Muonless Events in ICAL at INO

The primary physics signal events in the ICAL at INO are the ${\nu}_{\mu}$ charged current (CC) interactions with a well defined muon track. Apart from these events, ICAL can also detect other types of neutrino interactions, i.e. the electron neutrino charged current interactions and the neutral current events. It is possible to have a dataset containing mostly ${\nu}_e$CC events, by imposing appropriate selection cuts on the events. The ${\nu}_{\mu}$ CC and the neutral current events form the background to these events. This study uses the Monte Carlo generated neutrino events, to design the necessary selection cuts to obtain a ${\nu}_e$ CC rich dataset. An optimized set of constraints are developed which balance the need for improving the purity of the sample and having a large enough event sample. Depending on the constraints used, one can obtain a neutrino data sample, with the purity of ${\nu}_e$ events varying between 55% to 70%.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

Matter vs Vacuum oscillations in Atmospheric Neutrinos

Atmospheric neutrinos travel very long distances through earth matter. It is expected that the matter effects lead to significant changes in the neutrino survival and oscillation probabilities. Initial analysis of atmospheric neutrino data by the Super- Kamiokande collaboration is done using the vacuum oscillation hypothesis, which provided a good fit to the data. In this work, we did a study to differentiate the effects of vacuum oscillations and matter modified oscillations in the atmospheric neutrino data. We find that magnetized iron detector, ICAL at INO, can make a 3 sigma discrimination between vacuum oscillations and matter oscillations, for both normal and inverted hierarchies, in ten years.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys.

Changing Trends of Breast Cancer Survival in Sultanate of Oman

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated mortality in women, with elevated incidence in developing countries. This retrospective study included all 122 patients diagnosed with breast cancer from January 2003 to December 2008 in the Sultanate of Oman. Age at presentation was 47.41 years (SD±12.88), with one-third of patients younger than 40 years. The majority of patients presented with stage III (41.2%) and IV (18.2%) breast cancer. T size (P = .023), skin involvement (P = .003), and stage at presentation (P = .004) were significantly associated with overall survival. Skin involvement at presentation (P = .003), T size (P = .09), lymph node status (P = .013), and stage (P = .003) were strong predictors of relapse-free survival. Patients had a 5-year survival of 78%, compared to 64% of breast cancer patients diagnosed between 1996 and 2002 identified in our previously published study. Thus, despite Omani breast cancer patients continuing to present with advanced breast cancer, survival rates have significantly improved

The Impact of an Educational Program based on the Components of Emotional Intelligence according to the Golman Model in the Development of Ethical Behavior in Islamic Education

This study aimed at identifying the effect of an Islamic Educational Programme based on Emotional Intelligence on developing Ethical Behaviors of tenth grade female students in the Sultanate of Oman. The study adopted a semi-experimental model using a sample of 137 students from Muscat and Southern Batinah schools. To achieve the study aims, an Educational Program based on Emotional Intelligence and Ethical Behaviors Scale (Self-control, Honesty, Respecting others, Respecting rules) was used. The validity of the scale was measured using trustee validity and discriminate validity. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used to estimate the reliability of the scale; it was 0.90 which indicates fairly high reliability. The results showed statically significant differences in regards of Self-control, Honesty, Respecting others and Respecting Rules in favor of the experimental group. In the light of the above findings, the study recommended the importance of integrating Emotional Intelligence skills into the curriculum to prevent ethical problems of teenage students. It also suggested the activation of educational strategies and classroom activities in training the students to develop their ethical behaviors

Role of oxidative stress and telomerase on haematopoietic stem and progenitor cell ageing

PhD ThesisAgeing is associated with the functional decline of both haematopoietic stem and endothelial progenitor cells (HSPCs and EPCs), leading to an imbalance between cellular damage and repair. Telomeres are the end caps of chromosomes that maintain chromosomal integrity and shorten with age. Telomerase is the enzyme responsible for telomere replication. The absence of telomerase leads to premature ageing. Oxidative stress as well as metabolic stress and short telomeres are key contributors to the manifestation of different age-related diseases. However, the exact effect of these factors on HSPCs and EPCs is not clear. The effects of metabolic stress were studied by the addition of different glucose concentrations to low passage (early) cells in culture. Metabolic stress impaired the growth of EPCs and CD34+ HSPCs. There was no change in telomerase enzyme activity under metabolic stress in CD34+ HSPCs. However, metabolic stress upregulated the metabolic co-activator PGC-1α in EPCs but not in CD34+ HSPCs. The effects of oxidative stress were investigated by incubating peripheral blood EPCs, and cord blood CD34+ expanded HSPCs under 40% O2 in culture. While early EPCs show resistance to oxidative stress, CD34+ HSPCs showed impaired growth and differentiation potential. This impairment was associated with increased telomerase activity, no changes to TERT or TERC expression, and maintenance of telomere length. Oxidative stress limited CD34+ HSPC myeloid differentiation. In particular, CD15+ granulocytes were more sensitive to oxidative stress than CD14+ monocytes. Furthermore, CD15+ granulocytes reduced the expression of TERC during myeloid differentiation. In contrast to CD34+ HSPCs under growth conditions, there was no increase in telomerase activity during myeloid differentiation under oxidative stress. To investigate the effects of ageing in vivo with telomerase dysfunction, HSPCs from bone marrow of aged telomerase deficient TERT-/- and TERC-/- first generation mice were studied. Ageing resulted in the accumulation of Lineage-Sca-1+CKit+ stem cells and CFU-GM colonies in wild type mice. TERT-/- mice without telomere shortening showed a normal phenotype at young age (1.5-7.5 months) and augmented ageing of bone marrow with increased age (22 months). On the other hand, TERC-/- mice with short telomeres led to a premature ageing bone marrow phenotype, even at young ages (8-12 months). Interestingly, both TERT-/- and TERC-/- showed more erythroid progenitor colonies. Furthermore, short- (7 months) and long-term (16 months) dietary restrictions ameliorated the ageing bone marrow phenotype. Together, the data presented demonstrates the damaging effect of oxidative and metabolic stress on humans in early EPCs and CD34+ HSPCs. In a mouse model, normal ageing disrupted HSPCs. Telomerase deficiency augmented normal ageing, whilst short telomeres appear to be a major determinant of ageing. These ageing phenotypes in mice can be ameliorated by dietary restriction

Paediatric poisoning in Kuwait-Al Adan joint hospital: The need for functional poisoning control centre in Kuwait.

Poisoning is a major global health concern. Every year, unintentional poisoning contributes to 106,683 deaths globally. In Kuwait, paediatric poisoning cases comprise approximately 50% of total poisoning cases. Despite the extensive importance and the long history of poison control centres (PCCs) and the emphasis of the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a PCC in Kuwait, no functional PCC exists in Kuwait. Here we reported 82 poisoning cases between July and December 2020, revealing a 100% increase in comparison to the official figures published in 2004 and 2005. No fatalities were reported, and all cases were discharged home within 12 h of their visit to the casualty. Children aged 2 to < 4 years comprised the most reported poisoning cases with approximately 45% of the total. The number of male child poisoning cases was approximately two-fold of female children. The most common poisoning agent was silica gel granules (9%) followed by medicines - reported as paracetamol (7%), diclofenac (7%), multivitamin gummies (7%) and vitamin C (5%). Among other causes of poisoning were ingestion of salbutamol nebulizer solution (4%), oral contraceptives and insecticides (4%). These findings reveal the importance of establishing a functional PCC in Kuwait to minimise the unnecessary visits following ingestion of expired orange juice and henna, that may encounter further contraction of infections, especially with the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, a functional PCC would provide comprehensive data and hence further intervention such as shifting the dosage form of salbutamol from nebulizer solution to metered dose inhaler with a spacer, in addition to increasing public awareness towards minimizing such a dramatic increase in casualty visits because of -suspected poisoning

Quaterionic Construction of the W(F_4) Polytopes with Their Dual Polytopes and Branching under the Subgroups B(B_4) and W(B_3)*W(A_1)

4-dimensional $F_{4}$ polytopes and their dual polytopes have been constructed as the orbits of the Coxeter-Weyl group $W(F_{4})$ where the group elements and the vertices of the polytopes are represented by quaternions. Branchings of an arbitrary \textbf{$W(F_{4})$} orbit under the Coxeter groups $W(B_{4}$ and $W(B_{3}) \times W(A_{1})$ have been presented. The role of group theoretical technique and the use of quaternions have been emphasizedComment: 26 pages, 10 figure