A bidding decision index for construction contractors

Results from applying the model on a sample of contractors, the majority of whom were international and operating in Egypt, reinforces the credibility of the developed methodology, claim the authors.     

A Y-channel design for improving zeta potential and surface conductivity measurements using the current monitoring method

This study presents a new Y-channel design for measuring the zeta potential and surface conductance of a solid-liquid pairing using the current monitoring technique. The new design improves the throughput and reliability of the testing apparatus since the displacement between two solutions can be repeated many times without interfering with the experiments. It also increases the accuracy of the measurement by producing sharper start and end transitions for the current–time plot of the solution displacement process. In this design, efforts have been made to minimize the effects of electrolysis, Joule heating and undesired pressure driven flow on the measurements. An improvement on the current–time slope analysis is also presented. The Y-channel design was validated by comparing zeta potential measurements to published results. The zeta potential of several biological buffers relevant to the microfluidic community in plasma treated PDMS/PDMS and PDMS/Glass microchannels are presented. Preliminary studies of surface conductivity measurements using the Y-channel design were also conducted and are briefly discussed.     

Behavior of Composite Unreinforced Masonry–Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Wall Assemblages Under In-Plane Loading

An experimental investigation was conducted to study the in-plane behavior of face shell mortar bedded unreinforced masonry (URM) wall assemblages retrofitted with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates. Forty-two URM assemblages were tested under different stress conditions present in masonry shear and infill walls. Tests included prisms loaded in compression with different bed joint orientation (on/off-axis compression), diagonal tension specimens, and specimens loaded under joint shear. The behavior of each specimen type is discussed with emphasis on modes of failure, strength and deformation characteristics. Results showed that the application of FRP laminates on URM has a great influence on strength, postpeak behavior, as well as altering failure modes and maintaining the specimen integrity. The retrofitted specimens reached compressive strength of 1.62–5.64 times that of their unretrofitted counterparts, depending on the bed joint orientation, and joint shear strength increased by eightfold.     

In Silico/In Vitro Hit-to-Lead Methodology Yields SMYD3 Inhibitor That Eliminates Unrestrained Proliferation of Breast Carcinoma Cells

SMYD3 is a lysine methyltransferase that regulates the expression of over 80 genes and is required for the uncontrolled proliferation of most breast, colorectal, and hepatocellular carcinomas. The elimination of SMYD3 restores normal expression patterns of these genes and halts aberrant cell proliferation, making it a promising target for small molecule inhibition. In this study, we sought to establish a proof of concept for our in silico/in vitro hit-to-lead enzyme inhibitor development platform and to identify a lead small molecule candidate for SMYD3 inhibition. We used Schrodinger^® software to screen libraries of small molecules in silico and the five compounds with the greatest predicted binding affinity within the SMYD3 binding pocket were purchased and assessed in vitro in direct binding assays and in breast cancer cell lines. We have confirmed the ability of one of these inhibitors, Inhibitor-4, to restore normal rates of cell proliferation, arrest the cell cycle, and induce apoptosis in breast cancer cells without affecting wildtype cell behavior. Our results provide a proof of concept for this fast and affordable small molecule hit-to-lead methodology as well as a promising candidate small molecule SMYD3 inhibitor for the treatment of human cancer.     

Orthogonal planar laser polarization spectroscopy

Planar laser polarization spectroscopy has recently been used to image the hydroxyl radical in combustion for small intersection angles of pump and probe beams. We report an experimental configuration that allows planar laser polarization imaging for perpendicular intersection of pump and probe beams. We demonstrate what to our knowledge is the first planar laser polarization spectroscopy imaging at a 90 degree intersection of pump and probe beams for both linearly and circularly polarized pump beams.     

Simultaneous measurement of the surface temperature and the release of atomic sodium from a burning black liquor droplet

Simultaneous measurement of the concentration of released atomic sodium, swelling, surface and internal temperature of a burning black liquor droplet under a fuel lean and rich condition has been demonstrated. Two-dimensional two-colour optical pyrometry was employed to determine the distribution of surface temperature and swelling of a burning black liquor droplet while planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) was used to assess the temporal release of atomic sodium. The key findings of these studies are: (i) the concentration of atomic sodium released during the drying and devolatilisation stages was found to be correlated with the external surface area; and (ii) the insignificant presence of atomic sodium during the char consumption stage shows that sodium release is suppressed by the lower temperature and by the high CO₂ content in and around the particle.     

Spatial Precipitation Assessment with Elevation by Using Point Cumulative Semivariogram Technique

Depiction of precipitation change by elevation in an areaindicates the possibilities of orographic rainfall occurrencesin the mountainous regions. In general, precipitation increaseswith elevation but sometimes inverse cases occur locally due toorographic and meteorological features of the area. Inpractice, prior to any quantitative modeling, qualitativeassessments and interpretations help to have sound foundationsin search for a suitable model. In this article, standardizedpoint cumulative semivariogram (SPCSV) methodology is employedfor identification of the precipitation-elevationrelationship. According to relative positions of theprecipitation and elevation SPCSVs four different precipitationcategories are suggested. The application of the methodologyproposed is presented for the precipitation records from YuccaMountain, Nevada, U.S.A.     

Co-channel interference in cellular radio systems using frequency hopping code division multiple access (FH-CDMA)

The expected interference power in a digital cellular radio system using frequency hopping code division multiple access is investigated. The up-link only is considered. Using both analytical and numerical methods, a probability density function for this power is derived. This function is used to predict the hop erasure probability of a system, as a function of the tolerable signal to interference ratio and of the system load.Mr. Al-Etaibi is sponsored by Saudi Telecom     

Detection of photothermal deflection signals with conjugate masks

A new detection technique for photothermal deflection spectroscopy and photoacoustic deflection spectroscopy is presented. The technique uses a pair of matched multiple slits placed in the path of the probe beam and oriented to block the probe light from the detector in the absence of a deflection signal. Significant improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio and in the frequency bandwidth compared with those available with current techniques is demonstrated.     

Deep Learning and Machine Learning for Early Detection of Stroke and Haemorrhage

Stroke and cerebral haemorrhage are the second leading causes of death in the world after ischaemic heart disease. In this work, a dataset containing medical, physiological and environmental tests for stroke was used to evaluate the efficacy of machine learning, deep learning and a hybrid technique between deep learning and machine learning on the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) dataset for cerebral haemorrhage. In the first dataset (medical records), two features, namely, diabetes and obesity, were created on the basis of the values of the corresponding features. The t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding algorithm was applied to represent the high-dimensional dataset in a low-dimensional data space. Meanwhile,the Recursive Feature Elimination algorithm (RFE) was applied to rank the features according to priority and their correlation to the target feature and to remove the unimportant features. The features are fed into the various classification algorithms, namely, Support Vector Machine (SVM), K Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Multilayer Perceptron. All algorithms achieved superior results. The Random Forest algorithm achieved the best performance amongst the algorithms; it reached an overall accuracy of 99%. This algorithm classified stroke cases with Precision, Recall and F1 score of 98%, 100% and 99%, respectively. In the second dataset, the MRI image dataset was evaluated by using the AlexNet model and AlexNet + SVM hybrid technique. The hybrid model AlexNet + SVM performed is better than the AlexNet model; it reached accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 99.9%, 100%, 99.80% and 99.86%, respectively.