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Millions in the world suffering diabetes mellitus depends on insulin therapy to control their blood glucose level daily. However, the painful daily injections they need to take could lead to other complications if it is not done correctly. To date, it is suggested by many researchers and medical doctors that the needles should be inserted at any angles of 90° or 45°. Nevertheless, this recommendation has not been supported by clinical or biomechanical evaluation. Hence, this study evaluates the needle insertion for insulin therapy to find the favourable angles in order to reduce injury and pain onto the skin. Finite element analysis was done by simulating the injection of three-dimensional (3D) needle model into a 3D skin model. The insertions were simulated at two different angles, which are 45°and 90° with two different lengths of needles; 4 mm and 6 mm. This study concluded the favourable angle for 4 mm needle to be 90° while 6 mm needle was best to be inserted at 45° as these angles exerted the least maximum stress and strain onto the skin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted many sectors, including the education sector. After in-person school activities were suspended due to the pandemic, a number of educational institutions in Indonesia reported concerns in implementing online learning due to the institutions’ unpreparedness. This issue may potentially induce mental health disorders among students and triggers long-term stress. This study aimed to examine factors linked to the psychosocial symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression in response to the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online cross-sectional study in Indonesia was conducted with 433 undergraduate and senior high school students aged 15 to 26 years old, both female and male. The self-reported symptoms were analyzed using both bivariate and multivariate linear regression methods. It was found that the percentage of participants with depression symptoms was 66%, while 61% and 43% participants experienced stress and anxiety respectively. The bivariate analysis presented strong correlations between anxiety and gender, learning duration and use of gadgets, internet expenses, and highly-interrupted learning. Furthermore, the multivariate regression revealed that only anxiety was significantly linked to internet expenses. This study indicates that many students are affected by COVID-19, the impacts of which manifest in psychosocial issues in the form of anxiety. We suggest that creating a supportive and positive family environment would help to alleviate some of these issues.

This paper aims to obtain empirical evidence of the impact of dividend policy decisions on sharia share prices. An exploratory investigation on 26 selected firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange's Jakarta Islamic Index with the criteria of reporting complete financial statements for the 2014-2018 period. The secondary data were examined with 130 data and then processed using SPSS 23 packages, which were then included in the analysis using standard regression. The investigation's findings provide empirical evidence that dividend policy decisions have a significant effect on sharia share prices. This study provides a theoretical contribution to a limited study that explores dividend policy with Islamic share prices in the context of the stock exchange. In practice, this research provides significant insight regarding the dividend policy that the company decides to increase the effectiveness of financial management in the context of a company that is considered to have sharia shares on the stock exchange, considering that the company's business success can increase the economic growth of a country.

Interest in cancellous bone analogous materials is driven by the development of tissue engineering and biomaterials. For the past decade, the research focus has been centered on biodegradable materials, in which the ability of the material to safely degrade in the human body while retaining sufficient qualities during service is conveniently cost-effective and less morbid. Among others, magnesium and its alloys have presented the best qualities especially as load-bearing biomaterials. In this article, the promising details of porous magnesium and its alloys as a cancellous bone analogous material developed during the past 10 years are highlighted. The manufacturing processes, mechanical performance, and biocompatibility of porous magnesium and its alloys are discussed. The Achilles’ heel of current evaluation was identified. Further, a few prospective developments of porous magnesium and its alloys are put forward with advanced desirable qualities as a cancellous bone analogous material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flexible manipulator is widely used in space robots, robot arm, and manufacturing industries that produce micro-scale products. This study aims to formulate the equation of motion of a flexible single-link manipulator system that moves translationally and rotationally and to develop computational codes with finite element methods in performing dynamic simulation on the vibration of the flexible manipulator system. The system of the single-link flexible manipulator (SLFM) consists of the aluminum beam as a flexible link, clamp part to hold the link, DC motor to rotate drive shaft, a trajectory to transfer link in translational motion, and servo motor to rotate link. Computational codes in time history response (THR) and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processing were developed to identify the dynamic behavior of the link. The finite element-method and Newmark-beta are used in simulating the SLFM. Simulation using the finite element method has displayed dynamic behavior through a graph of FFT on free vibration and THR graph on forced vibration by the excitation force due to the translational and rotational motions of the system. In the simulation of free vibration, the natural frequency of the system is 8.3 [Hz].

Many researchhavefound thatthe use of zero energy coolchamber (ZECC) extend the shelf life of stored fruits and vegetables. There is a lack of study conducted in Indonesia about the use of ZECC to keep mangos after harvesting though. The present study, therefore, was aimed to understand the quality and storability of stored mangos in ZECC. Three different storage containers, a ZECC, ambient, and refrigerator with different average RH and temperature, were used to place selected ripe mangos (Mangifera indica L) that were manually harvested from farmers’ field nearby. The ZECC was set up at the residential complex for lecturer of Hasanuddin University as the experiment site. Results showed that mangos inside ZECC were acceptable until eleven days of storage after considering both quality and sensory evaluation. The result suggests that ZECC can maintain mango’s quality and extend its shelf life, which reveals that ZECC seems promisingfor commercial application

Micro-endomyocardial biopsy (micro-EMB) is a novel catheter-based biopsy technique, aiming to increase flexibility and safety compared to conventional EMB. The technique was developed and evaluated in healthy swine. Therefore, the ability to detect disease related tissue changes could not be evaluated. The aim of the present pilot study was to investigate the ability to detect disease related gene expression changes using micro-EMB. Myocardial infarction was induced in three swine by coronary artery balloon occlusion. Micro-EMB samples (n = 164) were collected before, during, and after occlusion. RNA-sequencing was performed on 85 samples, and 53 of these were selected for bioinformatic analysis. A large number of responding genes was detected from the infarcted area (n = 1911). The early responding genes (n = 1268) were mostly related to apoptosis and inflammation. There were fewer responding genes two days after infarction (n = 6), which were related to extra-cellular matrix changes, and none after 14 days. In contrast to the infarcted area, samples harvested from a non-infarcted myocardial region showed considerably fewer regulated genes (n = 33). Deconvolution analysis, to estimate the proportion of different cell types, revealed a higher proportion of fibroblasts and a reduced proportion of cardiomyocytes two days after occlusion compared to baseline (p < 0.02 and p < 0.01, respectively. S5 File). In conclusion, this pilot study demonstrates the capabilities of micro-EMB to detect local gene expression responses at an early stage after ischemia, but not at later timepoints.

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) is considered the best alternative material for titanium for spinal fusion cage implants due to its low elasticity modulus and radiolucent property. The main problem of PEEK is its bioinert properties. Coating with hydroxyapatite (HA) showed very good improvement in bioactivity of the PEEK implants. However the existing methods for deposition of HA have some disadvantages and damage the PEEK substrate. In our previous study a new method for deposition of HA on PEEK was presented. In this study cell proliferation of mesenchymal stem cell and apatite formation in simulated body fluid (SBF) tests were conducted to probe the effect of this new method in improvement of the bioactivity of PEEK. The mesenchymal stem cell proliferation result showed better cells proliferation on the treated layer in comparison with untreated PEEK. The apatite formation results showed the growth of the HA on the treated PEEK but there was not any sight of the growth of HA on the untreated PEEK even after 2 weeks. The results showed the new method of the HA deposition improved the bioactivity of the treated PEEK in comparison with the bare PEEK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the leading cause of blindness with nearly two million people affected worldwide. Many genes have been implicated in RP, yet in 30-80% of the RP patients the genetic cause remains unknown. A similar phenotype, progressive retinal atrophy (PRA), affects many dog breeds including the Miniature Schnauzer. We performed clinical, genetic and functional experiments to identify the genetic cause of PRA in the breed. The age of onset and pattern of disease progression suggested that at least two forms of PRA, types 1 and 2 respectively, affect the breed, which was confirmed by genome-wide association study that implicated two distinct genomic loci in chromosomes 15 and X, respectively. Whole-genome sequencing revealed a fully segregating recessive regulatory variant in type 1 PRA. The associated variant has a very recent origin based on haplotype analysis and lies within a regulatory site with the predicted binding site of HAND1::TCF3 transcription factor complex. Luciferase assays suggested that mutated regulatory sequence increases expression. Case-control retinal expression comparison of six best HAND1::TCF3 target genes were analyzed with quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR assay and indicated overexpression of EDN2 and COL9A2 in the affected retina. Defects in both EDN2 and COL9A2 have been previously associated with retinal degeneration. In summary, our study describes two genetically different forms of PRA and identifies a fully penetrant variant in type 1 form with a possible regulatory effect. This would be among the first reports of a regulatory variant in retinal degeneration in any species, and establishes a new spontaneous dog model to improve our understanding of retinal biology and gene regulation while the affected breed will benefit from a reliable genetic testing.

This study presents a three-stage 18-level inverter design and its innovative control method. The inverter consists of a series-connected main high-, medium- and low-voltage stages. The high-voltage stage is made of a three-phase, six-switch inverter. The medium- and low-voltage stages are made of three-level inverters constructed by H-bridge units. The proposed control strategy assumes a reference input voltage vector and aims to operate the inverter in one state per sampling time to produce the nearest vector to that reference. The controller operates to reach the desired state with minimum switching actions, giving the priority in switching reduction to the higher voltage stage. The approach of the proposed control strategy has been presented, a set of related terms has been defined and the implementation process has been described. The test results verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy and the capability of the inverter to produce low-voltage distortion and switching losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex topography and wind characteristics play important roles in rising air masses and in daily spatial distribution of the precipitations in complex region. As a result, its spatial discontinuity and behaviour in complex areas can affect the spatial distribution of precipitation. In this work, a two-fold concept was used to consider both spatial discontinuity and topographic and wind speed in average daily spatial precipitation estimation using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) in tropical climates. First, wet and dry days were identified by the two methods. Then the two models based on MLR (Model 1 and Model 2) were applied on wet days to estimate the precipitation using selected predictor variables. The models were applied for month wise, season wise and year wise daily averages separately during the study period. The study reveals that, Model 1 has been found to be the best in terms of categorical statistics, R2 values, bias and special distribution patterns. However, it was found that sets of different predictor variables dominates in different months, seasons and years. Furthermore, necessities of other data for further enhancement of the results were suggested.

The purposes of this research are to formulate the equations of motion of the system, to develop computational codes by a finite element analysis in order to perform dynamics simulation with vibration control, to propose an effective control scheme using active-force (AF) control a flexible single-link manipulator. The system used in this paper consists of an aluminum beam as a flexible link, a clamp-part, a servo motor to rotate the link and a piezoelectric actuator to control vibration. Computational codes on time history responses, FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) processing and eigenvalues-eigenvectors analysis were developed to calculate dynamic behavior of the link. Furthermore, the AF control was designed to drive the piezoelectric actuator. Calculated results have revealed that the vibration of the system can be suppressed effectively.

Curcumenol and curcumenone are two major constituents of the plants of medicinally important genus of Curcuma, and often govern the pharmacological effect of these plant extracts. These two compounds, isolated from C. zedoaria rhizomes were studied for their binding to human serum albumin (HSA) using the fluorescence quench titration method. Molecular docking was also performed to get a more detailed insight into their interaction with HSA at the binding site. Additions of these sesquiterpenes to HSA produced significant fluorescence quenching and blue shifts in the emission spectra of HSA. Analysis of the fluorescence data pointed toward moderate binding affinity between the ligands and HSA, with curcumenone showing a relatively higher binding constant (2.46 × 105 M−1) in comparison to curcumenol (1.97 × 104 M−1). Cluster analyses revealed that site I is the preferred binding site for both molecules with a minimum binding energy of −6.77 kcal·mol−1. However, binding of these two molecules to site II cannot be ruled out as the binding energies were found to be −5.72 and −5.74 kcal·mol−1 for curcumenol and curcumenone, respectively. The interactions of both ligands with HSA involved hydrophobic interactions as well as hydrogen bonding.

The purposes of this research are to formulate theequations of motion of the system, to develop computationalcodes by a finite element analysis in order to perform dynamicssimulation with vibration control, to propose an effective controlscheme using active-force (AF) control a flexible single-linkmanipulator. The system used in this paper consists of analuminum beam as a flexible link, a clamp-part, a servo motor torotate the link and a piezoelectric actuator to control vibration.Computational codes on time history responses, FFT (FastFourier Transform) processing and eigenvalues-eigenvectorsanalysis were developed to calculate dynamic behavior of thelink. Furthermore, the AF control was designed to drive thepiezoelectric actuator. Calculated results have revealed that thevibration of the system can be suppressed effectively

This paper aims to compare the strength behaviour of demolished concrete material (DCM) and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in addition to coal ash for stabilizing marine clay, thus determining the optimum mix. Coal ash with different ratio of bottom ash (BA) and fly ash (FA) were prepared at various percentages (i.e. 3%, 6% and 8%). In addition, limited amount of DCM and OPC of 2% was added at different curing periods of 0, 7 and 28 days respectively. Thus, the percentage of admixture added to the marine clay were 5%, 8% and 10% respectively. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test was done and the results revealed that the strength of treated marine clay soil increased significantly with increment percentage of coal ash and also for both DCM and OPC. For admixture with OPC, treated marine clay with 5% admixture shows the highest strength gained, while the effective combination between bottom ash and fly ash is 50:50. At the first 7 days the strength gain was very high but from 7 days to 28 days the gain of strength was reduced. While for DCM, 5% of additive at 30BA:70FA shows the highest strength. In addition, both OPC and DCM provide significant strength gained between 0-7 days and decrease for 7-28 days. In conclusion, when comparing both stabilizer, OPC is a much more efficient secondary stabilizer when reacted with coal ash. As it provide early gain in strength with a much higher strength.