ASU Scholarship Showcase

Research has shown that construction projects in Saudi Arabia have exhibited poor performance for the past three decades. The traditional risk management practices have been ineffective at helping contractors deliver projects on time and within budget while meeting quality expectations. Studies have identified that client decision making is one of the main causes of risks that occur on projects in Saudi Arabia. This paper proposes a new risk management model that can minimize client decision making, and enable the client to utilize expertise, thereby improving project quality and performance. The model is derived from the Information Measurement Theory (IMT) and Performance Information Procurement System (PIPS), both developed at Arizona State University in the United States (U.S.). The model has been tested over 1800 times in both construction and non-construction projects, showing a decrease in required management by owner by up to 80% and an increase in efficiency up to 40%.

Precise spatial positioning and isolation of mammalian cells is a critical component of many single cell experimental methods and biological engineering applications. Although a variety of cell patterning methods have been demonstrated, many of these methods subject cells to high stress environments, discriminate against certain phenotypes, or are a challenge to implement. Here, we demonstrate a rapid, simple, indiscriminate, and minimally perturbing cell patterning method using a laser fabricated polymer stencil. The stencil fabrication process requires no stencil-substrate alignment, and is readily adaptable to various substrate geometries and experiments.

Brazil has had issues in efficiently providing the required amount of electricity to its citizens at a low cost. One of the main causes to the decreasing performance of energy is due to reoccurring droughts that decrease the power generated by hydroelectric facilities. To compensate for the decrease, Brazil brought into use thermal power plants. The power plants being on average 23.7% more expensive than hydroelectric. Wind energy is potentially an alternative source of energy to compensate for the energy decrease during droughts. Brazil has invested in wind farms recently, but, due to issues with the delivery method, only 34% of wind farms are operational. This paper reviews the potential benefit Brazil could receive from investing more resources into developing and operating wind farms. It also proposes that utilization of the best value approach in delivering wind farms could produce operational wind farms quicker and more efficiently than previously experienced.

Quantitative three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography (CT) imaging of living single cells enables orientation-independent morphometric analysis of the intricacies of cellular physiology. Since its invention, x-ray CT has become indispensable in the clinic for diagnostic and prognostic purposes due to its quantitative absorption-based imaging in true 3D that allows objects of interest to be viewed and measured from any orientation. However, x-ray CT has not been useful at the level of single cells because there is insufficient contrast to form an image. Recently, optical CT has been developed successfully for fixed cells, but this technology called Cell-CT is incompatible with live-cell imaging due to the use of stains, such as hematoxylin, that are not compatible with cell viability. We present a novel development of optical CT for quantitative, multispectral functional 4D (three spatial + one spectral dimension) imaging of living single cells. The method applied to immune system cells offers truly isotropic 3D spatial resolution and enables time-resolved imaging studies of cells suspended in aqueous medium. Using live-cell optical CT, we found a heterogeneous response to mitochondrial fission inhibition in mouse macrophages and differential basal remodeling of small (0.1 to 1 fl) and large (1 to 20 fl) nuclear and mitochondrial structures on a 20- to 30-s time scale in human myelogenous leukemia cells. Because of its robust 3D measurement capabilities, live-cell optical CT represents a powerful new tool in the biomedical research field.

Delays are a major cause for concern in the construction industry in Saudi Arabia. This paper identifies the main causes of delay in infrastructure projects in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and compares these with projects around the country and other Gulf countries. Data was obtained from 49 infrastructure projects undertaken by the owner and were analyzed quantitatively to understand the severity and causes of delay. 10 risk factors were identified and were grouped into four categories. Average delay in infrastructure projects in Mecca was found to be 39%. The most severe cause of delay was found to be the land acquisition factor. This highlights the critical land ownership and acquisition issues that are prevailing in the city. Additionally, other factors that contribute to delay include contractors’ lack of expertise, re-designing, and haphazard underground utilities (line services). It is concluded that the majority of project delays were caused from the owner's side as compared to contractors, consultants, and other project's stakeholders. This finding matched with the research findings of the Gulf Countries Construction (GCC) Industry's literature. This study fills an important practice and research gap for improving the efficiency in delivering infrastructure projects in the holy city of Mecca and Gulf countries at large.

This paper is part of doctoral research to improve the current Saudi Arabian (SA) procurement system. SA has the largest construction market in the Middle East. However, the use of the traditional procurement system in SA has been identified as one of the causes for poor performance in the delivery of construction. The system has been identified as a major risk to the SA government, due to consistent increased costs and delays of up to 70% on projects. A survey was conducted with 1396 participants including engineers, buyers, contractors, consultants, academics, and architects. The purpose of the survey was to identify the validity of the recent claims that the procurement system in SA is broken. The participants work in both the private and government sectors. The survey results showed that the procurement system is a major risk to projects, affects construction projects negatively, and is in need of improvement.

The apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 genotype is a powerful risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, we previously reported significant baseline structural differences in APOE e4 carriers relative to non-carriers, involving the left hippocampus more than the right—a difference more pronounced in e4 homozygotes than heterozygotes. We now examine the longitudinal effects of APOE genotype on hippocampal morphometry at 6-, 12- and 24-months, in the ADNI cohort. We employed a new automated surface registration system based on conformal geometry and tensor-based morphometry. Among different hippocampal surfaces, we computed high-order correspondences, using a novel inverse-consistent surface-based fluid registration method and multivariate statistics consisting of multivariate tensor-based morphometry (mTBM) and radial distance. At each time point, using Hotelling’s T² test, we found significant morphological deformation in APOE e4 carriers relative to non-carriers in the full cohort as well as in the non-demented (pooled MCI and control) subjects at each follow-up interval. In the complete ADNI cohort, we found greater atrophy of the left hippocampus than the right, and this asymmetry was more pronounced in e4 homozygotes than heterozygotes. These findings, combined with our earlier investigations, demonstrate an e4 dose effect on accelerated hippocampal atrophy, and support the enrichment of prevention trial cohorts with e4 carriers.

With the successful development of organic/polymeric light emitting diodes, many organic and polymeric fluorophores with high quantum efficiencies and optical stability were synthesized. However, most of these materials which have excellent optical properties are insoluble in water, limiting their applications in biological fields. Herein, we used micelles formed from an amino-group-containing poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PCL-b-PEG-NH₂) to incorporate a hydrophobic blue emitter oligofluorene (OF) to enable its application in biological conditions. Although OF is completely insoluble in water, it was successfully transferred into aqueous solutions with a good retention of its photophysical properties. OF exhibited a high quantum efficiency of 0.84 in a typical organic solvent of tetrahydrofuran (THF). In addition, OF also showed a good quantum efficiency of 0.46 after being encapsulated into micelles. Two cells lines, human glioblastoma (U87MG) and esophagus premalignant (CP-A), were used to study the cellular internalization of the OF incorporated micelles. Results showed that the hydrophobic OF was located in the cytoplasm, which was confirmed by co-staining the cells with nucleic acid specific SYTO 9, lysosome specific LysoTracker Red®, and mitochondria specific MitoTracker Red. MTT assay indicated non-toxicity of the OF-incorporated micelles. This study will broaden the application of hydrophobic functional organic compounds, oligomers, and polymers with good optical properties to enable their applications in biological research fields.

Many children born preterm exhibit frontal executive dysfunction, behavioral problems including attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder and attention related learning disabilities. Anomalies in regional specificity of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits may underlie deficits in these disorders. Nonspecific volumetric deficits of striatal structures have been documented in these subjects, but little is known about surface deformation in these structures. For the first time, here we found regional surface morphological differences in the preterm neonatal ventral striatum. We performed regional group comparisons of the surface anatomy of the striatum (putamen and globus pallidus) between 17 preterm and 19 term-born neonates at term-equivalent age. We reconstructed striatal surfaces from manually segmented brain magnetic resonance images and analyzed them using our in-house conformal mapping program. All surfaces were registered to a template with a new surface fluid registration method. Vertex-based statistical comparisons between the two groups were performed via four methods: univariate and multivariate tensor-based morphometry, the commonly used medial axis distance, and a combination of the last two statistics. We found statistically significant differences in regional morphology between the two groups that are consistent across statistics, but more extensive for multivariate measures. Differences were localized to the ventral aspect of the striatum. In particular, we found abnormalities in the preterm anterior/inferior putamen, which is interconnected with the medial orbital/prefrontal cortex and the midline thalamic nuclei including the medial dorsal nucleus and pulvinar. These findings support the hypothesis that the ventral striatum is vulnerable, within the cortico-stiato-thalamo-cortical neural circuitry, which may underlie the risk for long-term development of frontal executive dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention-related learning disabilities in preterm neonates.