factors that may link obesity and OC is leptin (LEP), known as an adipokine with pleiotropic effects on body homeostasis. This study aims to investigate the expression pattern of LEP, assess the methylation profiles of LEP and their associations with clinicopathological features including survival outcomes of OC patients. The protein expression of LEP was evaluated in 208 samples using both tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry techniques. The methylation profiles of LEP were measured in 63 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor tissues by quantitative polymerase chain reaction using a MethyLight assay. Our results showed a significant association of LEP protein overexpression with several clinicopathological variables, mainly tumor subtype, LVI, age of menarche, tumor size and stage (p < 0.04). Kaplan–Meier analysis (using low expression versus high expression as a discriminator) indicated that LEP protein overexpression is a powerful positive prognosticator of both OC recurrence (DFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) in our OC cohort (log-rank p = 0.01 and p = 0.002, respectively). This implies that patients with high LEP expression profiles live longer with less recurrence rates. Methylation analysis results demonstrated a clear association between no/low LEP protein expression pattern (38%) and LEP promoter CpG island hypermethylation (43%). Results of this study suggest that LEP is a powerful prognosticator of OC recurrence and DSS. LEP expression in OC seems to be regulated by its promoter hypermethylation through gene partial/total silencing. Further multi-institutional studies using larger cohorts are required to demystify the intricate molecular functions of this leptin-driven effects in OC pathophysiology and to accurately assess its theranostic potential and validate its prognostic/predictive power in OC onset, progression towards more effective and personalized management of OC patients.