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Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly, is the ideal model organism to study behavioural genetics. It has been extensively used in studying many diseases. Many of those studies still use manual methods to assess the fly’s behaviour under different conditions. In this article, we developed a method to track Drosophila melanogaster (both adults and larvae), and automate the process of data collection in larval crawling assay, and adult amputation assay.

Background Being the native inhabitants of the Neolithic Fertile Crescent, Kurds were included in several maternal lineage studies concerning the Eurasian population. However, no study was performed on the Kurdish population of Sulaymaniyah city (latitude 33.314690 and longitude 44.376759). This study was carried out on a sample of Sorani Kurds living in Sulaymaniyah for the identification of population-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and modes of maternal lineage. Results In this study, 36 randomly selected healthy unrelated Kurdish subjects were enrolled. Whole mitochondrial DNA sequencing was performed. HaploGrep 2.0 and neutrality test (Tajima’s D) were employed for haplogroup identification and historical demography determination. When the outcomes were compared with previous studies in Kurds and the neighbouring nations, the identified haplogroups in the sample of study were members of the Western Eurasian haplogroups with a predominance of haplogroup H. Conclusions The whole mitochondrial DNA sequence is superior to the traditional analysis of the non-coding (control) region. Our study indicates a stronger relation of the studied group to the European lineage than to their neighbouring nations.

Asthma is a life-threatening and chronic inflammatory lung disease that is posing a true global health challenge. The genetic basis of the disease is fairly well examined. However, the molecular crosstalk between microRNAs (miRNAs), target genes, and transcription factors (TFs) networks and their contribution to disease pathogenesis and progression is not well explored. Therefore, this study was aimed at dissecting the molecular network between mRNAs, miRNAs, and TFs using robust computational biology approaches. The transcriptomic data of bronchial epithelial cells of severe asthma patients and healthy controls was studied by different systems biology approaches like differentially expressed gene detection, functional enrichment, miRNA-target gene pairing, and mRNA-miRNA-TF molecular networking. We detected the differential expression of 1703 (673 up-and 1030 down-regulated) genes and 71 (41 up-and 30 down-regulated) miRNAs in the bronchial epithelial cells of asthma patients. The DEGs were found to be enriched in key pathways like IL-17 signaling (KEGG: 04657), Th1 and Th2 cell differentiation (KEGG: 04658), and the Th17 cell differentiation (KEGG: 04659) (p-values = 0.001). The results from miRNAs-target gene pairs-transcription factors (TFs) have detected the key roles of 3 miRs (miR-181a-2-3p; miR-203a-3p; miR-335-5p), 6 TFs (TFAM, FOXO1, GFI1, IRF2, SOX9, and HLF) and 32 miRNA target genes in eliciting autoimmune reactions in bronchial epithelial cells of the respiratory tract. Through systemic implementation of comprehensive system biology tools, this study has identified key miRNAs, TFs, and miRNA target gene pairs as potential tissue-based asthma biomarkers.

Background: Given the projected trends in population ageing and population growth, the number of people with dementia is expected to increase. In addition, strong evidence has emerged supporting the importance of potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. Characterising the distribution and magnitude of anticipated growth is crucial for public health planning and resource prioritisation. This study aimed to improve on previous forecasts of dementia prevalence by producing country-level estimates and incorporating information on selected risk factors. Methods: We forecasted the prevalence of dementia attributable to the three dementia risk factors included in the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 (high body-mass index, high fasting plasma glucose, and smoking) from 2019 to 2050, using relative risks and forecasted risk factor prevalence to predict GBD risk-attributable prevalence in 2050 globally and by world region and country. Using linear regression models with education included as an additional predictor, we then forecasted the prevalence of dementia not attributable to GBD risks. To assess the relative contribution of future trends in GBD risk factors, education, population growth, and population ageing, we did a decomposition analysis. Findings: We estimated that the number of people with dementia would increase from 57·4 (95% uncertainty interval 50·4-65·1) million cases globally in 2019 to 152·8 (130·8-175·9) million cases in 2050. Despite large increases in the projected number of people living with dementia, age-standardised both-sex prevalence remained stable between 2019 and 2050 (global percentage change of 0·1% [-7·5 to 10·8]). We estimated that there were more women with dementia than men with dementia globally in 2019 (female-to-male ratio of 1·69 [1·64-1·73]), and we expect this pattern to continue to 2050 (female-to-male ratio of 1·67 [1·52-1·85]). There was geographical heterogeneity in the projected increases across countries and regions, with the smallest percentage changes in the number of projected dementia cases in high-income Asia Pacific (53% [41-67]) and western Europe (74% [58-90]), and the largest in north Africa and the Middle East (367% [329-403]) and eastern sub-Saharan Africa (357% [323-395]). Projected increases in cases could largely be attributed to population growth and population ageing, although their relative importance varied by world region, with population growth contributing most to the increases in sub-Saharan Africa and population ageing contributing most to the increases in east Asia. Interpretation: Growth in the number of individuals living with dementia underscores the need for public health planning efforts and policy to address the needs of this group. Country-level estimates can be used to inform national planning efforts and decisions. Multifaceted approaches, including scaling up interventions to address modifiable risk factors and investing in research on biological mechanisms, will be key in addressing the expected increases in the number of individuals affected by dementia. F Carvalho and E F Fernandes acknowledge support from the University of Porto (UID/MULTI/04378/2019 and UID/QUI/50006/2019 with funding from FCT/MCTES through national funds). L F S Castro-de-Araujo acknowledges support from the Medical Research Council (London; grant number MC_PC_MR/T03355X/1). V M Costa acknowledges her grant (SFRH/BHD/110001/2015), received by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, under the Norma Transitória (DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006). A Douiri acknowledges support from the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal College of Physicians, as well as the support from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre based at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. N Ghith acknowledges her salary as a postdoc is covered by a grant to her research group provided by Novo Nordisk Foundation. V K Gupta and V B Gupta acknowledge funding support from National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia. S Haque acknowledges support from Jazan University, Saudi Arabia, for providing access to the Saudi Digital Library for this study. C Herteliu is partially supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation (CNDS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCCF-2016-0084). Y J Kim was supported by the Research Management Centre, Xiamen University, Malaysia (No. XMUMRF/2020-C6/ITCM/0004). M Kivimäki was supported by the MRC (S011676) and the Wellcome Trust (221854/Z/20/Z). M Kumar acknowledges support from Fogarty International Center (K43 TW010716-04). S Lorkowski acknowledges institutional support from the Competence Cluster for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health (nutriCARD) Halle-Jena-Leipzig (Germany; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant agreement number 01EA1808A). S Mondello was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (GR-2013-02354960). A Raggi acknowledges support from a grant from the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente, Fondazione Istituto Neurologico C. Besta, Linea – Outcome Research: dagli Indicatori alle Raccomandazioni Cliniche). D A S Silva acknowledges support from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brasil (CAPES; Finance Code 001 / CAPES-PRINT). J P Silva acknowledges support from the Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit (UCIBIO; grant number UIDB/04378/2020), supported through Portuguese national funds via FCT/MCTES. Sí

Coordination compounds from simple transition metals are robust substitutes for platinumbased complexes due to their remarkable anticancer properties. In a quest to find new metal complexes that could substitute or augment the platinum based chemotherapy we synthesized three transition metal complexes C1-C3 with Cu(II), Ni(II), and Co(II) as the central metal ions, respectively, and evaluated them for their anticancer activity against human keratinocyte (HaCaT) cell line and human cervical cancer (HeLa) cell lines. These complexes showed different activity profiles with the square planar copper complex C1 being the most active with IC50 values lower than the widely used anticancer drug-cisplatin. Assessment of the morphological changes by DAPI staining and ROS generation by DCFH-DA assay exposed that the cell death occurred by caspase-3 mediated apoptosis. C1 displayed interesting interactions with Ct-DNA, evidenced by absorption spectroscopy and validated by docking studies. Together, our results suggest that binding of the ligand to the DNA-binding domain of p53 tumor suppressor (p53DBD) protein and the induction of apoptotic hallmark protein, caspase-3 upon treatment with the metal complex could be positively attributed to a higherlevel of ROS and the subsequent DNA damage (oxidation), generated by compound C1, that could well explain the interesting anticancer activity observed for this complex.

Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Improvement Project (MCHNP) is an intervention that, adopts financial strategies to provide incentives as a means of motivating community health workers and ensuring accountability. This study highlights on the service delivery component of the intervention; thus, utilization of essential community nutrition and health action. This paper aims to determine the differential impact of MCHNP on maternal health service utilization in Ghana. A retrospective longitudinal pre-test post-test study design was employed. Six administrative regions were used for analyzing the impact of the intervention in uptake of maternal health services. Administrative data were extracted from the DHIMS2 database for the periods of January 2014 to December 2018. Analysis was conducted using interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) due to the absence of a control group. The difference in the pre-intervention and post-intervention means were statistically significant in the Central, Western, Eastern and Upper West region for the proportion of ANC 4 visits. With the exception of Northern region that recorded negative impact (-0.005; p-value >0.05), all the remaining regions recorded positive impacts on the percentage of women that had 4 ANC visits. All six regions had positive impacts in the proportion of women that received supervised delivery. However, none of these impacts were statistically significant; thus, the MCHNP intervention had no significant impact on maternal health outcomes which are, ANC four visits and skilled deliveries.

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licenseBackground: Hearing loss affects access to spoken language, which can affect cognition and development, and can negatively affect social wellbeing. We present updated estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study on the prevalence of hearing loss in 2019, as well as the condition's associated disability. Methods: We did systematic reviews of population-representative surveys on hearing loss prevalence from 1990 to 2019. We fitted nested meta-regression models for severity-specific prevalence, accounting for hearing aid coverage, cause, and the presence of tinnitus. We also forecasted the prevalence of hearing loss until 2050. Findings: An estimated 1·57 billion (95% uncertainty interval 1·51–1·64) people globally had hearing loss in 2019, accounting for one in five people (20·3% [19·5–21·1]). Of these, 403·3 million (357·3–449·5) people had hearing loss that was moderate or higher in severity after adjusting for hearing aid use, and 430·4 million (381·7–479·6) without adjustment. The largest number of people with moderate-to-complete hearing loss resided in the Western Pacific region (127·1 million people [112·3–142·6]). Of all people with a hearing impairment, 62·1% (60·2–63·9) were older than 50 years. The Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index explained 65·8% of the variation in national age-standardised rates of years lived with disability, because countries with a low HAQ Index had higher rates of years lived with disability. By 2050, a projected 2·45 billion (2·35–2·56) people will have hearing loss, a 56·1% (47·3–65·2) increase from 2019, despite stable age-standardised prevalence. Interpretation: As populations age, the number of people with hearing loss will increase. Interventions such as childhood screening, hearing aids, effective management of otitis media and meningitis, and cochlear implants have the potential to ameliorate this burden. Because the burden of moderate-to-complete hearing loss is concentrated in countries with low health-care quality and access, stronger health-care provision mechanisms are needed to reduce the burden of unaddressed hearing loss in these settings. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and WHO.

Alcohol consumption can lead to a wide range of systemic disorders brought about by transcriptional changes. Recent studies have documented altered behavior and physiology in zebrafish exposed to alcohol. In this work, we have identified the changes in the zebrafish transcriptome in response to chronic alcohol exposure. We have further followed the extent of transcriptional recovery upon withdrawal from alcohol and found evidence of tissue-specific responses. Our results indicate a greater extent of recovery of the brain transcriptome compared to the liver. We identify two distinct classes of genes in response to withdrawal from alcohol exposure - those that recover their pre-alcohol expression profile versus those that retain altered expression even after the fish are removed from the alcohol environment. Finally, we have examined gender-specific responses to alcohol exposure in zebrafish and find evidence for distinct alcohol tolerance levels. Upon chronic alcohol exposure, a higher percentage of genes show perturbation in expression profile in males compared to females. Female fish also recover better with more genes regaining the control expression level upon withdrawal from alcohol. Overall, our work identifies genes and pathways perturbed by exposure to alcohol, and demonstrates the extent of gender- and tissue-specific transcriptional changes associated with chronic alcoholism and withdrawal.

Severe thoracic trauma is one of the major causes of injury-related mortality. In the United States, thoracic trauma results in one-fourth of all trauma deaths. Globally, cardiothoracic trauma is also a major contributor to mortality. The most common cardiothoracic injuries include rib fractures, thoracic vertebral fractures, haemothorax, pneumothorax, flail chest, and lung contusions. The purpose of the present study was to determine the survival rate of patients with cardiovascular injuries in road traffic accidents and its relationship with ISS, GCS and blood transfusions at King Khalid Hospital. This study is a useful addition to the literature, as research in this topic is lacking. A total of 189 patients were transported to the hospital with cardiothoracic injuries during the study period. Data was gathered regarding age, gender, nationality, vehicle user type, anatomical region injured, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Injury Severity Score (ISS), blood transfusion, treatment and mortality rate.The neurological status was assessed using the GCS score. Injury Severity Scores were calculated to categorize the injury severity. The mean patient age was 31.81 years, with a peak age of between 21–30 years. Males predominated (93.7%) with a male to female ratio of 15:1. Most of the patients were Saudi nationals (61.3%). Overall mortality was 7.9%. Factors that were significantly associated with mortality were head and neck involvement, ICU admission, age (above 60), treatment delivered, and blood transfusions. Cardiothoracic trauma is associated with a high mortality rate, which may depend on the clinical presentation such as GCS, ISS, degree of shock, pattern of injuries, and associated injuries. Immediate management is vital for patients with life-threatening cardiothoracic trauma, as mortality is high if the diagnosis is missed, wrong or left untreated.

In this study, it was investigate about the engineering behavior of conventional concrete of grade M25, by replacing the fine aggregate by partially with crushed sea shell. On because of progression in the field of infrastructure, the dearth of construction material becomes upsurge day by day. All the investigator was observe to find the substitute construction materials to meet the demand of construction in world wide. The reason behind is, while continuous utilizing of the natural raw material for construction decline the resource of those materials and further, it leads to affect the routine function of the earth and made drastic change in the life cycle of living beings. Therefore, it is obvious to find out the possible alternative material to suit for all type of construction. In this study, the sea shell was used as a fine aggregate in the method of crushed powder in an apparent proportion such as 10%, 20% and 30% replacing in the place of fine aggregate sand. The compression and split tensile behavior of sea shell aggregate mixed concrete comparatively with plain sand concrete was studied under different curing periods such as 7 days, 14 days and 28 days. It was shows that at 20% replacement of crushed sea shell aggregate provide the compressive strength of 35 N/mm2 at 28 days of curing nearly with the design strength of M25 grade conventional concrete. It was also noticed that, the percentage increase of crushed sea shell decline the strength of concrete as radically. Hence it was acclaimed that, the percentage of crushed sea shell as fixed equal or below 10 % to get a better strength of concrete.

In recent times, the amount of data generated by various digital techniques are increasing at an unprecedented rate. These humongous amount of generated data is called “Big Data”. It is basically a combination of large data sets that has complex data structure integrated with the difficulties to store, fetch, analyze, transfer, protect and visualize the transferred data. The process involved to retrieve, fetch and analyze the data are named as big data analytics. Big data analytics is more useful in e-business companies to analyse the behavior of customer, systematic analytics and acquiring profit over the competition. This paper aims to study the use of big data in business organizations. The data have been collected from 122 e- business companies located within Maharashtra, India. The outcome of this study is that the big data is basically useful in e-business companies. This paper includes a literature review, sampling, hypothesis testing, expected conclusion and suggestions.

The discipline of category management has always played an important role within retailers as well as their CPG manufacturer suppliers. While the eight steps within the category management process (category definition, category role, category assessment, category scorecard, category strategies, category tactics, category implementation, and category review) have remained the same, with digitalization the discipline is undergoing a massive transformation, and the approach to the process is getting disrupted through the availability of huge volumes of transactional data, customer loyalty data; advancement in hardware technology through better scanners, image recognition devices, sensors and IoT devices and machine learning, and artificial intelligence. In this chapter, the authors take a closer look at the eight-step category management process, the traditional approach, the enabler for disruption, the new approach, and its benefits and what the future may hold.

Alcohol is a psychoactive substance which has detrimental health effects upon consumption. Transcriptome profiling can provide insights into the dynamic changes in global gene expression profiles induced by chronic alcohol exposure and withdrawal. Male and female zebrafish were continually exposed to 0.5% ethanol for a period of 9 weeks. Upon completion of alcohol treatment, the fish were subjected to a withdrawal program for 9 weeks. Brain and liver tissues of control, alcohol exposed and withdrawal fish were isolated and the extracted RNA was sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2000. The resultant paired end reads were mapped to the zebrafish reference genome (danRer10). The mapped transcripts were quantified for their expression and subjected to differential expression analysis across the three conditions. Gene ontology enrichment analysis of the differentially regulated genes was carried out to identify affected biological processes. The data for this project is available as a GEO dataset under Accession number GSE143416. The gene expression data discussed here accompanies the research article entitled 'Tissue-specific transcriptome recovery on withdrawal from chronic alcohol exposure in zebrafish'.

DNA codon frequency is a parameter that can be used to compare the frequency of particular codons in the genome of living organisms. Certain organisms are biased toward using certain codons to code for certain amino acids. This bias is thought to be due to an evolutionary process that has shaped nearly every organism’s genome. To get around this, one would need to fetch raw DNA data from already available databases such as nucleotide and GenBank. The obtained data will then would be automatically parsed into their corresponding codons and saved in distributed databases. Certain tools would be introduced to the database that allows instant statistical analysis as well as comparative genomic analysis. Thus, users would be able to retrieve codon frequency from the database of any gene of interest that can be found in GenBank and nucleotide databases, as well as analysis of codon frequency/amino acid frequency bias tables. Published 01 August 2018 DOI: 10.14500/icpas2018.sct21 http://dx.doi.org/10.14500/icpas2018.sct21

The low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) design technology is a present trend in high frequency application designs. The behavior of passive RF/microwave frequency components needs to be investigated to understand transition effect of a signal in a multilayer circuit. The aim of this paper is to design low-loss unlike-media transition model of microstrip to stripline in multilayer circuits. The transition models were designed using different conducting materials like silver, gold and copper, also for simulation studies an ideal reference model known as ‘perfect conductor’ (PEC) is used. The selected transition bandwidth is in the range 1GHz to 30GHz. The analysis of the transition effect is done with the help of scattering parameters. The perfect conductor is a reference conductor for studying transition losses. The electromagnetic (EM) simulated results of the perfect conductor obtained using NI/AWR EDA environment is compared with silver and copper conductor material models. The observed results of silver and copper conductor models lies very close to the results obtained using PEC (perfect) conductor model. From the studies done we conclude that the design & simulation of ultra-wide band transition microstrip line to stripline(1GHz to 30GHz) is possible with good in insertion loss & return loss.

Smart Switch allows switching almost any appliance ON and OFF remotely via local network or via internet. It is designed to receive start/stop commands and monitoring smart switch application like voltage, current and power. The paper presents a smart power switch system that can be controlled wirelessly or via internet, which has ability control power outlet and monitor electrical events such as voltage, current and power consumption. This system embeds program into microcontroller to control over all process, in addition to voltage and current sensor. The main system features include the remote control of multiple power outlet, control smart plugs, real-time monitoring of the current, voltage and power consumption, schedule the devices on/off time with consumption limits, calculate the electrical cost that user can interface it by any operating system. A prototype of the system has been implemented and tested with local network and internet in order to monitor its functionalities. The overall results proved that system runs fast and has very close energy monitoring to common monitoring devised. This system can be replaced manual distribution board and old energy meter to have one auto-remoted real time monitoring smart switch.

BACKGROUND: The recent development of LCP has revolutionized the surgical treatment of fractures by overcoming the few drawbacks of older internal fixators. The fractures of the shaft of humerus are one of the commonest fractures found and the accepted management for fractures shaft of humerus is open reduction and internal fixation using compression plating. Our present study is aimed at the assessment of results of plate osteosynthesis of diaphyseal fractures of humerus using locking compression plate and to assess the functional recovery with this procedure. MATERIALS & METHODS: In the study period of two years, 20 cases of fracture shaft of the humerus were treated by open reduction and internal fixation using Locking Compression Plate. RESULTS: In our series, majority of the patients were males, middle aged, with road traffic accidents being the commonest mode of injury, involving middle third of shaft of humerus. Follow up ranged from 6 weeks to 24 weeks. There was significant improvement in DASH scores (P=0.001) in all the 20 cases indicating the functional recovery. According to Rommen's et al grading, 17 cases had excellent results while 3 cases had good results. CONCLUSIONS: The age incidence varied from 21-40 years (65%) with male predominance (70%), with type A3 as the commonest fracture (50%) involving the mid shaft (70%) of humerus, underwent open reduction and internal fixation using locking compression plate. The results were assessed using DASH score and the significant functional recovery was achieved in all the cases, with Rommen's grading, excellent and good results were achieved.

PhD study Green business models (GBMs) can support green growth because they are based on green value creation and capture with emphasis on clients role. However, GBMs require substantial investment and strong change capabilities. This paper maps organisational changes associated with GBMs transformation. For this purpose, 19 semi-structured interviews are conducted with a heterogeneous sample of academics and managers from the UK construction sector. The interviews then are analysed by a means of thematic analysis with aim to capture any common changes and to form similar patterns of changes which occurred within the sample. Surprisingly, there are a lot of similarities that can be grouped broadly into three major themes: green profile development; structure; and operations. In addition, the change starts from the strategic level (policy) to the operational level but it may be triggered by the people at the operational level. Furthermore, GBMs not only change product/service and process but also catalyse broader systems change of the green value chain. Therefore, construction organisations have to accept that transition to GBMs will bring significant changes to the way they work if these models are to flourish.

This paper presents a new method for the detection of grinding thermal behaviours using a laser irradiation technique. Laser irradiation was initially undertaken in the Lumonics JK704 Nd: YAG laser machine under mimic grinding conditions. Temperature elevation was controlled using laser irradiation by varying the laser energy and laser irradiation time. The signatures of acoustic emission (AE) were recorded as pure thermally induced AE signals. A series of grinding experiments were conducted separately to identify different AE sources during grinding. An artificial neural network (ANN) had been trained to distinguish high and low temperatures using laser thermal AE data. This trained ANN was then used to classify burn and no burn in the grinding zone. The classification accuracy achieved 71% when grinding Inconel718 materials. The novelty of this work is reflected in that the laser irradiation induced thermal AE signals can represent grinding thermal behaviour and can be used for grinding burn detection.

This study was carried out to assess the spermicidal action of hexane extract from the fruits of Piper longum Linn. The sperm immobilisation studies showed that 20 mg/mL of hexane extract was able to immobilise sperms completely within 20 s. The sperm revival test revealed that the effects were spermicidal as sperm immobilisation effect was irreversible. There was also a significant reduction in sperm viability in the treated group in comparison to the control. The hypo-osmotic swelling of these sperms was significantly reduced, indicating that the hexane extract may probably cause injury to the sperm plasma membrane. Hence, this study showed that the hexane extract of P. longum possesses potential contraceptive spermicidal activity in vitro.

PhD study The environmental potential for green business models is considerable if current barriers can be identified and ways of overcoming them developed. Barriers to green business models are investigated by conducting a qualitative study. Semi-structured interviews are carried with a selected 19 UK construction industry experts from both academia and practices and results are obtained by applying thematic analysis. Five major categories of barriers are emerged from the analysis: government constraints; financial constraints; industry constraints; company constraints; and lack of demand. The results show that the barriers are both internal and external to construction companies. Financial institutions are expected to play a major role on the future of green business models by investing in performance-oriented models and allowing access to finance for construction companies that perform better in environmental terms. Finally, a collective effort is needed from governments, financial institutions, construction industry leaders, client groups, community, and individuals to combat these barriers and to increase green business models uptake.

PhD study Business models play a key role on successful businesses since they describe how an organisation creates and delivers value for its customers and subsequently captures value. A good business model can separate a company from its rivals by creating a competitive edge. However, there is limited research on business models in the building and construction field. This paper aims to contribute to this limited literature by exploring how the business model concept is understood and conceived by the building and construction literature to shed some light on the concept and its associated benefits, establish a common language, and help position future enquiries. Yet, it becomes vital to cover the literature in the business and management field where business models originated. This approach helps gaining thorough understanding and seeing the big picture of business models. The findings suggest that there is a growing interest in the use of business models concept in the building and construction disciplines but most articles refer to business models without explicit definition which can lead to uncertainty on using the concept. Furthermore, recent studies provide explicit definition of business models and seek to develop an understanding of the concept with reference to the construction context. As suggested by the literature, business models concept can be relevant for sustainability studies since it helps companies converting their abstract environmental strategies into viable business concepts thus creating value for customers and capturing this value. Moreover, concentration on the business model can facilitate better evaluation of current construction companies’ business models and assess their future suitability of sustainability aspects and competitiveness. To benefit from business models in the building and construction context, they need to be considered and developed at the level of field of operation with clear explanation on what they mean.

PhD study The emerging trend of climate change adaptation in the construction industry has raised the need to identify the sustainability requirements of the construction industry. Considering sustainability has the potential to enhance company profiles and improve relationships with stakeholders particularly clients. This paper presents a case study of a Local Authority and sheds light on some major issues, drivers, benefits, and organisational changes associated with sustainable construction. In addition, it identifies the critical factors for successful sustainable practices. The findings reveal that the implementation of sustainable practices often demands significant organisational and management capabilities such as closer collaboration and joint work between internal units, sustainability experts, sustainability targets as well as collaboration between demand and supply sides. It is found that clients awareness and education are vital for successful sustainable construction.

PhD study Business models describe the business logic of a particular company and green business model is when a company changes part(s) of its business model and thereby both captures economic value and reduces the ecological footprint in a life-cycle perspective. In this paper, business model literature is reviewed with the intention of promoting learning to understand the economic complexity of environmental sustainability in the construction context. Although the green construction literature does not explicitly deal with the changes of construction companies business model, there is a considerable research that implicitly investigates features and elements of the business models of green construction. Key features from this literature are: green value propositions should always be related to customer/stakeholder issues. Going green will improve relationships among stakeholders and with particular customers since key activities are performed in a greener manner. Knowledge and partnership are the most important resources needed to go green and moreover green branding is an important resource and can be a source of competitive advantage. To unlock green value proposition opportunities, cost structure and revenue models should be considered from a long-term perspective.

This paper presents recent investigation of acoustic emission (AE) behaviours in grinding processes. It demonstrated the acoustic emission features characterized in time and frequency domain are influenced by thermal behaviours of materials. By control laser conditions, the temperature elevation under laser irradiation can be similar to that in a grinding process. Therefore, an innovative concept that grinding process can be monitored by using thermal AE signatures from laser irradiation tests has been proposed. Accordingly, an artificial neural network (ANN), built on laser irradiation tests, was applied to monitor grinding thermal performance. The results showed that grinding performance variation due to wheel wear can be identified by using the ANN. This development could bring great benefits by reducing experimental works in the preparation of an ANN for grinding monitoring.

Grinding burn is a physical phenomenon related to the temperature in grinding zone. This paper presented the detection of high and low temperature in the grinding zone using laser irradiation technique. Two experiments on temperature rise were carried out using laser irradiation and grinding separately. By controlling the laser energy flux and irradiation time the temperature rise can be manipulated. The acoustic emission signals generated during laser irradiation provide signature for monitoring grinding temperature. An ANN model developed based on thermal AE data extracted from laser irradiation was used to detect the thermal AE signatures in grinding experiments, so that the high and low temperatures in the grinding zone can be monitored. Such technique can be used for grinding burn detection. The grinding experiment arranged to identify burn or no burn signature of AE data due to high and low temperatures under given depth of cuts (1.0 mm and 0.1 mm).

Background: The sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Understanding the current state of the HIV epidemic and its change over time is essential to this effort. This study assesses the current sex-specific HIV burden in 204 countries and territories and measures progress in the control of the epidemic. Methods: To estimate age-specific and sex-specific trends in 48 of 204 countries, we extended the Estimation and Projection Package Age-Sex Model to also implement the spectrum paediatric model. We used this model in cases where age and sex specific HIV-seroprevalence surveys and antenatal care-clinic sentinel surveillance data were available. For the remaining 156 of 204 locations, we developed a cohort-incidence bias adjustment to derive incidence as a function of cause-of-death data from vital registration systems. The incidence was input to a custom Spectrum model. To assess progress, we measured the percentage change in incident cases and deaths between 2010 and 2019 (threshold >75% decline), the ratio of incident cases to number of people living with HIV (incidence-to-prevalence ratio threshold