Fluorescence in situ hybridization of three oncogenes on a leiomyoma

Using fluorescence in situ hybridization technique, expression of three oncogenes, C-myc, RARa, and cyclin-D was tested on a uterine leiomyoma. C-myc and RARa were amplified in approximately 30% and 90% of the cells, respectively. Numerous small signals of C-myc were indicative of the presence of double minutes. Amplification of RARa is being reported for the first time in a leiomyoma. Cyclin-D was normal in diploid cells while it was highly amplified in polyploid cells. Low levels of amplified C-myc and cyclin-D cells seem to be the reason for this tumor to be benign, while RARa could not be effective without the association of some other gene such as PML. Information presented here are significant toward developing new curative strategies such as gene-specific drugs and molecular manipulation to stop the activity of cancer gene. Further study may elucidate that how fibroids grow and maintain their rare benign nature.     

Cardiovascular disease research in Saudi Arabia: a bibliometric analysis

In the previous three decades, in Saudi Arabia, prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has increased and the government has invested significantly in education, healthcare, and research. This study examined the research productivity trends and characterized the types and focus of the all CVD research studies from Saudi Arabia. Data were extracted from studies published up until December 2015 and indexed in the PubMed database. Study eligibility criteria included: (1) sample selected within Saudi Arabia, and (2) CVD or a risk factor for CVD as an outcome, or (3) patients with CVD as study participants. Bibliometric data and study characteristics were extracted from each study; examples include authorship (number, gender, affiliation), journal, publication year, study location, research design, sample size, sample type (general or patient), sample composition (male or female), and sampling strategy (random or non-random). Analysis included 295 studies that pertained to 19 types of CVD; the most common were coronary artery disease (18%), hypertension (16%), stroke (14%), peripheral artery disease (11%), and congenital heart disease (10%). In the past 30 years, the overall productivity, use of a hypothesis-testing design (i.e. case–control, cohort, or trial), international collaborations, and funding increased incrementally. The experimental design constituted only 3% of all studies and less than 10% of the hypothesis-testing design studies. The scientific literature from Saudi Arabia addressed many of the CVD types. However, there were very few experimental studies conducted to date. Funding agencies should consider patronizing more studies with a hypothesis-testing design.     

Link quality analysis and measurement in wireless mesh networks

Protocols and applications in wireless mesh networks often optimize their performance by measuring the quality of wireless links. However, measuring and characterizing link-quality is a challenging task due to the nature of wireless channel and device-specific properties of radios. The paper proposes two aspects of link-quality measurement and estimation in realistic networks that benefit higher-layer protocols. First, we analyze the statistical properties of link-quality metrics, such as received signal strength and packet error rates, in an indoor IEEE 802.11 mesh network. We show that the statistical distribution and memory properties vary across different links, but are predictable. The next contribution of the paper is a real-time measurement framework that enables higher-level protocols in wireless mesh networks. We discuss the architectural requirements and our implementation experiences of a measurement framework. In addition, we provide three concrete applications that use the measured link-quality and statistical inference to better adapt their behavior.     

Heterogeneous photocatalysed degradation of 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid in aqueous suspensions

The photocatalysed degradation of 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (4-CPA, 1) has been investigated in aqueous suspensions of titanium dioxide under a variety of conditions. The degradation was studied by monitoring the change in substrate concentration employing UV spectroscopic analysis technique and depletion in total organic carbon (TOC) content as a function of irradiation time. The influence of various parameters such as, different types of titanium dioxide (TiO2) powders, pH, catalyst and substrate concentrations, and in the presence of electron acceptor such as hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) besides molecular oxygen has been investigated. The effects of these parameters on the degradation rates were found to be significant. The volatile degradation product 4-chlorophenol was analyzed by GC-MS technique and probable pathways for the formation of product has been proposed.     

Self-assembled TiO₂ with increased photoelectron production, and improved conduction and transfer: enhancing photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells

Highly crystalline mesoporous anatase TiO(2) is prepared through supramolecular self-assembly and by utilizing cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as templating material. Photoanodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) made from these TiO(2) nanoparticles are found to have a high specific surface area of 153 m(2)/g and high surface roughness. Optical absorption spectroscopy studies reveal that the photoanode films adsorb four times more dye than films made of commercial P25 TiO(2). Mercury porosimetry and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) studies show hierarchical macro- and meso-porosity of the photoanode films leading to better dye and electrolyte percolation, combined with improved electron conduction pathways compared to P25 films. Electrochemical impedance studies confirm lower impedance and higher electron lifetime in the synthesized mesoporous TiO(2) films compared to P25 films. Higher photovoltaic efficiency was recorded of cells made from the synthesized mesoporous TiO(2) in comparison to the corresponding cells made from P25. Incident-photon-to-current efficiency data provided critical understanding of recombination kinetics, and provided proof of Mie scattering by the self-assembled submicrometer sized TiO(2) aggregates and the macropores in their structure. The scattering phenomenon was further corroborated by diffused reflectance studies. An in-depth analysis of CTAB-templated mesoporous TiO(2) has been conducted to show how it can be a good candidate photoanode material for enhancing the performance of DSSCs.     

Force Transmission Error Analysis for a High-Pressure Single-Sinker Magnetic Suspension Densimeter

The magnetic suspension densimeter (MSD) is a sophisticated, state-of-the-art device that provides extremely accurate results for density measurements. The MSD uses a magnetic technique to couple a mass inside a measurement cell with an external mass balance for mass measurement. This article presents a force transmission error (FTE) analysis for a high-pressure, single-sinker MSD. Due to the magnetic working principle of the apparatus, magnetic properties of the high-pressure cell and external magnetic fields affect the measurements slightly. For the analysis, McLinden et al. suggest making measurements using two different sinkers, a titanium sinker and a copper sinker, having the same mass. The measurements cover densities for methane, ethane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen over the temperature range from 265 K to 450 K (±5 mK stability) up to 180 MPa (uncertainty of 0.01 % full scale: 200 MPa). Comparing and manipulating the measurements permit determination of apparatus and fluid specific effects that contribute to the FTE. For this MSD, the apparatus effect is about 200 ppm, which effectively masks any fluid specific effect. A comprehensive analysis of the FTE produces a uniform deviation for density values of about 0.05 % at 2σ across the full range of pressure.     

Power control for an asynchronous multirate decorrelator

For code-division multiple-access (CDMA) wireless systems employing multiuser detection, the varied bit-error rate (BER) requirements of multimedia traffic dictate the use of transmitted power control. Using a decorrelator in an asynchronous multirate direct-sequence CDMA system, it may be necessary for different users to combat the noise enhancement and the propagation losses to varying degrees depending on individual requirements. In this context, we propose a power control algorithm for a multirate decorrelator that is suitable for a class of BER-based link quality objectives. If the uplink channel gain of the desired user is known, then it is straightforward for each user to choose the transmitted power needed to meet its target BER objective. In practice, however, the uplink channel gain is often difficult to measure. To avoid this measurement, we employ stochastic approximation methods to develop a simple iterative power control algorithm. In this algorithm, each mobile uses the output of its own decorrelator to update its transmitted power in order to achieve its BER objective. We show that when a user's bits have nonzero asymptotic efficiencies, the power control algorithm converges quickly in the mean square sense to the minimum power at which a user achieves its quality-of-service objective     

An asynchronous multirate decorrelator

This paper examines truncated window decorrelators for an asynchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple-access system supporting users transmitting at different bit rates. We decode a user by extending the observation window over a sufficient number of its bits. To characterize practical window sizes, simple upper and lower bounds for the asymptotic efficiency of both the truncated window and infinite window decorrelators are developed. Empirical results show that as the length of the observation window increases, the bounds converge rapidly to the asymptotic efficiency of the infinite window decorrelator. The complexity of the receiver depends strongly on the ratio of the maximum to minimum bit rates     

An OWA‐Based Ranking Approach for University Books Recommendation

Generally the book recommendation approaches are personalized in nature, that is, they utilize the users’ purchasing behavior to recommend them the book similar to their preferences. The main problem with the personalized recommendation is its knowledge requirement about users’ past preferences. As a result, these techniques fail in producing appropriate recommendation for a new user whose preferences are not known. The personalized recommendation also needs extra space to store the users’ preferences. In this paper, a framework to recommend books to university students for their studies is presented. In order to answer which books are to be included in the syllabus, a specialized way of recommendation, where recommendations from experts of the subjects at different universities are considered, is presented. We have suggested a ranked recommendation approach for books, which employ Ordered Weighted Aggregation (OWA), a fuzzy‐based aggregation, to aggregate the several ranking of the top universities. On the one hand, it does not need user prior preferences, and on the other hand, it eases the complexities of personalized recommendation to huge number of users and replaces it with a single ranked recommendation. The experimental results are compared with the existing positional aggregation algorithm that demonstrates significant improvement in the results with respect to various performance metrics.     

Batch-mode micropatterning of carbon nanotube forests using UV-LIGA assisted micro-electro-discharge machining

This paper reports batch-mode, three-dimensional micropatterning for arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, also known as CNT forests, based on dry micro-electro-discharge machining (μEDM). The process employs an array of copper electrodes microfabricated through an advanced UV-LIGA process enabled with a new photoresist system in combination with electroplating, providing a low-cost path to constructing high-density arrays of μEDM electrodes for high-throughput parallel processing. The fabricated arrays of 85-μm-tall electrodes are utilized to demonstrate and characterize planar dry μEDM for post-growth patterning of CNT forests in air. Die sinking and scanning processes are tested to show pattern transfers with a 4-μm tolerance and an average surface roughness of 230 nm. An elemental analysis suggests that contamination of the electrode material on the produced patterns is minimal. Key characteristics in the use of planar electrodes for batch processing of CNT forests are revealed through experimental analysis and discussed in detail. The results suggest that the investigated process is a promising approach toward offering a cost-effective manufacturing technology for future products functionalized with custom-designed microstructures of CNT forests.