323,346 research outputs found
Enhancing CO2/CH4 separation performance and mechanical strength of mixed-matrix membrane via combined use of graphene oxide and ZIF-8
No full textHigh-performance mixed-matrix membranes that comprise both zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) and graphene oxide (GO) were synthesized with a solution casting technique to realize excellent CO2/CH4 separation. The incorporation of ZIF-8 nanocrystals alone in ODPA-TMPDA polyimide can be used to significantly enhance CO2 permeability compared with that of pure ODPA-TMPDA. Meanwhile, the addition of a GO nanostack alone in ODPA-TMPDA contributes to improved CO2/CH4 selectivity. Hence, a composite membrane that contains both fillers displays significant enhancements in CO2 permeability (up to 60%) and CO2/CH4 selectivity (up to 28%) compared with those of pure polymeric membrane. Furthermore, in contrast to the ZIF-8 mixed-matrix membrane, which showed decreased mechanical stability, it was found that the incorporation of GO could improve the mechanical strength of mixed-matrix membranes. Overall, the synergistic effects of the use of both fillers together are successfully demonstrated in this paper. Such significant improvements in the mixed-matrix membrane's CO2/CH4 separation performance and mechanical strength suggest a feasible and effective approach for potential biogas upgrading and natural gas purification.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore
Moore′s law, Dabbawalas, and pediatric cardiac care in Sri Lanka
No full textSri Lanka is an island nation in Indian Ocean that provides free healthcare to all citizens through government healthcare system. It has commendable health indices in the region. Pediatric cardiac services have rapidly progressed over past few years helping to further bring down infant and under-five mortality rates. Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children (LRH) is the only tertiary care referral center for children with heart disease in the country. Currently it performs approximately 1,000 cardiac catheterizations and 1,000 cardiac surgeries every year. Target is to double the surgical output to treat all children with heart diseases in a timely and appropriate manner. Being a middle-income country, this is not an easy task. Technology used in diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart diseases is rapidly advancing with its price tag. In such a setting, it is challenging to proceed to achieve this target in a resource-limited environment
Cissus quadrangularis inhibits IL-1β induced inflammatory responses on chondrocytes and alleviates bone deterioration in osteotomized rats via p38 MAPK signaling [Corrigendum]
No full textKanwar JR, Samarasinghe RM, Kumar K, et al. Drug Des Devel Ther. 2015;9:2927–2940. The authors have become aware of an error in Figure 6D on page 2936. The corrected figure with the replacement figure part (Figure 6D, W. som image) is provided here. Read the original articl
Diffusive author(s), cohesive author: Analysis of S/N (1994)
No full textThis study indicates the ways in which various aspects of the author(s) are brought forth in Dumb type’s performance art, the S/N production. Previous research has suggested a non-hierarchical organization of Dumb type and the absence of a “privileged author” in Dumb type’s collaborative work, S/N. However, the results that I have investigated from member’s interviews on the creative process of S/N along with my analysis of the recorded images of S/N, indicate a different aspect of the author(s). First, S/N was created through, so to speak, the collective ideas of the members of Dumb type. Further, S/N has at least nine quotations from previous performances, installations, and printed writings, besides the work-in-progress technique. Explicating one of the “author functions” as given by Michel Foucault, each text has plural subjects of the author. However, it has been revealed from members’ interviews that Teiji Furuhashi had a decision-making role in selecting the members’ ideas within the performance. Since then, S/N has had plural subjects of creation; however, Furuhashi is one of the subjects of creation along with the “privileged author.” S/N has plural authors (diffusive authors) yet at the same time, it has a “privileged author,” Teiji Furuhashi (cohesive author)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Multiple Sequence Alignment of NDM-1 DNA Sequence of Different Carbapenemases Producing Gram-Negatives
No full textMultiple Sequence Alignment of NDM-1 DNA Sequence of Different Carbapenemase Producing Gram-Negatives
Baho S.1 and Samarasinghe S.2
1,2 De Montfort University/Leicester/LC/United Kingdom
Background-
NDM-1 is an enzyme that confers resistance to bacteria against a broad range of β-lactam antibiotics. It is one of the most effective Carbapenemases in terms of carbapenem hydrolysis and geographical spread. Therefore, learn how its DNA sequence evolved through testing its sequence in some organisms might give an idea about the effect of geographical distribution and other environmental effects. In our work, we are trying to find out how the wide spreading of DNM-1 among different Gram-negatives could affect the conservatively of its DNA sequence i.e. the percentage of similarity and differences among NDM-1 DNA sequence. This might give possible insights into the development of new resistance against current effective antibiotics which in turns might help to the precedent event for a possible treatment.
Methods
From GenBank, the complete DNA coding sequences of NDM-1 of Acinetobacter (johnsonii NF114, sp. NF111, sp. NF116), Klebsiella pneumoniae (Res2011-182, K.P-UC-13, K.P-UC-14, K.P-UC-15), Citrobacter freundii NF109, Escherichia coli NF113, Providencia vermicola NF115 and Pseudomonas sp. NF117 were obtained (813 bp for each). DNA sequence analysis was carried out by means of multiple sequence alignment using EMBOSS Clustal Omega and aligned using default setting with all mentioned strains.
Results
Percent identity matrix showed a 100% of similarity between all Klebsiella strains, it also showed a 100% similarity between Acinetobacter strains, C. freundii NF109, E. coli NF113, P.vermicola NF115 and Pseudomonas sp. NF117. But showed only 44.12% of similarity between all the above-mentioned strains with K. pneumoniae strains. The cladogram showed unexpected evolutionary pathway of NDM-1 between Klebsiella strains and A. johnsonii and A. sp. NF111, compared with A. sp. NF116 and other tested strains.
Conclusion
NDM-1 sequence evolved dramatically when transferred to some species while still conserved with others. The evolution might arise as a result of a mutation in the resistance sequence while being conserved among different species could be attributed to the convergent evolution
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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No full textCan archives of audiovisual TV interviews be used to make authors more visible to students, and thereby reduce the learning gap between native and non-native language speakers in college classes? We examined students in a college course who learned about one scholar's ideas through watching an audiovisual TV interview (i.e., visible author format) and about another scholar's ideas through reading a formal text description (i.e., invisible author format). For the invisible author, native language speakers scored significantly higher than the non-native language speakers on a corresponding exam question (i.e., a cognitive measure), generated more words on the exam question (i.e., a motivational measure), and mentioned the author's name more often in answering the exam question (i.e., an affective measure). For the visible author, the groups did not differ on any of these measures. These findings provide evidence for the idea that making the author visible through audiovisual TV interviews can eliminate the learning gap between native and non-native language speakers. 3 Universities around the world serve students who are non-native speakers of th
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