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1
Holczer, Marianna, Margita Márton, Anita Kurucz, Gábor Bánhegyi, and Orsolya Kapuy. "A Comprehensive Systems Biological Study of Autophagy-Apoptosis Crosstalk during Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress." BioMed Research International 2015 (2015): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/319589.
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One of the most important tasks of a living organism is to maintain its genetic integrity with respect to stress. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) has a crucial role in sensing cellular homeostasis by controlling metabolism, proteostasis, and several signaling processes. ER stressors can induce autophagy-dependent survival; however excessive level of stress results in apoptotic cell death. Although many molecular components of these networks have already been discovered, the analysis of the dynamical features of the regulatory network of life-or-death decision is still lacking. Our goal was to incorporate both theoretical and molecular biological techniques to explore the autophagy-apoptosis crosstalk under ER stress. Using various levels of different ER stressors we confirmed that the control network always generated an evidently detectable autophagy-dependent threshold for apoptosis activation. We explored the features of this threshold by introducing both autophagy activators and inhibitors, and transient treatment with excessive level of ER stressor was also performed. Our experimental data were also supported by a stochastic approach. Our analysis suggests that even if the switch-like characteristic of apoptosis activation is hardly seen on population level the double negative feedback loop between autophagy and apoptosis inducers introduces bistability in the control network.
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Sorokin, Anatoly, Nicolas Le Novère, Augustin Luna, Tobias Czauderna, Emek Demir, Robin Haw, Huaiyu Mi, Stuart Moodie, Falk Schreiber, and Alice Villéger. "Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Entity Relationship language Level 1 Version 2." Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 281–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jib-2015-264.
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Summary The Systems Biological Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort for standardized graphical representations of biological pathways and networks. The goal of SBGN is to provide unambiguous pathway and network maps for readers with different scientific backgrounds as well as to support efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between different research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. Three SBGN languages, Process Description (PD), Entity Relationship (ER) and Activity Flow (AF), allow for the representation of different aspects of biological and biochemical systems at different levels of detail.The SBGN Entity Relationship language (ER) represents biological entities and their interactions and relationships within a network. SBGN ER focuses on all potential relationships between entities without considering temporal aspects. The nodes (elements) describe biological entities, such as proteins and complexes. The edges (connections) provide descriptions of interactions and relationships (or influences), e.g., complex formation, stimulation and inhibition. Among all three languages of SBGN, ER is the closest to protein interaction networks in biological literature and textbooks, but its well-defined semantics offer a superior precision in expressing biological knowledge.
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Yang, Xing, Ziyi Xie, Zhen Qian, Xuhong Zhang, Dandan Zhao, Songyang Wu, Hao Peng, Dongtao Zhu, and Zhenyu Liang. "Security Situation Awareness Assessment of Heterogeneous Cyber-Physical Systems in Multiple Load Mode." Security and Communication Networks 2022 (October 13, 2022): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/1800434.
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As the Internet of Things technology develops rapidly, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) have provided critical technologies in the industrial field. A smart grid is a typical application of the CPS, which is formed by the coupling of the power network and communication network. In general, the two networks are heterogeneous. Considering the characteristics of the power network, the ordinary percolation network model is not suitable for the network carrying physical flow. Therefore, we propose an interdependent network model with a load. That is, nodes in the physical network have loaded. Then, we research the security of CPS under the multi-load mode. The rule for node failure is different from the percolation model. When a node’s load exceeds its capacity, the node fails. Through the theoretical analysis, we obtained the iterative equation of the percolation threshold and analyzed it through simulation experiments. We adopt both linear and nonlinear capacity models. It is found that appropriately increasing the average degree of ER network can improve its ability to resist attacks. In contrast, the power exponent of the SF network has less influence on the critical value of network percolation. In addition, we found that increasing the capacity parameter in the linear capacity model can improve the robustness of the network, where the variation of the ER-ER network is more evident than that of the SF-SF network. Increasing the capacity parameter in the nonlinear capacity model can significantly increase the network’s ability to resist attacks. However, due to the increase in economical cost, we can improve the network’s reliability by increasing the node capacity while controlling the cost.
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Kazem, Hussein A., Jabar Yousif, Miqdam T. Chaichan, and Ali H. A. Al-Waeli. "Experimental and deep learning artificial neural network approach for evaluating grid-connected photovoltaic systems." International Journal of Energy Research 43, no. 14 (September 3, 2019): 8572–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/er.4855.
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Mekhamer, Said, Almoataz Abdelaziz, and Mostafa Algabalawy. "Design of hybrid power generation systems connected to utility grid and natural gas distribution network." Engineering review 38, no. 2 (2018): 204–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.30765/er.38.2.8.
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Hybrid power generation system (HPGS) is an active research area, which is in need of a continuous improvement. It represents the best solution for the most complex problems facing the world in the last decades. These problems are known as the shortage of energy, or lack of electricity, which logically are the results of the continuous increasing demand. Therefore, the researchers do their best to overcome all expected roadblocks facing the development, where the most applicable solutions to solve these problems are introduced. In this paper, the HPGS includes; wind turbine (WT), photovoltaic (PV), storage battery (SB), gas turbine (GT), and utility grid (UG). The GT of this system is fueled directly from the natural gas distribution network considering all operational conditions of it, which may be affected by fueling the natural gas for the GT. So, the natural gas distribution network is becoming an important component of the HPGS, and it is included in the HPGS for the first time. Multi meta-heuristic optimization techniques are applied to obtain the components sizing of this system, where cuckoo search algorithm (CSA), firefly algorithm (FA), and flower pollination algorithm (FPA) have been applied. Therefore, this paper introduces a new contribution not only to the new configuration of the HPGS, but also in applying the new optimization techniques as solving tools. The output results are compared to show the effectiveness and the superiority of the applied techniques as well as extract a recommendation for the best solving technique.
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Choi, Seung-Bok. "Control Characteristics of ER Devices." International Journal of Modern Physics B 13, no. 14n16 (June 30, 1999): 2160–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0217979299002265.
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The successful development of a new generation of technology incorporating an electro-rheological (ER) fluid requires three principal ingredients; advanced ER fluid, reliable mechanical mechanism and efficacious control scheme. This paper discusses the third one. After describing general, but stringent requirements for semiactive or active control systems featuring the ER fluid, feedback control characteristics of some specific ER devices are presented; a frequency-dependent feedback control of mode shape in a smart flexible structure containing the ER fluid, an optimal control of vibration in a semi-active suspension installed with ER shock absorbers, and a neural network control of position in a hydraulic ER valve-cylinder system.
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Fonjungo, Peter N., George A. Alemnji, Yenew Kebede, Alex Opio, Christina Mwangi, Thomas J. Spira, R. Suzanne Beard, and John N. Nkengasong. "Combatting Global Infectious Diseases: A Network Effect of Specimen Referral Systems." Clinical Infectious Diseases 64, no. 6 (February 13, 2017): 796–803. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciw817.
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Abstract The recent Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa clearly demonstrated the critical role of laboratory systems and networks in responding to epidemics. Because of the huge challenges in establishing functional laboratories at all tiers of health systems in developing countries, strengthening specimen referral networks is critical. In this review article, we propose a platform strategy for developing specimen referral networks based on 2 models: centralized and decentralized laboratory specimen referral networks. These models have been shown to be effective in patient management in programs in resource-limited settings. Both models lead to reduced turnaround time and retain flexibility for integrating different specimen types. In Haiti, decentralized specimen referral systems resulted in a 182% increase in patients enrolling in human immunodeficiency virus treatment programs within 6 months. In Uganda, cost savings of up to 62% were observed with a centralized model. A platform strategy will create a network effect that will benefit multiple disease programs.
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Wang, Zhixue. "Reliability Analysis of Social Network Data Transmission in Wireless Sensor Network Topology." Journal of Sensors 2022 (January 6, 2022): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/6256884.
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In this paper, the reliability of data transmission in social networks is thoroughly studied and analyzed using wireless sensor network topology technology. This paper, based on the introduction of sensor network reliability analysis-related technology, combined with the characteristics, and needs of the sensor network itself, focuses on the study of the reliability analysis of the sensor network under the state of perturbation scheme. Based on the idea of making full use of data changes to respond to the sensor state, this paper takes the actual monitoring data of the wireless sensor network as the research object, selects the temporal correlation and spatial correlation of the measured environmental data as the reliability index by extracting the features of the wireless sensor network data, and proposes the Evidential reasoning rule- (ER-) based wireless sensor network data reliability assessment model based on Evidential reasoning rule (ER) is proposed. The data are mined, analyzed, and quantified from the perspective of content popularity, and the interest indicators of nodes on data under content popularity are analyzed to derive stable interest quantification values. Combined with the network properties, i.e., node autoassembly community, we analyze the data dissemination characteristics of social networks in wireless sensor network topology environment and derive the upper and lower bounds of data transmission capacity under node interest-driven and its variation on network performance. Social relationships among nodes affected by social attributes are considered; in turn, the data forwarding behavior of nodes is modeled using data transmission probability and data reception probability; finally, the data forwarding process is analyzed and a closed expression for the average end-to-end transmission capacity is derived in turn.
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Mammen Oommen, Anup, Usha Narayanan, and M. R. Jagannath. "An Integrative Network Biology Approach to Evaluate the Role of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Response in Obese Type 2 Diabetes." ISRN Cell Biology 2012 (May 22, 2012): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2012/278636.
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Extracellular/intracellular stimuli can influence eukaryotic cell function through organelles that regulate critical signaling pathways. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER), for example, impacts cellular processes including protein synthesis, folding and secretion; amino acid transport; apoptosis; cell proliferation; lipid synthesis across major cell types in response to stimuli such as accumulation of misfolded proteins and glucose deprivation. Dysregulated signaling pathways underlying the ER-mediated processes mentioned above have been linked to disease conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer's disease. Our current understanding, however, lacks a detailed network view that integrates organelle-mediated pathway dysregulation with cellular processes and disease pathogenesis. In this report, we introduce an integrative network biology approach that combines ER-stress response pathways with basic cellular processes using data from peer-reviewed literature. As an example, we apply our systems biology approach to study the role of ER stress in pancreatic β cells under obese diabetic conditions, generate testable hypotheses, and provide novel insights into β-cell pathogenesis.
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Mi, Huaiyu, Falk Schreiber, Stuart Moodie, Tobias Czauderna, Emek Demir, Robin Haw, Augustin Luna, Nicolas Le Novère, Anatoly Sorokin, and Alice Villéger. "Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Activity Flow language Level 1 Version 1.2." Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 340–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jib-2015-265.
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Summary The Systems Biological Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort for standardized graphical representations of biological pathways and networks. The goal of SBGN is to provide unambiguous pathway and network maps for readers with different scientific backgrounds as well as to support efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between different research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. Three SBGN languages, Process Description (PD), Entity Relationship (ER) and Activity Flow (AF), allow for the representation of different aspects of biological and biochemical systems at different levels of detail.The SBGN Activity Flow language represents the influences of activities among various entities within a network. Unlike SBGN PD and ER that focus on the entities and their relationships with others, SBGN AF puts the emphasis on the functions (or activities) performed by the entities, and their effects to the functions of the same or other entities. The nodes (elements) describe the biological activities of the entities, such as protein kinase activity, binding activity or receptor activity, which can be easily mapped to Gene Ontology molecular function terms. The edges (connections) provide descriptions of relationships (or influences) between the activities, e.g., positive influence and negative influence. Among all three languages of SBGN, AF is the closest to signaling pathways in biological literature and textbooks, but its well-defined semantics offer a superior precision in expressing biological knowledge.
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Ali, Guma, Mussa Ally Dida, and Anael Elikana Sam. "Evaluation of Key Security Issues Associated with Mobile Money Systems in Uganda." Information 11, no. 6 (June 8, 2020): 309. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/info11060309.
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Smartphone technology has improved access to mobile money services (MMS) and successful mobile money deployment has brought massive benefits to the unbanked population in both rural and urban areas of Uganda. Despite its enormous benefits, embracing the usage and acceptance of mobile money has mostly been low due to security issues and challenges associated with the system. As a result, there is a need to carry out a survey to evaluate the key security issues associated with mobile money systems in Uganda. The study employed a descriptive research design, and stratified random sampling technique to group the population. Krejcie and Morgan’s formula was used to determine the sample size for the study. The collection of data was through the administration of structured questionnaires, where 741 were filled by registered mobile money (MM) users, 447 registered MM agents, and 52 mobile network operators’ (MNOs) IT officers of the mobile money service providers (MMSPs) in Uganda. The collected data were analyzed using RStudio software. Statistical techniques like descriptive analysis and Pearson Chi-Square test was used in data analysis and mean (M) > 3.0 and p-value < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The findings revealed that the key security issues are identity theft, authentication attack, phishing attack, vishing attack, SMiShing attack, personal identification number (PIN) sharing, and agent-driven fraud. Based on these findings, the use of better access controls, customer awareness campaigns, agent training on acceptable practices, strict measures against fraudsters, high-value transaction monitoring by the service providers, developing a comprehensive legal document to run mobile money service, were some of the proposed mitigation measures. This study, therefore, provides a baseline survey to help MNO and the government that would wish to implement secure mobile money systems.
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Nansamba, Salmah, and Hadi Harb. "Developing a Neural Network Based Fault Prediction Tool for a Solar Power Plant in Uganda." Transactions on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence 10, no. 6 (December 28, 2022): 52–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/tmlai.106.13645.
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Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are one of the fastest growing renewable energy technologies and plenty of research has been and continues to be carried out in this domain. Maximization of solar PV power plant production, efficiency and return on investment can only be achieved by having adequate and effective maintenance systems in place. Of the various maintenance schemes, predictive maintenance is popular for its effectiveness and minimization of resource wastage. Maintenance activities are scheduled based on the real time condition of the system with priority being given to the system components with the highest likelihood of failure. A good predictive maintenance system is based on the premise of being able to anticipate faults before they occur. In this study therefore, a fault prediction tool for a solar plant in Uganda is proposed. The hybrid tool is developed using both feed forward and long short term memory neural networks for power prediction, in conjunction with a mean chart statistical process control tool for final fault prediction. Results from the study demonstrate that the feed forward and long short term memory neural network modules of the proposed tool attain mean absolute errors of 4.2% and 6.9% respectively for power production predictions. The fault prediction capability of the tool is tested under both normal and abnormal operating conditions. Results show that the tool satisfactorily discriminates against the fault and non-fault conditions thereby achieving successful solar PV system fault prediction.
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Li, Haisen, and Shengyi Sun. "Protein Aggregation in the ER: Calm behind the Storm." Cells 10, no. 12 (November 28, 2021): 3337. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10123337.
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As one of the largest organelles in eukaryotic cells, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) plays a vital role in the synthesis, folding, and assembly of secretory and membrane proteins. To maintain its homeostasis, the ER is equipped with an elaborate network of protein folding chaperones and multiple quality control pathways whose cooperative actions safeguard the fidelity of protein biogenesis. However, due to genetic abnormalities, the error-prone nature of protein folding and assembly, and/or defects or limited capacities of the protein quality control systems, nascent proteins may become misfolded and fail to exit the ER. If not cleared efficiently, the progressive accumulation of misfolded proteins within the ER may result in the formation of toxic protein aggregates, leading to the so-called “ER storage diseases”. In this review, we first summarize our current understanding of the protein folding and quality control networks in the ER, including chaperones, unfolded protein response (UPR), ER-associated protein degradation (ERAD), and ER-selective autophagy (ER-phagy). We then survey recent research progress on a few ER storage diseases, with a focus on the role of ER quality control in the disease etiology, followed by a discussion on outstanding questions and emerging concepts in the field.
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Kyosaba, Peacekind, and Dr Josphat Kyalo. "An Investigation of Enterprise Resource Planning capabilities Influencing Performance of Uganda Universities: An Empirical Review." East African Scholars Journal of Economics, Business and Management 5, no. 6 (July 12, 2022): 116–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.36349/easjebm.2022.v05i06.001.
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Public universities play an important role in economic development in Uganda. As the number of public universities increase, their performance becomes key competitive factor. Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPs) is seen as a solution for improved performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Enterprise Resource Planning System capabilities on performance of Uganda universities. Universities in Uganda have been performing poorly because of inadequate infrastructure, poor service delivery, lack of management support and unwarranted information insecurity. The objective of this study was to establish the role of information security, examine the influence of management support, evaluate the effect of information system infrastructure and to determine the relevance of service delivery on performance of universities in Uganda. The study was guided by the contingency theory and the Actor Network Theory. This paper discusses secondary data evidence that prevail on the role of Enterprise Resource Planning System integration in Public Universities in Uganda. A number of journal articles were reviewed. The study found out that management support, information security, service delivery, information system infrastructure has a positive effect on performance of universities. Results depicted that Enterprise Resource Planning System had strong effect on performance of organizations including public universities, though less studied in the Uganda context. Conclusively, the role of Enterprise Resource Planning System on performance of Public Universities in Uganda requires field-based empirical evidence by recent research attention. This could also be utilized to develop a model for assessing performance of organizations by Enterprise Resource Planning System.
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Kalampakas, Argyrios, and Georgios C. Makris. "Statistical Analysis to Bitcoin Transactions Network." International Journal of Statistics and Probability 9, no. 5 (August 28, 2020): 85. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijsp.v9n5p85.
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There is abundantly documented scientific evidence that the financial transactions that have grown rapidly recently, in conjuction with the interest of the public, were due to the sharp rise in the price of Bitcoin in December 2017. As a consequence, a freshly emerging dataset in the research community has emerged. Therefore, the aim of the present investigation was to examine the analyses of data in this newly emerging dataset in the research community. In order to achieve the extraction of data, their conversion to network and finally their fragmentation, the studied variables were analyzed by using two parts of analysis, namely, statistical network analyses and economic activity analyses. Network statistical analyses was employed aiming to analyze, in a holistic approach, the complex systems of modern times which are represented as networks, as it is impossible to analyze them partially, in order to avoid incorrect conclusions. Additionally, the analyses of economic activity, which is related to indicators from the stock market and the economics of science, was used, after it had been transferred and matched with the economic model represented by Bitcoin. The results distinguished the extent of the data generated by the statistical analyses of the networks and the analyses of economic activity. With respect to data presented, we established that the daily transaction networks were scale free networks which were not evolving like ER random networks and they were not defined as the small world. Also, it was demonstrated that daily transaction networks cannot be reproduced in a random way like ER random networks. Furthermore, the opportunities and problems encountered in conducting the present research were briefly presented.
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Vincent, John A. "Buses, Monopoly, and Development." Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics 2, no. 4 (April 1988): 321–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02601079x8800200407.
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The paper seeks to make an inter-disciplinary exploration of the development of bus passenger transport systems. Three perspectives drawn from the field of development studies are used to suggest possible theoretical frameworks. The historical patterns of the development of such systems in Britain, Uganda, and India are considered. The major features which pattern the development of the road passenger transport industry seem to be the creation of various degrees of monopoly which in turn is related to the kind of state in which the network is located.
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Bystrov, V. V., D. N. Khaliullina, and S. N. Malygina. "Technology for dynamic configuration of the network-centric information support system for regional security management." Transaction Kola Science Centre 11, no. 8-2020 (December 16, 2020): 11–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.37614/2307-5252.2020.8.11.001.
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The article is devoted to the development of software of information and analytical support for regional security management. The authors formulate the concepts of configuration of a network-centric management support system and its dynamic configuration. The conceptual scheme of the configuration in the notation of ER diagrams and its implementation in the form of a configuration file is proposed. The technology for dynamic configuration of multi-level network-centric information and control systems is described. The technology is designed for automated deployment of a network of software agents and their parametric configuration depending on the context of the application problem being solved
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ANDREEV, SERGEI A. "ENERGY FLOW CONTROL IN COMBINED POWER SUPPLY SYSTEMS FOR AGRICULTURAL FACILITIES." Agricultural engineering, no. 6 (2021): 68–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.26897/2687-1149-2021-6-68-73.
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The article proves the practicality of transferring individual objects of the agro-industrial sector to a combined power supply using a centralized network, photoelectric converters, and batteries. The authors state that there is no available information about the functioning algorithm of the combined power supply systems from foreign manufacturers and prove the necessity of independently developing and popularizing such systems. The article provides movement directions of energy fl ows in combined power supply systems. These areas off er the mutual redistribution of electrical energy between photovoltaic converters, batteries, consumers, and the industrial network. The authors show the prospects of developing the commercial supply of autonomously generated surplus electricity to the grid. The conditions for implementing the main directions of energy fl ows are formulated, and an algorithm for controlling the system elements is drawn up. The article presents the design of a basic relay-contact electrical circuit of the command-switching device of the combined power supply system. The authors describe the design of a semiconductor inverter ensuring the in-phase of the generated voltage with the industrial network voltage and present the block diagram of a command-switching device based on logical elements.
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Mills, David, Sherrie Staley, Steven Aisu, Twila Kunde, Paul Kimsey, and Kim Lewis. "International Public Health Laboratory Twinning: An Innovative Approach to Strengthen the National Health Laboratory System in Uganda, 2014-2017." Public Health Reports 134, no. 2_suppl (November 2019): 37S—42S. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0033354919836957.
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International initiatives to strengthen national health laboratory systems in resource-poor countries are often hampered by unfamiliarity with the country’s health laboratory environment and turnover of international partners during the initiative. This study provides an overview of, and lessons learned from, the use of a laboratory long-term partnership approach (ie, “twinning”) to strengthen the national public health laboratory system in an international setting. We focused on the partnering of the Uganda Ministry of Health Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) with the New Mexico State Public Health Laboratory to help the CPHL become Uganda’s national public health reference laboratory (Uganda National Health Laboratory Services [UNHLS] Institute) and leader of its nascent Uganda National Health Laboratory Network (UNHLN). Via twinning, CPHL leadership received training on laboratory leadership and management, quality systems, facility management, and the One Health environmental strategy (ie, that the health of persons is connected to the health of animals and the environment), and drafted a National Health Laboratory Policy, UNHLS Institute business plan, and strategic and operating plans for the UNHLS Institute and UNHLN. The CPHL is now responsible for the UNHLS Institute and coordinates the UNHLN. Lessons learned include (1) twinning establishes stable long-term collaborations and (2) success requires commitment to a formal statement of activities and objectives, as well as clear and regular communication among partners.
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Andersen, K. F., C. E. Buddenhagen, P. Rachkara, R. Gibson, S. Kalule, D. Phillips, and K. A. Garrett. "Modeling Epidemics in Seed Systems and Landscapes To Guide Management Strategies: The Case of Sweet Potato in Northern Uganda." Phytopathology® 109, no. 9 (September 2019): 1519–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1094/phyto-03-18-0072-r.
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Seed systems are critical for deployment of improved varieties but also can serve as major conduits for the spread of seedborne pathogens. As in many other epidemic systems, epidemic risk in seed systems often depends on the structure of networks of trade, social interactions, and landscape connectivity. In a case study, we evaluated the structure of an informal sweet potato seed system in the Gulu region of northern Uganda for its vulnerability to the spread of emerging epidemics and its utility for disseminating improved varieties. Seed transaction data were collected by surveying vine sellers weekly during the 2014 growing season. We combined data from these observed seed transactions with estimated dispersal risk based on village-to-village proximity to create a multilayer network or “supranetwork.” Both the inverse power law function and negative exponential function, common models for dispersal kernels, were evaluated in a sensitivity analysis/uncertainty quantification across a range of parameters chosen to represent spread based on proximity in the landscape. In a set of simulation experiments, we modeled the introduction of a novel pathogen and evaluated the influence of spread parameters on the selection of villages for surveillance and management. We found that the starting position in the network was critical for epidemic progress and final epidemic outcomes, largely driven by node out-degree. The efficacy of node centrality measures was evaluated for utility in identifying villages in the network to manage and limit disease spread. Node degree often performed as well as other, more complicated centrality measures for the networks where village-to-village spread was modeled by the inverse power law, whereas betweenness centrality was often more effective for negative exponential dispersal. This analysis framework can be applied to provide recommendations for a wide variety of seed systems.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license .
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Meunier, Laurent, Young-Kwang Usherwood, Kyung Tae Chung, and Linda M. Hendershot. "A Subset of Chaperones and Folding Enzymes Form Multiprotein Complexes in Endoplasmic Reticulum to Bind Nascent Proteins." Molecular Biology of the Cell 13, no. 12 (December 2002): 4456–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e02-05-0311.
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We demonstrate the existence of a large endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-localized multiprotein complex that is comprised of the molecular chaperones BiP; GRP94; CaBP1; protein disulfide isomerase (PDI); ERdj3, a recently identified ER Hsp40 cochaperone; cyclophilin B; ERp72; GRP170; UDP-glucosyltransferase; and SDF2-L1. This complex is associated with unassembled, incompletely folded immunoglobulin heavy chains. Except for ERdj3, and to a lesser extent PDI, this complex also forms in the absence of nascent protein synthesis and is found in a variety of cell types. Cross-linking studies reveal that the majority of these chaperones are included in the complex. Our data suggest that this subset of ER chaperones forms an ER network that can bind to unfolded protein substrates instead of existing as free pools that assembled onto substrate proteins. It is noticeable that most of the components of the calnexin/calreticulin system, which include some of the most abundant chaperones inside the ER, are either not detected in this complex or only very poorly represented. This study demonstrates an organization of ER chaperones and folding enzymes that has not been previously appreciated and suggests a spatial separation of the two chaperone systems that may account for the temporal interactions observed in other studies.
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Sharif, Muhammad Nadeem, Husnain Haider, Ashraf Farahat, Kasun Hewage, and Rehan Sadiq. "Water–energy nexus for water distribution systems: a literature review." Environmental Reviews 27, no. 4 (December 2019): 519–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/er-2018-0106.
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Water and energy are interdependent on each other. Energy is required to supply water to a system while, at the same time, water is needed for power generation in any natural or artificial system. This relationship is often called the water–energy nexus (WEN). In a water supply system, energy is consumed for source water extraction, transmission, treatment, and distribution. About 7%–8% of the world’s total generated energy is used for drinking water production and distribution. A major portion of this energy is used for distribution, i.e., pumping, chlorination, and maintenance activities, and hence is the focus of this review. Most of the world’s energy is generated by fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal), which results in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Here we review studies conducted to assess and evaluate the energy consumption and the related GHG emissions in water distribution systems (WDSs). This review covers the basic concepts and studies on WEN, energy saving solutions, renewable energy resources for water pumping, optimization of design, and the life cycle assessment (LCA) of large WDSs. Most of the reviewed studies suggest a trade-off between energy cost and the associated GHG emissions when selecting fixed-speed pumps over variable-speed pumps for large WDSs. To mitigate CO2 emissions, renewable energy resources like solar, wind, and mini-water turbines for water pumping have been discussed and mini-water turbines were found to be energy efficient solutions. The energy-focused LCA model has been studied to investigate the environmental impacts, GHG emissions, operational energy, and various life cycle stages of pipe manufacturing (embodied energy) in the network. Case studies of real world WDSs are reviewed and the potential research gaps are identified. Most life cycle studies have focused on the areas of pipe replacement, the life cycle cost of the system, the operational energy, and the reduction of GHG emissions, whereas less attention has been paid to the geographical and socio-economic issues along with the areas of human health, water resource diversity, and the hydraulic characteristics of WDSs.
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Tanioka, Maki, Joe Garay, Cheng Fan, Lisa A. Carey, and Charles M. Perou. "Genetic causes of resistance to entinostat in luminal breast cancer model systems." Journal of Clinical Oncology 35, no. 15_suppl (May 20, 2017): 1065. http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/jco.2017.35.15_suppl.1065.
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1065 Background: Based on promising phase II data, the histone deacetylase inhibitor Entinostat (ENT) is in phase III trials for patients with metastatic ER-positive breast cancer. Predictors of sensitivity and resistance, however, remain unknown. Methods: Luminal cell lines SKBR3 (ER-/HER2+), BT474 (ER+/HER2+) and MCF7 (ER+/HER2-) were treated with or without ENT at their IC50 doses and their gene expression profiles determined. In addition, a total of 27 MMTV-Neu mouse tumors (luminal) were untreated (N = 8), or treated with ENT at 12 mg/kg for 3 weeks (N = 5), 6 weeks (N = 6), or until progression after complete response (N = 8). We investigated their gene expression profiles by microarray and copy number (CN) by arrayCGH, and utilized the Dawnrank analysis, a network-based bioinformatics tool that integrates DNA and RNA data to identify driver genes, to find predictors of resistance to ENT. Results: Supervised analysis of gene expression data coming from the 3 treated cell lines showed significant upregulation of multiple MYC gene signatures. Therefore, we constitutively overexpressed MYC using lentiviral MYC shRNA in SKBR3 and MCF7, and MYC overexpression made cell lines more resistant to ENT. In MMTV-Neu mice, both MYC gene mRNA and gene signatures were downregulated while cells responded to ENT, and became upregulated when the tumors progressed. aCGH CN analysis revealed that a large portion of mouse Chromosome 4 had DNA CN loss and low gene expression in tumors that progressed while on ENT. Within this region, JUN was computationally identified to be a top driver gene associated with resistance. JUN was next knocked down using lentiviral JUN shRNA in BT474 and T47D, and JUN knock-down repeatedly made cell lines more resistant to ENT. MYC gene-expression was also upregulated in JUN-knockdown BT474 and T47D. Finally, JUN CN loss was found in 22% (132/588) of luminal tumors in The Genome Cancer Atlas breast cancer, and all the MYC signature scores were significantly higher in JUN-deleted TCGA samples. Conclusions: ENT was an effective drug for all of our luminal models, both in vitro and in vivo. Using these models, we selected for resistant variants and identified MYC signature expression, and JUN CN deletion as being associated with resistance.
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Giannakas, Theodoros, Anastasios Giovanidis, and Thrasyvoulos Spyropoulos. "MDP-based Network Friendly Recommendations." ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems 6, no. 4 (December 31, 2021): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3513131.
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Controlling the network cost by delivering popular content to users, as well as improving streaming quality and overall user experience, have been key goals for content providers (CP) in recent years. While proposals to improve performance, through caching or other mechanisms (DASH, multicasting, etc.) abound, recent works have proposed to turn the problem on its head and complement such efforts. Instead of trying to reduce the cost to deliver every possible content to a user, a potentially very expensive endeavour, one could leverage omnipresent recommendations systems to nudge users towards the content of low(er) network cost, regardless of where this cost is coming from. In this paper, we focus on this latter problem, namely optimal policies for “Network Friendly Recommendations” (NFR). A key contribution is the use of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework that offers significant advantages, compared to existing works, in terms of both modeling flexibility as well as computational efficiency. Specifically we show that this framework subsumes some state-of-the-art approaches, and can also optimally tackle additional, more sophisticated setups. We validate our findings with real traces that suggest up to almost 2X in cost performance, and 10X in computational speed-up compared to recent state-of-the-art works.
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Dewan, Michael C., Justin Onen, Hansen Bow, Peter Ssenyonga, Charles Howard, and Benjamin C. Warf. "Subspecialty pediatric neurosurgery training: a skill-based training model for neurosurgeons in low-resourced health systems." Neurosurgical Focus 45, no. 4 (October 2018): E2. http://dx.doi.org/10.3171/2018.7.focus18249.
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There is inadequate pediatric neurosurgical training to meet the growing burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Subspecialty expertise in the management of hydrocephalus and spina bifida—two of the most common pediatric neurosurgical conditions—offers a high-yield opportunity to mitigate morbidity and avoid unnecessary death. The CURE Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida (CHSB) fellowship offers an intensive subspecialty training program designed to equip surgeons from LMIC with the state-of-the-art surgical skills and equipment to most effectively manage common neurosurgical conditions of childhood. Prospective fellows and their home institution undergo a comprehensive evaluation before being accepted for the 8-week training period held at CURE Children’s Hospital of Uganda (CCHU) in Mbale, Uganda. The fellowship combines anatomy review, treatment paradigms, a flexible endoscopic simulation lab, daily ward and ICU rounds, radiology rounds, and clinic exposure. The cornerstone of the fellowship is the unique operative experience that includes a high volume of endoscopic third ventriculostomy with choroid plexus cauterization, myelomeningocele closure, and ventriculoperitoneal shunting, among many other procedures performed at CCHU. Upon completion, fellows return to their home institution to establish or rejuvenate a robust pediatric practice as part of a worldwide network of CHSB trainees committed to the care of underserved children. To date, the fellowship has graduated 33 surgeons from 20 different LMIC who are independently performing thousands of hydrocephalus and spina bifida operations each year.
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Xu, Xiao-Lan, Wen-Bo Du, and Chen Hong. "Cascade defense via routing in complex networks." International Journal of Modern Physics C 26, no. 12 (September 2015): 1550141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0129183115501417.
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As the cascading failures in networked traffic systems are becoming more and more serious, research on cascade defense in complex networks has become a hotspot in recent years. In this paper, we propose a traffic-based cascading failure model, in which each packet in the network has its own source and destination. When cascade is triggered, packets will be redistributed according to a given routing strategy. Here, a global hybrid (GH) routing strategy, which uses the dynamic information of the queue length and the static information of nodes' degree, is proposed to defense the network cascade. Comparing GH strategy with the shortest path (SP) routing, efficient routing (ER) and global dynamic (GD) routing strategies, we found that GH strategy is more effective than other routing strategies in improving the network robustness against cascading failures. Our work provides insight into the robustness of networked traffic systems.
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Chami, Goylette F., Narcis B. Kabatereine, Edridah M. Tukahebwa, and David W. Dunne. "Precision global health and comorbidity: a population-based study of 16 357 people in rural Uganda." Journal of The Royal Society Interface 15, no. 147 (October 2018): 20180248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2018.0248.
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In low-income countries, complex comorbidities and weak health systems confound disease diagnosis and treatment. Yet, data-driven approaches have not been applied to develop better diagnostic strategies or to tailor treatment delivery for individuals within rural poor communities. We observed symptoms/diseases reported within three months by 16 357 individuals aged 1+ years in 17 villages of Mayuge District, Uganda. Symptoms were mapped to the Human Phenotype Ontology. Comorbidity networks were constructed. An edge between two symptoms/diseases was generated if the relative risk greater than 1, ϕ correlation greater than 0, and local false discovery rate less than 0.05. We studied how network structure and flagship symptom profiles varied against biosocial factors. 88.05% of individuals (14 402/16 357) reported at least one symptom/disease. Young children and individuals in worse-off households—low socioeconomic status, poor water, sanitation, and hygiene, and poor medical care—had dense network structures with the highest comorbidity burden and/or were conducive to the onset of new comorbidities from existing flagship symptoms, such as fever. Flagship symptom profiles for fever revealed self-misdiagnoses of fever as malaria and sexually transmitted infections as a potentially missed cause of fever in individuals of reproductive age. Network analysis may inform the development of new diagnostic and treatment strategies for flagship symptoms used to characterize syndromes/diseases of global concern.
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Ayub, Nabende, Twaibu Semwogerere, and Richard O. Awichi. "Mathematical Modelling of Sewage Overflow Through Pipe-Manhole Drainage Sewer Systems Using CFD: A Case of Mbale City, Eastern Uganda." East African Journal of Engineering 2, no. 1 (November 23, 2020): 33–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.37284/eaje.2.1.239.
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The major objective of this study was to design a model to optimize sewage flow through pipe-manhole drainage systems using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Multi-phase flows like two-phase flow in transport pipes is a common occurrence in many industrial applications such as sewage, water, oil, gas transportation and power generation. Accurate prediction of fluid velocity and pressure drop is of utmost importance to ensure effective design and operation of fluid transport systems. Numerical simulations were performed at different pipe inclinations and fluid flow velocities. A two-dimensional pipe of 0.5 m in diameter and 20 m long was used with a Standard k−ε turbulence and the volume of fraction (VOF) free surface model to solve the turbulent mixture flow of air and water. The CFD approach is based on the Navier-Stokes equations. Results show that the flow pattern behaviour and numerical values of liquid velocities and pressure drop compare reasonably well. It is concluded that the most effective way to optimize a sewer network system in order to minimize the overflows through Pipe-manhole drainage system for Mbale Municipality conditions is by considering minimum and maximum sewer velocities in the range 0.67 ms−1 to 5.5 ms−1 respectively, sewer diameters, slope gradients for optimal sewer design and expanding the number of sewer network connections of household, municipal and industries.
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Moodie, Stuart, Nicolas Le Novère, Emek Demir, Huaiyu Mi, and Alice Villéger. "Systems Biology Graphical Notation: Process Description language Level 1 Version 1.3." Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 213–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jib-2015-263.
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Summary The Systems Biological Graphical Notation (SBGN) is an international community effort for standardized graphical representations of biological pathways and networks. The goal of SBGN is to provide unambiguous pathway and network maps for readers with different scientific backgrounds as well as to support efficient and accurate exchange of biological knowledge between different research communities, industry, and other players in systems biology. Three SBGN languages, Process Description (PD), Entity Relationship (ER) and Activity Flow (AF), allow for the representation of different aspects of biological and biochemical systems at different levels of detail.The SBGN Process Description language represents biological entities and processes between these entities within a network. SBGN PD focuses on the mechanistic description and temporal dependencies of biological interactions and transformations. The nodes (elements) are split into entity nodes describing, e.g., metabolites, proteins, genes and complexes, and process nodes describing, e.g., reactions and associations. The edges (connections) provide descriptions of relationships (or influences) between the nodes, such as consumption, production, stimulation and inhibition. Among all three languages of SBGN, PD is the closest to metabolic and regulatory pathways in biological literature and textbooks, but its well-defined semantics offer a superior precision in expressing biological knowledge.
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Chowdary, M. Kalpana, J. Anitha, and D. Jude Hemanth. "Emotion Recognition from EEG Signals Using Recurrent Neural Networks." Electronics 11, no. 15 (July 30, 2022): 2387. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/electronics11152387.
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The application of electroencephalogram (EEG)-based emotion recognition (ER) to the brain–computer interface (BCI) has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Emotion recognition systems involve pre-processing and feature extraction, followed by classification. Deep learning has recently been used to classify emotions in BCI systems, and the results have been improved when compared to classic classification approaches. The main objective of this study is to classify the emotions from electroencephalogram signals using variant recurrent neural network architectures. Three architectures are used in this work for the recognition of emotions using EEG signals: RNN (recurrent neural network), LSTM (long short-term memory network), and GRU (gated recurrent unit). The efficiency of these networks, in terms of performance measures was confirmed by experimental data. The experiment was conducted by using the EEG Brain Wave Dataset: Feeling Emotions, and achieved an average accuracy of 95% for RNN, 97% for LSTM, and 96% for GRU for emotion detection problems.
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Kikomeko, Samuel, and Jotham Sempewo. "Development of optimal pump schedules for improved energy efficiency in water supply systems (case of NWSC)." International Journal of Biological and Chemical Sciences 15, no. 7 (April 22, 2022): 23–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijbcs.v15i7.3s.
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The water utility in Uganda (NWSC) was under pressure from regulators, environmentalists and board members to reduce energy costs. However, achieving energy efficiency in the water distribution systems of Kampala that is characterized by variable demands and prescribed pressures would be impossible if this utility continued operating on trial and error methods. This research was undertaken in the year 2016-2017 and aimed at exploring how pump schedule optimization could enable NWSC to deal with the challenge of high energy costs and improve water utility performance. In this research, the energy consumption of existing pumps was obtained from historical data, data was diagnosed and based on the diagnostic findings, decision variables were selected and optimal pump schedules were formulated. The formulated schedules were applied to the Gabba Muyenga supply system of National Water and Sewerage Company (Uganda) as a proof of concept. The formulated pump schedules when applied on different pumps classified as models 1, 2 and 3 based on pump flow ratings and motor voltage ratings, results show that scheduling pump operations based on time of the day tariffs enabled NWSC to save about 0.373 Million kWh annually. On the other hand pump scheduling based on pressure, modulation had the potential to reduce water losses enabling NWSC to save 12 m3/hr equivalent to 0.068 million kWh per year in energy terms without compromising customer service levels and this was only for the established DMA within the case study area and not for the entire NWSC water distribution network. The data presented were obtained through field measurements, statistical analysis and hydraulic design calculations
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Kikomeko, Samuel, and Jotham Sempewo. "Development of optimal pump schedules for improved energy efficiency in water supply systems (case of NWSC)." International Journal of Biological and Chemical Sciences 15, no. 7 (April 22, 2022): 23–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijbcs.v15i7.3s.
Full textAbstract:
The water utility in Uganda (NWSC) was under pressure from regulators, environmentalists and board members to reduce energy costs. However, achieving energy efficiency in the water distribution systems of Kampala that is characterized by variable demands and prescribed pressures would be impossible if this utility continued operating on trial and error methods. This research was undertaken in the year 2016-2017 and aimed at exploring how pump schedule optimization could enable NWSC to deal with the challenge of high energy costs and improve water utility performance. In this research, the energy consumption of existing pumps was obtained from historical data, data was diagnosed and based on the diagnostic findings, decision variables were selected and optimal pump schedules were formulated. The formulated schedules were applied to the Gabba Muyenga supply system of National Water and Sewerage Company (Uganda) as a proof of concept. The formulated pump schedules when applied on different pumps classified as models 1, 2 and 3 based on pump flow ratings and motor voltage ratings, results show that scheduling pump operations based on time of the day tariffs enabled NWSC to save about 0.373 Million kWh annually. On the other hand pump scheduling based on pressure, modulation had the potential to reduce water losses enabling NWSC to save 12 m3/hr equivalent to 0.068 million kWh per year in energy terms without compromising customer service levels and this was only for the established DMA within the case study area and not for the entire NWSC water distribution network. The data presented were obtained through field measurements, statistical analysis and hydraulic design calculations
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Ruan, Jun, Pan Zhang, and Xing Ping Xiao. "Data Intergration of Power Information System Based on Ontology." Advanced Materials Research 860-863 (December 2013): 2518–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.860-863.2518.
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Power system data distributed in different locations of heterogeneous information systems on the multiple network . These systems are different in the architecture and also in different areas of expertise. In view of the above questions thispaper has proposed a power system integrated research plan baseed on ontology, mainly discussed on local ontology mapping between the data source. Focus on how to convert from the database relational model to OWL ontology and gives the ER model to OWL ontology from the conversion algorithm. Compared with the similar method, this method is automated build ontology, and overcomed the manually created ontology can bring a lot of tedious work.
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Li, Ziyang, Jiong Yu, Chen Bian, Yonglin Pu, Yuefei Wang, Yitian Zhang, and Binglei Guo. "Flink-ER: An Elastic Resource-Scheduling Strategy for Processing Fluctuating Mobile Stream Data on Flink." Mobile Information Systems 2020 (May 20, 2020): 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/5351824.
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As real-time and immediate feedback becomes increasingly important in tasks related to mobile information, big data stream processing systems are increasingly applied to process massive amounts of mobile data. However, when processing a drastically fluctuating mobile data stream, the lack of an elastic resource-scheduling strategy limits the elasticity and scalability of data stream processing systems. To address this problem, this paper builds a flow-network model, a resource allocation model, and a data redistribution model as the foundation for proposing Flink with an elastic resource-scheduling strategy (Flink-ER), which consists of a capacity detection algorithm, an elastic resource reallocation algorithm, and a data redistribution algorithm. The strategy improves the performance of the platform by dynamically rescaling the cluster and increasing the parallelism of operators based on the processing load. The experimental results show that the throughput of a cluster was promoted under the premise of meeting latency constraints, which verifies the efficiency of the strategy.
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Choi, Jaeyoung. "Inferring the Hidden Cascade Infection over Erdös-Rényi (ER) Random Graph." Electronics 10, no. 16 (August 6, 2021): 1894. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/electronics10161894.
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Finding hidden infected nodes is extremely important when information or diseases spread rapidly in a network because hints regarding the global properties of the diffusion dynamics can be provided, and effective control strategies for mitigating such spread can be derived. In this study, to understand the impact of the structure of the underlying network, a cascade infection-recovery problem is considered over an Erdös-Rényi (ER) random graph when a subset of infected nodes is partially observed. The goal is to reconstruct the underlying cascade that is likely to generate these observations. To address this, two algorithms are proposed: (i) a Neighbor-based recovery algorithm (NBRA(α)), where 0≤α≤1 is a control parameter, and (ii) a BFS tree-source-based recovery algorithm (BSRA). The first one simply counts the number of infected neighbors for candidate hidden cascade nodes and computes the possibility of infection from the neighbors by controlling the parameter α. The latter estimates the cascade sources first and computes the infection probability from the sources. A BFS tree approximation is used for the underlying ER random graph with respect to the sources for computing the infection probability because of the computational complexity in general loopy graphs. We then conducted various simulations to obtain the recovery performance of the two proposed algorithms. As a result, although the NBRA(α) uses only local information of the neighboring infection status, it recovers the hidden cascade infection well and is not significantly affected by the average degree of the ER random graph, whereas the BSRA works well on a local tree-like structure.
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Carbutt, Clinton, and Dave I. Thompson. "Mountain Watch: How LT(S)ER Is Safeguarding Southern Africa’s People and Biodiversity for a Sustainable Mountain Future." Land 10, no. 10 (September 30, 2021): 1024. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land10101024.
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Southern Africa is an exceptionally diverse region with an ancient geologic and climatic history. Its mountains are located in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes at a tropical–temperate interface, offering a rare opportunity to contextualise and frame our research from an austral perspective to balance the global narrative around sustainable mountain futures for people and biodiversity. Limited Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) was initiated more than a century ago in South Africa to optimise catchment management through sound water policy. The South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) has resurrected many government LTER programmes and added observatories representative of the country’s heterogeneous zonobiomes, including its mountain regions. LTER in other Southern African mountains is largely absent. The current rollout of the Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network (EFTEON) and the Southern African chapters of international programmes such as the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), RangeX, and the Global Soil Biodiversity Observation Network (Soil BON), as well as the expansion of the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN), is ushering in a renaissance period of global change research in the region, which takes greater cognisance of its social context. This diversity of initiatives will generate a more robust knowledge base from which to draw conclusions about how to better safeguard the well-being of people and biodiversity in the region and help balance livelihoods and environmental sustainability in our complex, third-world socio-ecological mountain systems.
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Onyango-Delewa, Paul. "Social Networks-Budgetary Discipline Linkages in Sub-National Entities." Jurnal Ekonomi & Studi Pembangunan 22, no. 1 (April 5, 2021): 110–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.18196/jesp.v22i1.10576.
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This research intervenes with the seemingly endless empirical debate that seeks explanation to the notorious budgetary discipline problem in the local government. Some scholars attribute it to social networks, but others emphasize entity internal control systems. Supported by budgetary theory-structural equation modeling (SEM) triangulation, the researchers examined data from 33 districts, seven municipalities, and 345 sub-counties in Uganda (East Africa)’s north-western and eastern regions. The SEM results revealed that socio-economic structures and partisan politics are key social network constructs to predict budgetary discipline. However, another attribute, ethnicity, is not. Additionally, the internal control system mediates the social networks-budgetary discipline relationship as initially anticipated. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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Semwogerere, Twaibu, R. Awichi, J. D. Lwanyaga, Esemu Joseph Noah, Verdiana G. Masanja, and H. Nampala. "An Application of Computational Fluid Dynamics to Optimize Municipal Sewage Networks; A Case of Tororo Municipality, Eastern Uganda." JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN MATHEMATICS 18 (January 10, 2020): 18–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.24297/jam.v18i.8345.
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Two-phase pipe flow is a common occurrence in many industrial applications such as sewage, water, oil, and gas transportation. Accurate prediction of liquid velocity, holdup and pressure drop is of vast importance to ensure effective design and operation of fluid transport systems. This paper aimed at the simulation of a two-phase flow of air and sewage (water) using an open source software OpenFOAM. Numerical Simulations have been performed using varying dimensions of pipes as well as their inclinations. Specifically, a Standard k- turbulence model and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) free water surface model is used to solve the turbulent mixture flow of air and sewage (water). A two dimensional, 0.5m diameter pipe of 20m length is used for the CFD approach based on the Navier-Stokes equations. Results showed that the flow pattern behaviour is influenced by the pipe diameters as well as their inclination. It is concluded that the most effective way to optimize a sewer network system for Tororo Municipality conditions and other similar situations, is by adjusting sewer diameters and slope gradients and expanding the number of sewer network connections of household and industries from 535 (i.e., 31.2% of total) to at least 1,200 (70% of total).
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Wilson, R., A. J. Allen, J. Oliver, J. L. Brookman, S. High, and N. J. Bulleid. "The translocation, folding, assembly and redox-dependent degradation of secretory and membrane proteins in semi-permeabilized mammalian cells." Biochemical Journal 307, no. 3 (May 1, 1995): 679–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1042/bj3070679.
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We describe here a semi-permeabilized cell-system which reconstitutes the efficient synthesis, translocation, folding, assembly and degradation of membrane and secretory proteins. Cells grown in culture were treated with the detergent digitonin which selectively permeabilized the plasma membrane leaving the cellular organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and trans-Golgi network intact. These permeabilized cells were added to an in vitro translation system, either wheatgerm or reticulocyte lysate, supplemented with RNA coding for either membrane or secretory proteins. Efficient translocation and modification of proteins by these cells was demonstrated by protease protection, photocross-linking of nascent chains to components of the translocation apparatus and by post-translational modifications such as glycosylation or hydroxylation. A comparison was made between the ability of semi-permeabilized cells and microsomal vesicles to fold and assemble proteins. The results show that the intact ER within these cells can assemble proteins much more efficiently than vesicularized ER. Furthermore, the semi-permeabilized cells carried out the redox-dependent degradation of tissue-type plasminogen activator. This system has all the advantages of conventional cell-free systems, including speed and, importantly, the ability to manipulate the components of the assay, while retaining intracellular organelles and, therefore, allowing cellular processes to occur as they would in the intact cell.
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Mutembesa, Daniel, Christopher Omongo, and Ernest Mwebaze. "Crowdsourcing Real-Time Viral Disease and Pest Information: A Case of Nation-Wide Cassava Disease Surveillance in a Developing Country." Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing 6 (June 15, 2018): 117–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1609/hcomp.v6i1.13322.
Full textAbstract:
In most developing countries, a huge proportion of the national food basket is supported by small subsistence agricultural systems. A major challenge to these systems is disease and pest attacks which have a devastating effect on the small-holder farmers that depend on these systems for their livelihoods. A key component of any proposed solution is a good disease surveillance network. However, current surveillance efforts are unable to provide sufficient data for monitoring such phenomena over a vast geographic area efficiently and effectively due to limited resources, both human and financial. Crowdsourcing with farmer crowds that have access to mobile phones offers a viable option to provide all year round real-time surveillance data on viral disease and pest incidence and severity. This work presents a mobile ad hoc surveillance system for monitoring viral diseases and pests in cassava. We present results from a pilot in Uganda where this system was deployed for 76 weeks. We discuss the participation behaviours of the crowds with mobile smartphones as well as the effects of several incentives applied.
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Yin, Mingyong, Xingshu Chen, Qixu Wang, Wei Wang, and Yulong Wang. "Dynamics on Hybrid Complex Network: Botnet Modeling and Analysis of Medical IoT." Security and Communication Networks 2019 (August 18, 2019): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/6803801.
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With the rapid development of Internet of things technology, the application of intelligent devices in the medical industry has become ubiquitous. Connected devices have revolutionized clinicians and patient care but also made modern hospitals vulnerable to cyber attacks. Among the security risks, botnets are of particular concern, which can be used to control thousands of devices for remote data theft and equipment destruction. In this paper, we propose a non-Markovian spread dynamics model to understand the effects of botnet propagation, which can characterize the hybrid contagion situation in reality. Based on the Susceptible-Adopted-Recovered model, we introduce nonredundant memory spread mechanism for global propagation, as a tuner to adjust spreading rate difference. For describing the proposed model, we extend a heterogeneous edge-based compartmental theory. Through extensive numerical simulations, we reveal that the growth pattern of the final adoption size versus the information transmission probability is discontinuous and how the final adoption size is affected by hybrid ratio α, global scope control factor ϵ, accumulated received information threshold T, and other parameters on ER network. Furthermore, we give the theory and simulation result on BA network and also compare the two hybrid methods—single infection in one time slice and double infections in one time slice—to evaluate the influence on final adoption size. We found in SIOT hybrid contagion scenario the final adoption size shows the phenomenon of a decline followed by an increase versus different hybrid ratio, and it is both verified in theory and numerical simulation. Through validation by thousands of experiments, our developed theory agrees well with the numerical simulations.
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Dress, Andreas, Stefan Grünewald, and Zhenbing Zeng. "A cognitive network for oracle bone characters related to animals." International Journal of Modern Physics B 30, no. 04 (February 10, 2016): 1630001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0217979216300012.
Full textAbstract:
In this paper, we present an analysis of oracle bone characters for animals from a “cognitive” point of view. After some general remarks on oracle-bone characters presented in Sec. 1 and a short outline of the paper in Sec. 2, we collect various oracle-bone characters for animals from published resources in Sec. 3. In the next section, we begin analyzing a group of 60 ancient animal characters from www.zdic.net , a highly acclaimed internet dictionary of Chinese characters that is strictly based on historical sources, and introduce five categories of specific features regarding their (graphical) structure that will be used in Sec. 5 to associate corresponding feature vectors to these characters. In Sec. 6, these feature vectors will be used to investigate their dissimilarity in terms of a family of parameterized distance measures. And in the last section, we apply the SplitsTree method as encoded in the NeighborNet algorithms to construct a corresponding family of dissimilarity-based networks with the intention of elucidating how the ancient Chinese might have perceived the “animal world” in the late bronze age and to demonstrate that these pictographs reflect an intuitive understanding of this world and its inherent structure that predates its classification in the oldest surviving Chinese encyclopedia from approximately the third century BC, the Er Ya, as well as similar classification systems in the West by one to two millennia. We also present an English dictionary of 70 oracle bone characters for animals in Appendix A. In Appendix B, we list various variants of animal characters that were published in the Jia Gu Wen Bian (cf. 甲骨文编, A Complete Collection of Oracle Bone Characters, edited by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published by the Zhonghua Book Company in 1965). We recall the frequencies of the 521 most frequent oracle bone characters in Appendix C as reported in [T. Chen, Yin-Shang Jiaguwen Zixing Xitong Zai Yanjiu, (The Structural System of Oracle Inscriptions) (Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, Shanghai, 2010); Jiaguwen Shiwen Yongzi Pinlü Biao (A Frequency List of Oracle Characters), Center for the Study and Application of Chinese Characters (East China Normal University, Shanghai, 2010), http://www.wenzi.cn/en/default.aspx . And in Appendix D, we list the animals registered in the last five chapters of the Er Ya.
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Andrew, Margaret E., Michael A. Wulder, and Jeffrey A. Cardille. "Protected areas in boreal Canada: a baseline and considerations for the continued development of a representative and effective reserve network." Environmental Reviews 22, no. 2 (June 2014): 135–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/er-2013-0056.
Full textAbstract:
Boreal forests maintain regionally important biodiversity and globally important ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and freshwater resources. Many boreal systems have limited anthropogenic disturbances and are preserved, in effect, to date largely by their harsh climates and remoteness. As of 2011, almost 10% of Canada is subject to some manner of formal protection, with 4.5% of this protected area found within the boreal zone. The management of existing parks and protected areas (PPAs) is shared amongst many federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions. Although there are currently low levels of anthropogenic development in some portions of the boreal zone (especially the north), if expansion of protected areas is of interest, there are challenges to traditional PPA networks that may be more prominent in the boreal zone than elsewhere: (1) the boreal zone is home to charismatic mammal species with area requirements much larger than typical PPAs; (2) the boreal zone is characterized by natural disturbance regimes that impact large areas; and (3) projected changes to climate for the boreal zone are among the greatest in the world, creating temporal considerations for conservation planning exercises. There is currently no PPA assessment specific to boreal Canada. To address this lack of an assessment, we developed a conservation gap analysis of the current PPA system with respect to a variety of environmental surrogates (ecozones, land cover, vegetation productivity, and landscape structure). The amount of formally protected land varied within each surrogate, with few commonly reported features meeting national or international conservation targets. Furthermore, few reserves met the areal requirements that have been previously recommended to protect large mammals or accommodate the disturbance regimes present. We also discuss considerations and implications of area-based versus value-based protection objectives. While recognizing that there are still scientific challenges around understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of PPAs, based upon our review and assessment, the following considerations should inform conservation options for the boreal zone: (1) representation of the distribution of natural features within the PPA network; (2) effective maintenance of habitat requirements and spatial resilience to both cyclical and directional changes in spatial patterns through large, connected reserves; and (3) implementation of sustainable forest management practices (where applicable) throughout the broader landscape, as traditional on-reserve protection is unlikely to be sufficient to meet conservation goals. The Canadian boreal is unique in possessing large tracts of inaccessible forested lands that are not subject to management interventions, thereby offering functions similar to protected lands. The question of how to more formally integrate these lands into the existing PPA network requires further consideration. Further, the important temporal role of landscape dynamics in designing an effective PPA needs to be further studied as well as development of a better understanding of design needs in the context of a changing climate.
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Soares, Patrícia Pinto. "Positive Complementarity and the Law Enforcement Network: Drawing Lessons from the Ad Hoc Tribunals' Completion Strategy." Israel Law Review 46, no. 3 (September 23, 2013): 319–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021223713000149.
Full textAbstract:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutorial Strategy 2009–12 reaffirmed the commitment of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to positive complementarity. The Prosecutor recognised the inability of the ICC to deal with all cases of mass atrocities and the importance of relying on national systems if international criminal justice is to be effective. The article first proposes a two-pronged approach to complementarity that distinguishes between its legal and policy dimensions. On the basis of the analysis of the situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Colombia, it will be argued that the OTP has taken controversial decisions from the viewpoint of complementarity stricto sensu and positive complementarity that may undermine filling the impunity gap as well as the legitimacy of the ICC. Attention is then drawn to the common substratum of the ad hoc tribunals' completion strategy and positive complementarity. It is explained how the experience of the completion strategy offers a valuable cluster of lessons to be applied within the spectrum of positive complementarity. In concluding, the article suggests measures for the execution of positive complementarity and the Law Enforcement Network, with the intention of optimising efforts and resources within the ICC system.
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Jin, Shukun, Yawen Xie, Yanzi Gao, Guohui Zhou, Wei Zhang, Shuaiwen Tang, and Wei He. "Data Reliability Analysis of Wireless Sensor Nodes considering Perturbation." Journal of Sensors 2021 (July 23, 2021): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/5591187.
Full textAbstract:
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is widely used in precision engineering, which requires strict data accuracy. Therefore, it is of practical value to evaluate the reliability of WSN data. Considering the complexity of the real environment, the sensor is bound to be affected by the disturbance factors. Currently, the research result of WSN data disturbance is not ideal. Because the results of reliability analysis are not necessarily credible under a disturbance environment. Thus, it is necessary to judge the reliability of sensor nodes in the disturbance environment. Therefore, disturbance analysis is introduced. In this paper, the temporal correlation and spatial correlation of measured data of WSN nodes are taken as reliability indicators. Through the disturbance analysis method to simulate the disturbance in the working process of nodes, a data reliability evaluation model of WSN nodes is proposed, which is based on the evidence reasoning (ER) rule in the disturbance environment. Based on the wireless sensor experiment of the Intel Berkeley research laboratory, the rationality of the model is explained in this paper. ER rule considering disturbance provides an effective method to analyze the reliability of WSN data.
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Lavis, John N., and Ulysses Panisset. "EVIPNet Africa's first series of policy briefs to support evidence-informed policymaking." International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care 26, no. 2 (April 2010): 229–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266462310000206.
Full textAbstract:
EVIPNet (Evidence-Informed Policy Network) Africa—a network of World Health Organization (WHO)-sponsored knowledge-translation (KT) platforms in seven sub-Saharan African countries—was launched at a meeting in Brazzaville, Congo, in March 2006 (1;2). EVIPNet Africa can trace its origins to resolutions from both the Ministerial Summit on Health Research (November 2004) and the World Health Assembly (May 2005) (10;11), the spirit of which was re-affirmed at the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health (November 2008) (13). The World Health Assembly called for “establishing or strengthening mechanisms to transfer knowledge in support of evidence-based public health and health care delivery systems and evidence-based related policies” (10). EVIPNet Africa can trace its inspiration to a more local development: the preparatory work that led to the establishment of the East African Community–sponsored Regional East African Community Health (REACH) Policy initiative, a KT platform involving Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda (and more recently Burundi and Rwanda as well). REACH Policy is now part of the EVIPNet Africa family.
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SUMOUR, M. A., A. H. EL-ASTAL, F. W. S. LIMA, M. M. SHABAT, and H. M. KHALIL. "COMPARISON OF ISING MAGNET ON DIRECTED VERSUS UNDIRECTED ERDÖS–RÉNYI AND SCALE-FREE NETWORKS." International Journal of Modern Physics C 18, no. 01 (January 2007): 53–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0129183107010346.
Full textAbstract:
Scale-free networks are a recently developed approach to model the interactions found in complex natural and man-made systems. Such networks exhibit a power-law distribution of node link (degree) frequencies n(k) in which a small number of highly connected nodes predominate over a much greater number of sparsely connected ones. In contrast, in an Erdös–Renyi network each of N sites is connected to every site with a low probability p (of the order of 1/N). Then the number k of neighbors will fluctuate according to a Poisson distribution. One can instead assume that each site selects exactly k neighbors among the other sites. Here we compare in both cases the usual network with the directed network, when site A selects site B as a neighbor, and then B influences A but A does not influence B. As we change from undirected to directed scale-free networks, the spontaneous magnetization vanishes after an equilibration time following an Arrhenius law, while the directed ER networks have a positive Curie temperature.
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He, Xuan, Kai Niu, Zhiqiang He, Jiaru Lin, Hui Zhang, and Zhong-Yuan Jiang. "Efficient packet navigation method on scale-free networks with finite and diversiform node delivery capacity." International Journal of Modern Physics C 27, no. 09 (August 2016): 1650098. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0129183116500984.
Full textAbstract:
Routing strategy is essential for high transport efficiency on realistic networked complex systems. Beginning from the consideration of finite and diversiform node delivery capacity distributions, a general node capacity allocation mechanism with a tunable parameter [Formula: see text] is presented. A node capacity, based routing strategy is proposed to improve the network traffic capacity. Compared with the traditional shortest path routing (SPR) and the efficient routing (ER) methods, it suggests that routing strategy should be chosen heuristically according to the limited capacity resource distribution, instead of using one certain method for all cases. With proper range of parameter [Formula: see text], the new routing strategy achieves the highest traffic capacity and other preferable measure metrics including network diameter, average path length, efficient betweenness, average packet travel time and average traffic load. The theoretical analysis for traffic capacity has a good correspondence to the simulation results. This work studies routing mechanisms from a very practical perspective, and helps network researchers to understand the traffic dynamics on complex networks comprehensively.
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Lu, Yuping, Ge Xiong, Xiang Zhang, Zhifei Zhang, Tingyu Jia, and Ke Xiong. "Uplink Throughput Maximization in UAV-Aided Mobile Networks: A DQN-Based Trajectory Planning Method." Drones 6, no. 12 (November 25, 2022): 378. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/drones6120378.
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This paper focuses on the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-aided mobile networks, where multiple ground mobile users (GMUs) desire to upload data to a UAV. In order to maximize the total amount of data that can be uploaded, we formulate an optimization problem to maximize the uplink throughput by optimizing the UAV’s trajectory, under the constraints of the available energy of the UAV and the quality of service (QoS) of GMUs. To solve the non-convex problem, we propose a deep Q-network (DQN)-based method, in which we employ the iterative updating process and the Experience Relay (ER) method to reduce the negative effects sequence correlation on the training results, and the ε-greedy method is applied to balance the exploration and exploitation, for achieving the better estimations of the environment and also taking better actions. Different from previous works, the mobility of the GMUs is taken into account in this work, which is more general and closer to practice. Simulation results show that the proposed DQN-based method outperforms a traditional Q-Learning-based one in terms of both convergence and network throughput. Moreover, the larger battery capacity the UAV has, the higher uplink throughput can be achieved.
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Miller, S. G., L. Carnell, and H. H. Moore. "Post-Golgi membrane traffic: brefeldin A inhibits export from distal Golgi compartments to the cell surface but not recycling." Journal of Cell Biology 118, no. 2 (July 15, 1992): 267–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1083/jcb.118.2.267.
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Recent studies using the fungal metabolite brefeldin A (BFA) have provided important insights into the dynamics and the organization of the ER/Golgi membrane system. Here we examined the effect of BFA on the functional integrity of the distal part of the secretory pathway, i.e., transport between trans-Golgi cisternae and the cell surface. To assay export via the constitutive pathway, we followed the movement of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) G glycoprotein that had been accumulated in the trans-Golgi network (TGN) by incubation of infected BHK-21 cells at 20 degrees C. Addition of BFA rapidly and reversibly inhibited cell surface transport of G protein. The block to secretion was not due to redistribution of externalized G protein to internal pools. It was also not due to collapse of TGN to the ER, since VSV G protein blocked in treated cells resided in compartments that were distinct from the ER/Golgi system. Similar effects were found with a bulk-flow marker: BFA blocked constitutive secretion of glycosaminoglycan chains that had been synthesized and sulfated in the trans-Golgi cisternae. To examine export via the regulated secretory pathway, we assayed secretion of [35S]SO4 labeled secretogranin II from PC12 cells, a marker that has been used to study secretory granule budding from the TGN (Tooze, S. A., U. Weiss, and W. B. Huttner. 1990. Nature [Lond.]. 347:207-208). BFA potently inhibited secretion of sulfated secretogranin II induced by K+ depolarization. Inhibition was at the level of granule formation, since BFA had no effect on regulated secretion from preformed granules. Taken together, the results suggest that BFA blocks export via both the constitutive and the regulated pathways. In contrast, endocytosis and recycling of VSV G protein were not blocked by BFA, consistent with previous studies that endocytosis is unaffected (Misumi, Y., Y. Misumi, K. Miki, A Takatsuki, G. Tamura, and Y. Ikehara. 1986. J. Biol. Chem. 261:11398-11403). These and earlier results suggest that the exo/endocytic pathway of mammalian cells consist of two similar but distinct endomembrane systems: an ER/Golgi system and a post-Golgi system. BFA prevents forward transport without affecting return traffic in both systems.