Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) Lockdown on Mental Health and Well-Being in the United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken unprecedented precautionary measures including complete lockdowns against COVID-19 to control its spread and ensure the well-being of individuals. This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 and societal lockdown measures on the mental health of adults in the UAE. A cross-sectional study was conducted using an English and Arabic online questionnaire between May and June 2020. The psychological impact was assessed by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and the social and family support impact was evaluated using questions from the Perceived Support Scale (PSS). A total of 4,426 participants (3,325 females and 1,101 males) completed the questionnaire. The mean IES-R score was 28.0 ± 14.6, reflecting a mild stressful impact with 27.3% reporting severe psychological impact. Over 36% reported increased stress from work, home and financial matters. Also, 43–63% of the participants felt horrified, apprehensive or helpless due to COVID-19. Females, younger participants, part-timers, and college or University graduates were more likely to have a high IES-R score (p \u3c 0.05). The majority of participants reported receiving increased support from family members, paying more attention to their mental health, and spending more time to rest and relax. The results of this study demonstrate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among the UAE residents and highlight the need to adopt culturally appropriate interventions for the general population and vulnerable groups, such as females and younger adults

Identification of GBV-D, a Novel GB-like Flavivirus from Old World Frugivorous Bats (Pteropus giganteus) in Bangladesh

Bats are reservoirs for a wide range of zoonotic agents including lyssa-, henipah-, SARS-like corona-, Marburg-, Ebola-, and astroviruses. In an effort to survey for the presence of other infectious agents, known and unknown, we screened sera from 16 Pteropus giganteus bats from Faridpur, Bangladesh, using high-throughput pyrosequencing. Sequence analyses indicated the presence of a previously undescribed virus that has approximately 50% identity at the amino acid level to GB virus A and C (GBV-A and -C). Viral nucleic acid was present in 5 of 98 sera (5%) from a single colony of free-ranging bats. Infection was not associated with evidence of hepatitis or hepatic dysfunction. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that this first GBV-like flavivirus reported in bats constitutes a distinct species within the Flaviviridae family and is ancestral to the GBV-A and -C virus clades

A new form of Gabor Wigner Transform by adaptive thresholding in Gabor Transform and Wigner Distribution and the power of signal synthesis techniques to enhance the strengths of GWT

In this paper, a modified form of the Gabor Wigner Transform (GWT) has been proposed. It is based on adaptive thresholding in the Gabor Transform (GT) and Wigner Distribution (WD). The modified GWT combines the advantages of both GT and WD and proves itself as a powerful tool for analyzing multi-component signals. Performance analyses of the proposed distribution are tested on the examples, show high resolution and crossterms suppression. To exploit the strengths of GWT, the signal synthesis technique is used to extract amplitude varying auto-components of a multi-component signal. The proposed technique improves the readability of GWT and proves advantages of combined effects of these signal processing techniques

Waardenburg syndrome: A rare case

Waardenburg Syndrome is a rare disorder of neural crest cell development. It is genetically inherited. Varying in prevalence from 1:42000 to 1:50,000, it compromises approximately 2-5% of congenital deaf children. The syndrome is not expressed in its complete form, in about 20% cases, which adds for its heterogenisity . Even among people affected in the same family,the features do vary. Unilateral heterochromia that manifests as lighter pigmentation of one iris is associated with Waardenburg syndrome and Parry-Romberg syndrome and less commonly with Hirschsprung disease. A case of ten yrs. old boy with a typical facial profile and hearing loss is reported

AFLP mediated genetic diversity of malvaceae species

AFLP (Amplified fragment length polymorphism) marker system is a reliable method in the evaluation of genetic diversity among different species. It was used to explore phenetic relationships and diversity within and between 13 Malvaceae species belonging to 5 different genera. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the taxonomic potential, usefulness and applicability of AFLP marker system to reconstruct genetic relationships at interspecific and intergeneric level in Malvaceae. In total, 28 accessions comprising 13 species were included in the study but for assorted technical reasons five profiles remained incomplete or with ambiguous banding pattern. Therefore 23 accessions comprising 12 species were included in the final analysis. Two primer pairs produced a total of 73 bands, of which 70 were polymorphic. Neighbor Joining (NJ) tree showed that all 23 accessions were basically classified in three main clusters and several sub-clusters. The tree had well supported branches especially at the level of accessions and species. However, it also had poor bootsrap support at some intermediate and deeper branches. The informative value of the technique was evaluated by comparing the current results with earlier morphological and molecular investigations. Despite some poorly supported parts of the tree, most of the topologies established were in general congruence with earlier studies revealing that AFLP is a robust and reliable tool for DNA fingerprinting and detecting genetic relationships in Malvaceae at different taxonomic levels