Most construction projects end over budget. This could be due to the selection of the lowest bidder without looking at the key characteristics of the bidders. This paper evaluates the contractors' key characteristics that have impact on project success, specifically project cost. Being able to predict or forecast the project's success from the contractor's selection stage will definitely reduce the risks associated with the process extensively. A list of sixteen characteristics was identified through literature review. A survey was then developed. Forty-five respondents completed the survey. The results were analyzed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The results show that the top five characteristics with high impact on project success (cost) include project controls capability (0.126), number and qualifications of key personnel (0.103), communication and documentation (0.094), past performance - time and cost (0.093) and risk management capability (0.093). Clients need to evaluate these characteristics during bidding to ensure project success.
Sea level rise predictions have motivated research towards the protection of shoreline infrastructures, including transportation systems. Transportation network interactions in cases of inundation can lead to severe disruptions, that cause considerable delays, especially due to congestion feedbacks. This paper describes a decision tool to support infrastructure protection planning against sea level rise. A simulation based bi-level model is designed to minimize delays in a transportation system under inundation, considering budget constraints, hydrodynamic interactions within the shoreline, as well as traffic dynamics in the network. The case study focuses on San Francisco Bay area, for a 0.5m sea level rise, expected in 2054. The results show that the optimal strategies vary according to the available budget, and that there exist relatively critical shorelines to protect in order to reduce traffic disruptions. We anticipate our research to provide a framework for transportation infrastructure protection planning against sea level rises.
The current street lighting standards use the horizontal illuminance or luminance measures at the pavement level as design targets. However, these standards receive several criticisms with regards to the values they use. Additionally, several studies have questioned the principles that were used to develop these standards and they pushed the need to improve them. Which pose a question on the suitability of the current configurations of the street elements that provide a realistic picture of the street environment. Therefore, reviewing the current configurations in the current street lighting standards is a viable approach to understand the lighting environment for drivers.
Background: Walking, cycling and public transportation play significant roles in the development of sustainable cities. Their integration in transit-oriented developments (TOD) have been advocated and implemented across the world. Abu Dhabi is currently considered an automobileoriented city, hence successful TODs may be critical to comply with the sustainability vision proposed by the government. Objective: To assess the correlations among the built environment, socio-demographics, public transportation and physical activity in transit-oriented developments in Abu Dhabi. Method: Self-reported data were collected through a survey for a sample size of 363 randomly selected respondents within 14 selected transit-oriented developments (TOD) in Abu Dhabi city. The survey was composed by 37 questions, divided into 3 major sections: sociodemographic, physical activity and built environment. Results: The results showed that the general profile of transit users in TODs in Abu Dhabi are 86% middle age, 72% low income, 65% male and 83% hold higher education degree. 47% of the respondents reported to use public transportation in a usual week. 60% of transit users walk and cycle at recommended levels, against 58% in the general average rate. Transit users also perform 3% more vigorous-intensity physical activity. The density and mix of land uses seemed to be positively relative to transit usage. Conclusions: Abu Dhabi presents unique socio-demographic characteristics, such as great majority of foreign expats, and high social and gender inequalities. The lack of public transportation subsidies for students may be a reason for low share of young transit users. Transit users were more physically active.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation permits 38 nationalities in the UAE to swap over their driving licenses for local driving licenses. This study aims at examining the impact of this policy on individual's general characteristics, violations, accidents and other driving behaviors in Abu Dhabi. Moreover, the study aims at examining the relationship of multi-cultural drivers on violations and accidents and how individuals of different origins, ages, income brackets and other characteristics would affect the driving behavior. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between individual characteristics and driving behavior variables on the number of violations and accidents in Abu Dhabi. Responses (364 individuals) collected through a survey conducted in five ADNOC vehicle inspection centers (VIC) in Abu Dhabi were analyzed for this study. The data was analyzed using the two-way t-test, ANOVA, and regression. The study concluded there is sufficient evidence supporting the claim that the number of violations and accidents for drivers who swap their license and those who go through license tests are not different. Additionally, origin does not seem to have a statistically significant effect on violations and accidents.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an incurable disease where matrix deposition is in access to a level that damage the normal lung parenchymal architecture. The main reason behind such fatal consequences is the lack of understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving the disease (that's why it is still called idiopathic). In Asthma, fibrosis is a key pathological features of airway remodeling that can induce disease severity and resistant to therapy. Further understanding of the underlying molecular pathways in the fibroblast can pave the way towards novel biomarkers discovery, better diagnosis of clinical cases and personalized targeted therapy for such lifethreatening conditions. Here we used publicly available transcriptomic data from IPF patient's fibroblasts and Asthma mimicking cell model (Lung fibroblasts treated with IL-13) to identify novel signaling pathways that are specifically de-regulated in IPF and not Asthma to reveal possible discriminating diagnostic tool and therapeutic biomarkers. Transcriptomic profiling of lung fibroblasts cases was able to identify novel cellular pathways and molecular mechanism underlying IPF. Transcriptomic profiling is a promising free of cost tool that any researcher can use but in proper way to explain the previously unexplained clinical notes
The use of computational methods has shown to complement the time-consuming experimental methods in identifying novel binding sites on proteins for potential therapeutic applications. This paper presents an approach for the discovery of novel binding site(s) on Rab5, a critical protein that plays vital roles in regulating early endocytic events such as the formation and the movement of endocytic vesicles. Pathologically, the over-expression of Rab5 is implicated in various cancer types including lung, liver and ovarian cancers. To discover novel binding sites, a structural analysis approach was performed to identify the representative structures of Rab5. This was achieved by utilizing multi-step principal component analysis (PCA). Subsequently, the identified representative structures were computationally mapped with 16 probe molecules to test for their corresponding binding sites affinities. This discovery could be further assessed for the design of a potential drug against Rab5 protein.
In the development of novel pharmaceutics and cell-mediated therapeutics, the immune system has to be well considered, as part of the delivery mechanism or as a potential collateral for drug toxicity. To reduce the attrition of such developments, the interaction of immune cells with the drugs and/or with other immune cell types should be mechanistically investigated. As the lymph node (LN) is the integrating center for immune cells, whereby the body invokes immune responses against foreign substances, we have developed an in vitro biomimetic LN to examine the effects of pharmaceutics to downstream immunology. We recreated the spatial biological scaffold and accurately reintroduced the cellular residents on a lab-on-chip device that facilitates biological investigations to cellular kinetics, cell-cell interactions, and sampling. The goal of this enabling platform is to contribute to increased safety, lowered cost, and shorter development cycles for pharmaceutical development.
We propose and investigate a family of ordinary and delay differential equations to model the dynamics of tumour growth and immune system interactions. The study will then describe situations under where the tumour can be eradicated, we examine the dynamics and qualitative analysis of the model. The optimal control variables are assimilated to recognize the treatment procedure with minimum side effects by reducing the load of tumour cells and keeping the normal cells above the average of its capacity. This mathematical modeling can be used to make predictions about the inactive tumour cells. Keywords: Immune system; Tumour; Mathematical modeling; Optimal control; Delay differential equation.
Millions of patients around the globe are affected with paralysis which hinders the fulfillment of their basic needs such as mobility and speech. Several research topics have been dedicated to improve the livelihood of paralytic patients and a small subset of the topics has focused on capturing inputs from the tongue. Since the tongue is directly connected to the brain through a cranial nerve which is responsible for the motor functions of the tongue, its movements are not affected by spinal cord injuries, which are one of the major causes of paralysis. Given the importance of capturing inputs from the tongue, this research proposes a novel method of using an intraoral camera for this purpose. It discusses a method for capturing images, extracting features from it and finally classifying the data in order to produce specific outputs which could be used by paralytic patients as inputs to any external system.
