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Microbial biotransformations of various anabolic steroids are reviewed. Studies on oxidation, reduction, and carbon bond cleavage are highlighted. Various anabolic steroid substrates, their metabolites and the microorganisms used for the biotransformations are compiled covering the literature from the period 1984−2018.

Fraud is a worldwide phenomenon that affects all continents and all sectors of the economy. With the rapidly growing banking industry globally, frauds are increasing fast, and fraudsters have started using innovative methods. Shockingly, the banking industry in everywhere dubs rising fraud as an inevitable cost of business. One of the most challenging aspects in the banking sector is to make banking transactions free from electronic crime. There is no “one silver bullet” to stop all frauds forever. By leveraging the power of data analysis software, banks can detect fraud sooner and reduce the negative impact of significant losses owing to fraud.

Hypercholesterolemia was prevalent in 44.9% of The Malaysian Cohort participants, of which 51% were Malay. This study aimed to identify the variants involved in hypercholesterolemia among Malays and to determine the association between genetic and non-genetic risk factors. This nested case–control study included 25 Malay participants with the highest low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, >4.9 mmol/L) and total cholesterol (TC, >7.5 mmol/L) and 25 participants with the lowest LDL-C/TC. Genomic DNA was extracted, and whole-exome sequencing was performed using the Ion ProtonTM system. All variants were annotated, filtered, and cross-referenced against publicly available databases. Forty-five selected variants were genotyped in 677 TMC Malay participants using the MassARRAY® System. The association between genetic and non-genetic risk factors was determined using logistic regression analysis. Age, fasting blood glucose, tobacco use, and family history of hyperlipidemia were significantly associated with hypercholesterolemia. Participants with the novel OSBPL7 (oxysterol-binding protein-like 7) c.651_652del variant had 17 times higher odds for hypercholesterolemia. Type 2 diabetes patients on medication and those with PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9) rs151193009 had low odds for hypercholesterolemia. Genetic predisposition can interact with non-genetic factors to increase hypercholesterolemia risk in Malaysian Malays.

The study aimed to reveal the role of the school principal in the professional development of teachers from the point of view of school principals. The study also aimed to know the existence of differences related to statistical significance in the role of the school principal in the professional development of teachers in the school due to gender and educational stage variables. The study sample consisted of all principals of public schools in Bani Kenana District, and the sample was chosen in the (objective- purpose) method. The researcher used a questionnaire located on five levels according to Likert scale, which included (48) items distributed in (6) fields. An analytical descriptive approach was used to suit the study objectives. Statistical processing was carried out using the SPSS program, and the research reached the following results: that the role of the school principal in developing teachers professionally came at a low level, and that female principals give priority to developing teachers in the field of teaching methods and the use of educational methods, while school male principals give this field the last rank, the scientific field occupies the second rank for school female principals, while it takes the first rank for school male principals, and the researcher found through the results that there are no statistically significant differences in the role of the school principal in the professional development of teachers due to gender, or education stage. The researcher recommended paying attention to educating the principal of the school on the importance of his vital role in the professional development of teachers, And to have an active role in guiding and training teachers. That the principal of the school be of high scientific, professional, social and educational experience, and is aware of information, knowledge, skills, and methods that enable him to fulfill his role in the development of teachers. And that he has leadership qualities so that he can influence teachers positively, and provide them with services that help them perform their duties in a manner that is commensurate with the development of knowledge and technological progress.

Efficient generation of power at present is crucial as wastage of power is a global concern. Power factor measures a system's power efficiency and is an important aspect in improving the quality of supply. In most power systems, a poor power factor resulting from an increasing use of inductive loads is often overlooked. A power factor correction unit would allow the system to restore its power factor close to unity for economical operation. The advantages of correcting power factor include reduced power system losses, increased load carrying capabilities, improved voltages and much more. The aim of this project is to build an Automatic Power Factor Correction (APFC) Unit, which is able to monitor the energy consumption of a system and automatically improve its power factor. An open source energy monitoring library was implemented in the design for accurate power calculation. The APFC device calculates the reactive power consumed by a system's inductive load and compensates the lagging power factor using capacitance from a capacitor bank.

Unilateral liberalisation of trade in goods and services has been considered an important policy objective. Most trade in services liberalisation in the developing world has taken place unilaterally; but it is not common among Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Among LDCs Bangladesh is a forerunner in pursuing unilateral liberalisation of mobile telephone services. There is a dearth of empirical studies on Bangladesh’s unilateral liberalisation of mobile phone services and its impact on users. Furthermore, no scholarly studies are known on the influence of unilateral liberalisation on undertaking binding liberalisation obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework of the World Trade Organisation. This study examined factors that motivated Bangladesh’s unilateral liberalisation of mobile phone service and its impact on users. It also investigated how unilateral liberalisation influenced Bangladesh to undertake binding liberalisation commitments under the GATS. The study applied a qualitative research design to address the research questions. Primary data were obtained from three different sources: informants from mobile phone firms, senior managers across the six mobile phone firms, trade experts, telecommunications analysts, policy makers, the telecommunications regulator, public officials and private sector representatives. Focus group discussions with different mobile phone users were conducted to determine the impact of unilateral liberalisation of mobile services. In the first 6-7 years after unilateral liberalisation of the sector, there was a lack of competition, mobile phone tariffs were high, quality of service was unsatisfactory, and the diversity of services was limited, which affected the growth of the sector. The competitive landscape of the sector changed dramatically after the state-owned firm and another large private operator commenced mobile phone service operations in 2005. Stiff competition took hold, which resulted in cheap and easy accessibility, a drastic reduction in mobile phone tariffs, and improved quality and variety of services. The main implications of the study are: (1) An unfettered market is detrimental to consumer benefits. A powerful independent regulatory body, which is held accountable for its actions, is needed for a free market to operate in the broader public interest; (2) Unilateral liberalisation is a ‘necessary condition’ and provided a foundation for the government of Bangladesh to undertake binding liberalisation commitments under WTO GATS.

Real-time rendering of large terrains has several important applications. Hence, many methods have been devised to solve this problem. The main challenge for such methods is to deal with a large terrain dataset and maintain interactive frame rates. In this paper, we propose a level-of-detail (LOD) based multi-threaded multi-context method that works on two separate activities. Each activity is assigned to its own CPU thread and GPU context. The LOD hierarchy is constructed on the GPU context of the errors activity and stored as a 2D texture map. This texture map is used by the blocks rendering activity via its CPU thread to initiate the rendering process by sending different terrain blocks as translation and scaling parameters to its GPU context, which uses a reusable single shared vertex and index buffer to render the required block based on the passed parameters and the height-field texture. The results show that the proposed method achieves high interactive frame rates at guaranteed very small screen-space errors.

This study is aimed to be a contribution to climatic regionalization of Saudi Arabia. The study applies a multivariate factor -- cluster analysis technique. The data used here have been obtained from 56 meteorological stations. The application of the technique is made into two stages. In the first stage, factor analysis alone is considered and its results in Saudi Arabia are discussed. In the second stage, the resultant factor scores are taken as an input in a cluster analysis process to obtain climatic regions. Thus the regions obtained in the second stage are a result of the integration of factor and cluster techniques. The results obtained by the technique are compared with those of some traditional methods. The factor-cluster analysis technique is found advantageous over many of those methods, as it produces richer regions and shows clear climate variations within this vast country.

Piracy, although an age-old phenomenon that has posed challenges for Mariners has until recently been a phenomenon in decline. Although in the twenty-first century, piracy became a major issue in the South China Sea and in the Malacca Straits. But by 2007, the number of pirate attacks in Africa surpassed those in Asian waters, thus the shift of attention to African waters. Maritime pirate attacks in Africa, while concentrated in Nigeria and Somalia, are by no means limited to these countries. Because of the 33 littoral countries in Africa, 24 experienced pirate attacks during 2001–2008. Even though shipping in the GOG is threatened, attacks are not as frequent as those off Somalia. Nevertheless, it still remains and is still seen as a hub of threats to shipping.

A systematic gauge-invariant method is used to calculate the rate for an upsilon meson to decay inclusively into a prompt photon. An expansion is made in the quark relative velocity v, which is a small natural parameter for heavy quark systems. Inclusion of these O(v^2) corrections tends to increase the photon rate in the middle z range and to lower it for larger z, a feature supported by the data., 13 pages, LateX, One figure (to be published in Phys. Rev. D, Sept. 1, 1996)