Malaysia will be an ageing population by 2030 as the number of those aged 60 years and above has increased drastically from 6.2 percent in 2000 and is expected to reach 13.6 percent by 2030. There are many challenges that will be faced due to the ageing population, one of which is the increasing cost of pensions in the future. In view of that, it is necessary to investigate the effect of actuarial assumptions on pension liabilities under the perspective of ageing. To estimate the pension liabilities, the Projected Unit Credit method is used in the study and commutation functions are employed in the process. Demographic risk and salary risk have been identified as major risks in analyzing pension liabilities in this study. The sensitivity
... Show MoreWater supply projects (WSP) requires high plan information, specialized capabilities, capable human resources, and high administrative capacity. However, in the developing countries, particularly in Iraq, these projects experience a lack of a large number of these necessities, which shows the need to identify the critical success factors (CSFs). Accordingly, the objectives of this research are to investigate the CSFs for WSP and their significance among the construction (public and private) and education sectors. To achieve this, first we have carried out a comprehensive literature review of the CSFs for WSP. Second, we administrated a questionnaire survey to 260 construction experts
This study investigates the surgical and thermal effects on oral soft tissues produced by CO2 laser emitting at 10.6 micrometers with three different fluences 490.79, 1226.99 and 1840.4 J/cm2. These effects are specifically; incision depth, incision width and the tissue damage width and depth. The results showed that increasing the fluence and /or the number of beam passes increase the average depths of ablation. Moreover, increasing the fluence and the number of beam passes increase the adjacent tissue damage in width and depth. Surgeons using CO2 laser should avoid multiple pulses of the laser beam over the same area, to avoid unintentional tissue damage.
The Catharanthus roseus plant was extracted and converted to nanoparticles in this work. The Soxhlet method was used to extract alkaloid compounds from the Catharanthus roseus plant and converted them to the nanoscale. Chitosan polymer was used as a linking material and converted to Chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs). The extracted alkaloids were linked with Chitosan nanoparticles by maleic anhydride to get the final product (CSNPs-Linker-alkaloids). The pure Chitosan, Chitosan nanoparticles, and CSNPs-Linker-alkaloids were characterized by X-ray diffractometer, and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. X-ray results show that all samples have an orthorhombic structure with crystallite size in nanodimensions. FTIR spectra prove that
... Show MoreThe Role of the Deubiquitylase MYSM1 During Alphavirus Infection Amer Nubgan The members of the genus Alphavirus are positive-sense RNA viruses and it is one of two within the family Togaviridae. Most alphaviruses are predominantly transmitted to susceptible vertebrates by a mosquito vector. Alphavirus disease in humans can be severely debilitating, and depending on the particular viral species, infection may result in encephalitis and possibly life threatening symptoms. Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the aetiological agent represents a substantial health burden to affected populations, with clinical symptoms that include severe joint and muscle pain, rashes, and fever, as well as prolonged periods of disability in some patients. In recent
... Show MoreSolar distillers are a sustainable and simple solution for addressing water scarcity, but their limited productivity restricts their effectiveness. This work aimed to assess the thermal performance of a novel tracked, tilted, hexagonal tubular solar still (HTSS) of four-sectioned U-channel receiver. Two identical HTSSs were side-to-side tested in Baghdad-Iraq (33.3°N, 43.3°E) from June to September 2024. The thermal evaluation of single-axis tracking solar still, tilted at (5° to 15°) with the horizontal axis and charged with and without hydrogel beads for water depth of 60 mm. The still's thermal performance is assessed by analyzing heat transfer coefficients, energy and exergy efficiencies, as well as conducting cost and environment
... Show MoreKlebsiella pneumoniae is an adaptable pathogen that forms biofilms on a variety of surfaces. This study's objective was to identify the presence of fimbrial genes (types 1 and 3) in K. pneumoniae strains isolated from various clinical sources based on their antibiotic resistance and ability to form biofilms. According to identification utilizing the vitek 2 technology and confirmation by molecular identification targeting the 16S rRNA gene with a particular primer, forty isolates were identified from clinical specimens. The vitek 2 compact system was utilized to evaluate the antibiotic susceptibility of all the isolates. The findings revealed a range of resistance percentages, including 52.5% for Penicillin, 40.5% for Trimethoprim/S
... Show MoreText Clustering consists of grouping objects of similar categories. The initial centroids influence operation of the system with the potential to become trapped in local optima. The second issue pertains to the impact of a huge number of features on the determination of optimal initial centroids. The problem of dimensionality may be reduced by feature selection. Therefore, Wind Driven Optimization (WDO) was employed as Feature Selection to reduce the unimportant words from the text. In addition, the current study has integrated a novel clustering optimization technique called the WDO (Wasp Swarm Optimization) to effectively determine the most suitable initial centroids. The result showed the new meta-heuristic which is WDO was employed as t
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