41 research outputs found
The welfare effects of private sector participation in Guinea's urban water supply
No full textIn 1989 the government of Guinea enacted far-reaching reform of its water sector, which had been dominated by a poorly run public agency. The government signed a lease contract for operations and maintenance with a private operator, making a separate public enterprise responsible for ownershipof assets and investment. Although based on a successful model that had operated in Cote d'Ivoire for nearly 30 years, the reform had many highly innovative features. It is being transplanted to several other developing countries, so the authors evaluate its successes and failures in the early years of reform. They present standard performance measures and results from a cost-benefit analysis to assess reform's net effect on various stakeholders in the sector. They conclude that, compared with what might have been expected under continued public ownership, reform benefited consumers, the government, and, to a lesser extent, the foreign owners or the private operator. Most sector performance indicators improved, but some problems remain. The three most troublesome areas are water that is unaccounted for (there are many illegal connections and the quality of infrastructure is poor), poor collection rates, and high prices. The weak institutional environment makes it difficult to improve collection rates, but the government could take some steps to correct the problem. To begin with, it could pay its own bills on time. Also, the legislature could authorize the collection of unpaid bills from private individuals.Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water Conservation,Town Water Supply and Sanitation
From Michelin-Starred Chefs to Artificial Intelligence: Exploring the Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Recipe Generation
No full textCooking and food preparation have a long history and are essential for physical and emotional health. Creativity plays a role in the cooking process and can be seen as a creative activity that considers individual preferences and available ingredients and tools. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the field of creative recipe generation, but current research has not resulted in satisfactory outcomes. The goal of this Master’s Thesis is to develop a computer program using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its subcategories, such as Machine Learning and Deep Learning, to generate novel recipes with easy-to-follow cooking instructions. The proposed Recipe Generator will be guided by the innovation process of Michelin-starred Chefs, as described by Ottenbacher and Harrington (2007). The contribution of the author in the Master Thesis includes a working Recipe Generator, a Named Entity Recognition system, and a structured recipe dataset
Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer tissues have increased base excision repair capacity
No full textThe molecular mechanisms underlying the development and progression of bladder cancer (BC) are complex and have not been fully elucidated. Alterations in base excision repair (BER) capacity, one of several DNA repair mechanisms assigned to preserving genome integrity, have been reported to influence cancer susceptibility, recurrence, and progression, as well as responses to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We report herein that non-muscle invasive BC (NMIBC) tissues exhibit increased uracil incision, abasic endonuclease and gap-filling activities, as well as total BER capacity in comparison to normal bladder tissue from the same patient (p<0.05). No significant difference was detected in 8-oxoG incision activity between cancer and normal tissues. NMIBC tissues have elevated protein levels of uracil DNA glycosylase, 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase, AP endonuclease 1 and DNA polymerase beta protein. Moreover, the fold increase in total BER and the individual BER enzyme activities were greater in high-grade tissues than in low-grade NMIBC tissues. These findings suggest that enhanced BER activity may play a role in the etiology of NMIBC and that BER proteins could serve as biomarkers in disease prognosis, progression or response to genotoxic therapeutics, such as Bacillus Calmette-Guerin.Muftuoglu, M (corresponding author), Acibadem Mehmet Ali Aydinlar Univ, Dept Med Biotechnol, TR-34752 Istanbul, Turkey ; Acibadem Mehmet Ali Aydinlar Univ, Dept Mol Biol & Genet, TR-34752 Istanbul, Turkey.
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A transitory regime : water supply in Conakry, Guinea
No full textBoth consumers and the government benefited from reform of the water system in Conakry, Guinea, whose deterioration since independence had become critical by the mid-1980s. Less than 40 percent of Conakry's population had access to piped water - low even by regional standards - and service was intermittent, at best, for the few who had connections. The public agency in charge of the sector was inefficient, overstaffed, and virtually insolvent. In several ways, the reform introduced to the sector in 1989 under a World Bank-led project was remarkable. It showed that even in a weak institutional environment, where contracts are hard to enforce and political interference is common, private sector participation can improve sector performance. The authors discuss the mechanismsthat made progress possible and identify factors that inhibit the positive effects of reform. Water has become very expensive, the number of connections has increased very slowly, and conflicts have developed between SEEG (the private operator) and SONEG (the state agency). Among the underlying problems: a) The lack of strong, stable institutions. b) The lack of an independent agency capable of restraining arbitrary government action, regulating the private operator, and enforcing contractual arrangements. c) The lack of adequate conflict resolution mechanisms for contract disputes. d) Weak administrative capacity.Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Water Conservation,Decentralization,Water Supply and Systems,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Conservation
Protective effect of pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate against methotrexate-induced testicular damage
No full textThe aim of the study was to investigate the protective effect of pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) against methotrexate (MTX)-induced testicular damage in rats. Forty Wistar albino male rats were divided into equally four groups: Control group (saline solution, IP), PDTC group (100 mg/kg PDTC,IP, 10 days), MTX group (20 mg/kg MTX, IP, single dose, on the 6th day) and MTX + PDTC group (100 mg/kg PDTC, IP, 10 days and 20 mg/kg MTX, IP, single dose, on the 6th day). After 10 days, testicular tissues were excised for morphometric, histological and immunohistochemical evaluations. Serum testosterone, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH) and prokineticin 2 (PK2) levels were determined. Body and testicular weights were measured. Testicular damage was assessed by histological evaluation. Nuclear factor kappa B (NFkB), nuclear factor erythroid 2 related factor 2 (Nrf2) and PK2 immunoreactivities were evaluated by HSCORE. Body and testicular weights, serum FSH, LH, testosterone levels, seminiferous tubule diameter and germinal epithelial thickness were significantly decreased in the MTX group. However, serum PK2 level, histologically damaged seminiferous tubules and interstitial field width were significantly increased. Additionally, there was an increase in NFkB and PK2 immunoreactivity, whereas there was a significant decrease in Nrf2 immunoreactivity. PDTC significantly improved hormonal, morphometric, histological and immunohistochemical findings. Taken together, we conclude that PDTC may reduce MTX-induced testicular damage via NFkB, Nrf2 and PK2 signaling pathways.Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Trakya University [TUBAP 2018/103]The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Trakya University (TUBAP 2018/103)
Author Correction: Using remote sensing environmental data to forecast malaria incidence at a rural district hospital in Western Kenya
No full textA correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.</jats:p
Stripped and layered fabrication of minimal surface tectonics using parametric algorithms
No full textThis article describes a parametric design and fabrication workflow influenced by Frei Otto's form-finding experiments on soap films. The research investigates minimal surface geometry by combining physical and digital experiments in a computational framework. Operating on mesh topology, various parametric design tools and plug-ins in Rhinoceros/Grasshopper are presented to discuss the translation of minimal surfaces to flat strips suitable for planar fabrication using flexible materials. These tools are tested on a case study to show the automated design and manufacture of double-curved surfaces as double-layered strips running in perpendicular directions that can be affixed at point connections for structural stability. The development of the parametric workflow, material constraints, and stripped fabrication of layers are discussed. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter.This project is funded through Kadir Has University scientific research grant. The completion of the installation would not have been possible without the efforts of the student team: Muvaffak Ali Akyuz, Louis Folkens, Fatma Yesim Kızılbulut, Ozce Ozkose, Melike Ayyuce Gunes, Mustafa Ilgaz Aluc, Sevval Busra Ozmen, Abbas Khan, Mohammed Jarrar, Ahmed Barzan, and Ali Ozan Guvenc
SC IE N T I A R U M PO L O N O R U M ACTA Corresponding author -Adres do korespondencji: ORGANIC FISH PRODUCTION AND THE STANDARDS
No full textAbstract. Fish that are produced under natural conditions in accordance with the principles of organic agriculture without any use of preservative additives and without any genetic modifications, that are fed feed produced from natural raw materials, that are certified by a qualified institution are defined as "organic fish". Organic fish production is a production model that emphasizes human health without using pesticides, chemical and genetically modified products, as well as ensuring animal welfare by decreasing the stocking density. This alternative model is used in many developed and developing countries in the world and the demand for this product has been the cause of increase in production amount and species variety in the market, although the model comprises 0.01% of the world aquaculture production. However, organic aquaculture production has not been developed as rapidly as organic agriculture. One of the most important reasons of this is the absence of international standards issued for organic aquaculture production. In this paper, the production principles of a number of authorized institutions certifying organic aquaculture are comparatively discussed
