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Identification of Novel MicroRNAs as Promising Therapeutics for SARS-CoV-2 by Regulating the EGFR-ADAM17 Axis: An In Silico Analysis
No full textCancer patients contracting SARS-CoV-2 encounter additional challenges due to inflammatory bursts and lymphopenia, which may aggravate breast cancer prognosis. In this in-silico analysis, we identified the potential of miRNAs as new therapeutic targets to treat breast cancer patients infected with COVID-19 via the regulation of ADAM17 and EGFR expression microRNAs
Decision Support Model for Selecting the Appropriate Construction Management Firm
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Construction Management by Mohamed Ahmed Aboelyousr entitled, “Decision Support Model for Selecting the Appropriate Construction Management Firm”, submitted in December 2021. Thesis advisor is Dr. Sameh El-Sayegh. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).Decision support models assist construction professionals in reducing human-bias during the selection process. Construction management (CM) firms are unique as they act as client’s agents and assist them in the management of construction projects throughout the project’s life cycle. Selection of the appropriate CM firm increases the chances of successful project delivery. Examining existing research pointed towards the absence of decision support models for CM firms. This thesis proposes a multi-criteria decision support model for selecting the appropriate Construction Management firms using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed model aims to assist decision makers in selecting the appropriate CM firm by ensuring that the right services are offered by a provider from project initiation to closure. By doing so, this thesis aims to standardize the method of selection for CM firms based on key selection criteria. The selection criteria were identified through literature review. The importance of these identified criteria was measured through a survey distributed to construction professionals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The survey collected the feedback through pair wise comparisons of the identified criteria. Fifty-two survey responses were collected and analyzed using Expert Choice software and then used to develop the model based on AHP. The results show that the most important criteria for selecting CM firms are: past experience in similar projects, financial standing, technical capability in Building Information Modeling (BIM), abilities and qualification of key staff members, current experience in ongoing projects and technical capability in risk management. Moreover, the results indicate that the firm’s experience category is more valuable in comparison to the firm’s characteristics and construction management teams’ categories. Similarly, CM technical capabilities are more valuable relative to CM firm’s core and support services. A framework was also developed consisting of five stages that the decision makers will go through to select the appropriate CM firm. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed model.College of EngineeringMultidisciplinary ProgramsMaster of Science in Construction Management (MSCM
Ultrasound-Mediated Release of Folate Targeted Liposomes
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Biomedical Engineering by Reda Al Ghafeer entitled, “Ultrasound-Mediated Release of Folate Targeted Liposomes”, submitted in November 2021. Thesis advisor is Dr. Ghaleb Husseini. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).Mutations in the DNA of cells have been causing malignancies for ages. Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases with no known cure. Current treatment regimens attempt to prolong the life of cancer patients and have proven successful for certain cancers. Current treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. The most abundant of which is chemotherapy, which unfortunately suffers from a major drawback of causing the systematic release of the chemotherapeutics. Targeted drug delivery is an emerging field that aims to tackle the problem of systematic release by ensuring minimal drug effects on non-cancerous cells. In this research, liposomes were chosen as a medium for drug transport along with a folic acid moiety and DOX as the loaded drug. Liposomes are stable, easy to produce, and nonimmunogenic. Folic acid (FA) was chosen as a targeting moiety since many types of cancerous cells show an abundance of FA receptors. Low-frequency ultrasound is used to release the drug from the liposomes. The advantage of using ultrasound is that it can enhance the permeation of both the liposome and the tumor, increasing the drug uptake. In this research, both control (non-targeted) and folated liposomes were synthesized and loaded with the chemotherapy drug Doxorubicin (DOX). The average size of the liposomes was 84.5 ± 1.09 nm for control and 84.8 ± 2.79 nm for the folated liposomes. Meanwhile, the Stewart assay showed a lipid content of 21.4 ± 5.45 mg/ml for the control, and 21.0 ± 6.29 mg/ml for the folates liposomes. Finally, the release of the drug under ultrasound steady release that only occurs during “on” ultrasound pulses meaning that ultrasound was the main reason of releasing the drug from the liposomes. The release results were found to best fit 3 models, which are zero-order, Hixson-Crowell, and Hopfenberg. Using folated liposomes in combination with ultrasound may mitigate the undesired side effects of conventional chemotherapy and maximize drug uptake at the tumor site.College of EngineeringMultidisciplinary ProgramsMaster of Science in Biomedical Engineering (MSBME
Process Design and Optimization for Desulfurization of Diesel Using Ionic Liquids
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Chemical Engineering by Haifa Ben Salah entitled, “Process Design and Optimization for Desulfurization of Diesel Using Ionic Liquids”, submitted in July 2021. Thesis advisors are Dr. Paul Nancarrow and Dr. Amani Al Othman. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).Sulfur dioxide emissions to the atmosphere have been known to cause detrimental health and environmental effects. The currently used hydrodesulfurization (HDS) method employed by refineries has several drawbacks, such as excessive hydrogen consumption, high energy demand and inability to remove complex organosulfur compounds. These drawbacks have limited its ability to produce ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) at reasonable operating and capital costs. Ionic liquids (ILs) have been widely researched in efforts to develop industrial processes that can complement or replace the conventional HDS. However, their success has only been proven on an experimental level with limited research conducted with regards to their industrial scale feasibility and their integration into process simulators such as ASPEN Plus. In this work, quantum and statistical thermodynamic calculations and property estimations methods have been successfully combined to generate an IL database that contains all properties necessary for simulating IL processes in ASPEN Plus using COSMO-SAC property package for a total of 26 commercially available ILs. Upon the integration of all components, several possible process configurations have been conceptualized and the performance of each IL was assessed. In particular, the challenge of ionic liquid regeneration, which has largely been ignored in literature, has also been addressed and several potential regeneration methods have been proposed including extractive regeneration (E-RE) and stripping regeneration using nitrogen/air as stripping media (S-RE). The results indicated that 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate is the most promising IL among all 26 ILs under study in terms of EDS, E-RE and S-RE. It was found that E-RE was effective in the removal of dibenzothiophene (DBT) while S-RE was more effective in the removal of thiophene and benzothiophene (BT). As a result, an optimized diesel desulfurization process that is a combination of all configurations understudy has been proposed. This was necessary to obtain ULSD, maximum removal of thiophene, BT and DBT from spent IL stream without imposing contaminants such n-hexane, and with minimum losses of n-hexadecane (diesel). The proposed process achieved ULSD with 6.53 PPM total sulfur, 0.06% loss of n-hexadecane, and 100% IL recycling with the recycled stream containing 0% thiophene, 10% BT and 12% DBT.College of EngineeringDepartment of Chemical EngineeringMaster of Science in Chemical Engineering (MSChE
Yukawa coupling unification in an SO(10) model consistent with Fermilab (g − 2) μ result
No full textWe investigate the Yukawa coupling unification for the third generation in a class of SO(10) unified models which are consistent with the 4.2 σ deviation from the standard model of the muon g − 2 seen by the Fermilab experiment E989. A recent analysis in supergravity grand unified models shows that such an effect can arise from supersymmetric loops correction. Using a neural network, we further analyze regions of the parameter space where Yukawa coupling unification consistent with the Fermilab result can appear. In the analysis we take into account the contributions to Yukawas from the cubic and the quartic interactions. We test the model at the high luminosity and high energy LHC and estimate the integrated luminosities needed to discover sparticles predicted by the model
Ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents for the recovery of phenolic compounds: effect of ionic liquids structure and process parameters
No full textWater pollution is a severe and challenging issue threatening the sustainable development of human civilization. Besides other pollutants, waste fluid streams contain phenolic compounds. These have an adverse effect on the human health and marine ecosystem due to their toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic nature. Therefore, it is necessary to remove such phenolic pollutants from waste stream fluids prior to discharging to the environment. Different methods have been proposed to remove phenolic compounds from wastewater, including extraction using ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvent (DES), a class of organic salts having melting point below 100 C and tunable physicochemical properties. The purpose of this review is to present the progress in utilizing ILs and DES for phenolic compound extraction from waste fluid streams. The effects of IL structural characteristics, such as anion type, cation type, alkyl chain length, and functional groups will be discussed. In addition, the impact of key process parameters such as pH, phenol concentration, phase ratio, and temperature will be also described. More importantly, several ideas for addressing the limitations of the treatment process and improving its efficiency and industrial viability will be presented. These ideas may form the basis for future studies on developing more effective IL-based processes for treating wastewaters contaminated with phenolic pollutants, to address a growing worldwide environmental problem.American University of Sharja
The Kumaraswamy Pareto IV Distribution
No full textWe introduce a new model named the Kumaraswamy Pareto IV distribution which extends the Pareto and Pareto IV distributions. The density function is very flexible and can be left-skewed, right-skewed and symmetrical shapes. It has increasing, decreasing, upside-down bathtub, bathtub, J and reversed-J shaped hazard rate shapes. Various structural properties are derived including explicit expressions for the quantile function, ordinary and incomplete moments, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves, mean deviations, mean residual life, mean waiting time, probability weighted moments and generating function. We provide the density function of the order statistics and their moments. The Renyi and q entropies are also obtained. The model parameters are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood and the observed information matrix is determined. The usefulness of the new model is illustrated by means of three real-life data sets. In fact, our proposed model provides a better fit to these data than the gamma-Pareto IV, gamma-Pareto, beta-Pareto, exponentiated Pareto and Pareto IV models
A Comprehensive Review on Membrane Fouling: Mathematical Modelling, Prediction, Diagnosis, and Mitigation
No full textMembrane-based separation has gained increased popularity over the past few decades, particularly reverse osmosis (RO). A major impediment to the improved performance of membrane separation processes, in general, is membrane fouling. Fouling has detrimental effects on the membrane’s performance and integrity, as the deposition and accumulation of foulants on its surface and/or within its pores leads to a decline in the permeate flux, deterioration of selectivity, and permeability, as well as a significantly reduced lifespan. Several factors influence the fouling-propensity of a membrane, such as surface morphology, roughness, hydrophobicity, and material of fabrication. Generally, fouling can be categorized into particulate, organic, inorganic, and biofouling. Efficient prediction techniques and diagnostics are integral for strategizing control, management, and mitigation interventions to minimize the damage of fouling occurrences in the membranes. To improve the antifouling characteristics of RO membranes, surface enhancements by different chemical and physical means have been extensively sought after. Moreover, research efforts have been directed towards synthesizing membranes using novel materials that would improve their antifouling performance. This paper presents a review of the different membrane fouling types, fouling-inducing factors, predictive methods, diagnostic techniques, and mitigation strategies, with a special focus on RO membrane fouling.Dana Gas Endowed Chair for Chemical Engineerin
Using Fractional Bernoulli Wavelets for Solving Fractional Diffusion Wave Equations with Initial and Boundary Conditions
No full textIn this paper, fractional-order Bernoulli wavelets based on the Bernoulli polynomials are constructed and applied to evaluate the numerical solution of the general form of Caputo fractional order diffusion wave equations. The operational matrices of ordinary and fractional derivatives for Bernoulli wavelets are set via fractional Riemann–Liouville integral operator. Then, these wavelets and their operational matrices are utilized to reduce the nonlinear fractional problem to a set of algebraic equations. For solving the obtained system of equations, Galerkin and collocation spectral methods are employed. To demonstrate the validity and applicability of the presented method, we offer five significant examples, including generalized Cattaneo diffusion wave and Klein–Gordon equations. The implementation of algorithms exposes high accuracy of the presented numerical method. The advantage of having compact support and orthogonality of these family of wavelets trigger having sparse operational matrices, which reduces the computational time and CPU requirements
Renormalization functions of the tricritical O(N)-symmetric Φ⁶ model beyond the next-to-leading order in 1/N
No full textWe investigate higher-order corrections to the effective potential of the tricritical O(N)-symmetric Φ⁶ model in 3-2ε dimensions in its phase exhibiting spontaneous breaking of its scale symmetry. The renormalization group β-function and the anomalous dimension γ of this model are computed up to the next-to-next-to-leading order in the 1/N expansion technique and using a dimensional regularization in a minimal subtraction scheme.American University of Sharja