Sphingolipids are key components of eukaryotic membranes, particularly the plasma membrane. The biosynthetic pathway for the formation of these lipid species is largely conserved. However, in contrast to mammals, which produce sphingomyelin, organisms such as the pathogenic fungi and protozoa synthesize inositol phosphorylceramide (IPC) as the primary phosphosphingolipid. The key step involves the reaction of ceramide and phosphatidylinositol catalysed by IPC synthase, an essential enzyme with no mammalian equivalent encoded by the AUR1 gene in yeast and recently identified functional orthologues in the pathogenic kinetoplastid protozoa. As such this enzyme represents a promising target for novel anti-fungal and anti-protozoal drugs. Given

Abstract. This work presents a detailed design of a three-jointed tendon-driven robot finger with a cam/pulleys transmission and joint Variable Stiffness Actuator (VSA). The finger motion configuration is obtained by deriving the cam/pulleys transmission profile as a mathematical solution that is then implemented to achieve contact force isotropy on the phalanges. A VSA is proposed, in which three VSAs are designed to act as a muscle in joint space to provide firm grasping. As a mechatronic approach, a suitable type and number of force sensors and actuators are designed to sense the touch, actuate the finger, and tune the VSAs. The torque of the VSAs is controlled utilizing a designed Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) fuzzy controll

Analyzing plantar pressure trajectories is crucial for assessing foot behavior in dynamic gait stability. We propose the identification of foot symmetry and the detection of deformities by analyzing the trajectories of the center of pressure (CoP) and peak pressure (PP). First, using a foot pressure mapping system, plantar pressure data are acquired during a normal gait cycle. After the data have been acquired, post processing extracts both the CoP and PP trajectories over the spatiotemporal domain of foot motion for each foot independently. For this purpose, we used the optical flow technique which accurately estimates the direction of foot motion. The extracted trajectories of each foot are then segmented into, the medial and lateral regi

Upper limb amputation is a condition that severely limits the amputee’s movement. Patients who have lost the use of one or more of their upper extremities have difficulty performing activities of daily living. To help improve the control of upper limb prosthesis with pattern recognition, non-invasive approaches (EEG and EMG signals) is proposed in this paper and are integrated with machine learning techniques to recognize the upper-limb motions of subjects. EMG and EEG signals are combined, and five features are utilized to classify seven hand movements such as (wrist flexion (WF), outward part of the wrist (WE), hand open (HO), hand close (HC), pronation (PRO), supination (SUP), and rest (RST)). Experiments demonstrate that usin

This study aims to improve the quality of satellites signals in addition to increase accuracy level delivered from handheld GPS data by building up a program to read and decode data of handheld GPS. Where, the NMEA protocol file, which stands for the National Marine Electronics Association, was generated from handheld GPS receivers in real time using in-house design program. The NMEA protocol file provides ability to choose points positions with best status level of satellites such as number of visible satellite, satellite geometry, and GPS mode, which are defined as accuracy factors. In addition to fix signal quality, least squares technique was adopted in this study to minimize the residuals of GPS observations and enh

Recently, there has been an increasing advancement in the communications technology, and due to the increment in using the cellphone applications in the diverse aspects of life, it became possible to automate home appliances, which is the desired goal from residences worldwide, since that provides lots of comfort by knowing that their appliances are working in their highest effi ciency whenever it is required without their knowledge, and it also allows them to control the devices when they are away from home, including turning them on or off whenever required. The design and implementation of this system is carried out by using the Global System of Mobile communications (GSM) technique to control the home appliances – In this work, an ele

    Hartha Formation is an overburdened horizon in the X-oilfield which generates a lot of Non-Productive Time (NPT) associated with drilling mud losses. This study has been conducted to investigate the loss events in this formation as well as to provide geological interpretations based on datasets from nine wells in this field of interest. The interpretation was based on different analyses including wireline logs, cuttings descriptions, image logs, and analog data. Seismic and coherency data were also used to formulate the geological interpretations and calibrate that with the loss events of the Hartha Fm.

   The results revealed that the upper part of the Hartha Fm. was identified as an interval capable of creating potentia