Isolation and Screening of Hydrocarbon Degrading Bacterial Strains for Bioremediation of Petroleum Pollution in Qatar

Pollution, due to activities related to the oil industry, represents a serious threat to the natural environment. The application of biotechnological methods provides much safer and sustainable alternatives for bioremediation of polluted areas, using microorganisms. Several techniques for the isolation of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria have been investigated and published worldwide. A wide range of bilogical activities was shown. However, local hydrocarbon degrading strains and the factors affecting bacterial and strains variability were not studied deeply. In this study, we showed that the isolation and screening strategy affected a lot, the selection of the strains. We combined the bacterial tolerance to hydrocarbon toxicity, assessed by the growth parameters, and the bacterial degradative activities, assessed by the degradation of a wide range of petroleum hydrocarbons via Gas Chromatography analysis. The main investigations and findings of the present work are: -A collection of 39 bacterial isolates from the Qatari environment was set up and a new isolation and screening program was proposed. -The Growth conditions and the activity of pre-selected strains -Shift of the activity of the selected strains from a range of hydrocarbons to another by the effect of the nitrogen source, C/N ratio and organic nitrogen source -70% hydrocarbon removal, achieved with several strains in 2 weeks. -Amongst 12 identified isolates and by molecular ribotyping-DNA sequencing, 3 Pseudomonas strains isolated from a polluted area in Qatar, are available for bioremediation of highly polluted soils, tolerating high toxicity and may be adapted to a variety of low or high molecular weight hydrocarbons

Enhancing Clinical Learning Through an Innovative Instructor Application for ECMO Patient Simulators

© 2018 The Authors. Reprinted by permission of SAGE PublicationsBackground. Simulation-based learning (SBL) employs the synergy between technology and people to immerse learners in highly-realistic situations in order to achieve quality clinical education. Due to the ever-increasing popularity of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) SBL, there is a pressing need for a proper technological infrastructure that enables high-fidelity simulation to better train ECMO specialists to deal with related emergencies. In this article, we tackle the control aspect of the infrastructure by presenting and evaluating an innovative cloud-based instructor, simulator controller, and simulation operations specialist application that enables real-time remote control of fullscale immersive ECMO simulation experiences for ECMO specialists as well as creating custom simulation scenarios for standardized training of individual healthcare professionals or clinical teams. Aim. This article evaluates the intuitiveness, responsiveness, and convenience of the ECMO instructor application as a viable ECMO simulator control interface. Method. A questionnaire-based usability study was conducted following institutional ethical approval. Nineteen ECMO practitioners were given a live demonstration of the instructor application in the context of an ECMO simulator demonstration during which they also had the opportunity to interact with it. Participants then filled in a questionnaire to evaluate the ECMO instructor application as per intuitiveness, responsiveness, and convenience. Results. The collected feedback data confirmed that the presented application has an intuitive, responsive, and convenient ECMO simulator control interface. Conclusion. The present study provided evidence signifying that the ECMO instructor application is a viable ECMO simulator control interface. Next steps will comprise a pilot study evaluating the educational efficacy of the instructor application in the clinical context with further technical enhancements as per participants’ feedback.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Developing Education Profession Ethics Among Pre-services Teachers: Kohlberg Modeled Training Program Intervention

This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of a training program based on Kohlberg Moral Growth Theory in the development of education profession ethics among pre-service teachers at the School of Educational Sciences at the University of Jordan. The study population consisted of (134) classroom teacher students in the academic year 2018/2019. Randomly, (30) students were assigned as the experimental group and (30) students as the control group. Moral judgment scale developed by Al-Disi and Rawadieh (2019) was used to measure moral judgement of education profession ethics. The training program consisted of (6) modules in accordance with Kohlberg. The experimental group joined the ethics training program for two months. Results showed that the training program was (71%) effective in the development of the education profession ethics among the experimental group. The researchers recommended investing the training program in developing a curriculum course of education profession ethics for pre-service teachers. Keywords: Kohlberg, Pre-Service Teachers, Training Program, Education Profession Ethics, Jordan. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-2-04 Publication date: January 31st 202

Using thermochromism to simulate blood oxygenation in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

Introduction: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) training programs employ real ECMO components, causing them to be extremely expensive while offering little realism in terms of blood oxygenation and pressure. To overcome those limitations, we are developing a standalone modular ECMO simulator that reproduces ECMO’s visual, audio and haptic cues using affordable mechanisms. We present a central component of this simulator, capable of visually reproducing blood oxygenation color change using thermochromism. Methods: Our simulated ECMO circuit consists of two physically distant modules, responsible for adding and withdrawing heat from a thermochromic fluid. This manipulation of heat creates a temperature difference between the fluid in the drainage line and the fluid in the return line of the circuit and, hence, a color difference. Results: Thermochromic ink mixed with concentrated dyes was used to create a recipe for a realistic and affordable blood-colored fluid. The implemented “ECMO circuit” reproduced blood’s oxygenation and deoxygenation color difference or lack thereof. The heat control circuit costs 300 USD to build and the thermochromic fluid costs 40 USD/L. During a ten-hour in situ demonstration, nineteen ECMO specialists rated the fidelity of the oxygenated and deoxygenated “blood” and the color contrast between them as highly realistic. Conclusions: Using low-cost yet high-fidelity simulation mechanisms, we implemented the central subsystem of our modular ECMO simulator, which creates the look and feel of an ECMO circuit without using an actual one.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Considering the Specific Impact of Harsh Conditions and Oil Weathering on Diversity, Adaptation, and Activity of Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria in Strategies of Bioremediation of Harsh Oily-Polluted Soils

Weathering processes change properties and composition of spilled oil, representing the main reason of failure of bioaugmentation strategies. Our purpose was to investigate the metabolic adaptation of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria at harsh conditions to be considered to overcome the limitations of bioaugmentation strategies at harsh conditions. Polluted soils, exposed for prolonged periods to weathered oil in harsh soils and weather conditions, were used. Two types of enrichment cultures were employed using 5% and 10% oil or diesel as sole carbon sources with varying the mineral nitrogen sources and C/N ratios. The most effective isolates were obtained based on growth, tolerance to toxicity, and removal efficiency of diesel hydrocarbons. Activities of the newly isolated bacteria, in relation to the microenvironment from where they were isoalted and their interaction with the weathered oil, showed individual specific ability to adapt when exposed to such factors, to acquire metabolic potentialities. Among 39 isolates, ten identified ones by 16S rDNA genes similarities, including special two Pseudomonas isolates and one Citrobacter isolate, showed particularity of shifting hydrocarbon-degrading ability from short chain n-alkanes (n-C12–n-C16) to longer chain n-alkanes (n-C21–n-C25) and vice versa by alternating nitrogen source compositions and C/N ratios. This is shown for the first time.This work was supported by the College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences of Qatar University [QUUG-CAS-DEM-12/13-6; QUST-CAS-FALL-12/13-23; and QUST-CAS-FALL-12/13-22]

ECG Signal Reconstruction on the IoT-Gateway and Efficacy of Compressive Sensing Under Real-time Constraints

Remote health monitoring is becoming indispensable, though, Internet of Things (IoTs)-based solutions have many implementation challenges, including energy consumption at the sensing node, and delay and instability due to cloud computing. Compressive sensing (CS) has been explored as a method to extend the battery lifetime of medical wearable devices. However, it is usually associated with computational complexity at the decoding end, increasing the latency of the system. Meanwhile, mobile processors are becoming computationally stronger and more efficient. Heterogeneous multicore platforms (HMPs) offer a local processing solution that can alleviate the limitations of remote signal processing. This paper demonstrates the real-time performance of compressed ECG reconstruction on ARM's big.LITTLE HMP and the advantages they provide as the primary processing unit of the IoT architecture. It also investigates the efficacy of CS in minimizing power consumption of a wearable device under real-time and hardware constraints. Results show that both the orthogonal matching pursuit and subspace pursuit reconstruction algorithms can be executed on the platform in real time and yield optimum performance on a single A15 core at minimum frequency. The CS extends the battery life of wearable medical devices up to 15.4% considering ECGs suitable for wellness applications and up to 6.6% for clinical grade ECGs. Energy consumption at the gateway is largely due to an active internet connection; hence, processing the signals locally both mitigates system's latency and improves gateway's battery life. Many remote health solutions can benefit from an architecture centered around the use of HMPs, a step toward better remote health monitoring systems.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

System-on-Chip Solution for Patients Biometric: A Compressive Sensing-Based Approach

IEEE The ever-increasing demand for biometric solutions for the internet of thing (IoT)-based connected health applications is mainly driven by the need to tackle fraud issues, along with the imperative to improve patient privacy, safety and personalized medical assistance. However, the advantages offered by the IoT platforms come with the burden of big data and its associated challenges in terms of computing complexity, bandwidth availability and power consumption. This paper proposes a solution to tackle both privacy issues and big data transmission by incorporating the theory of compressive sensing (CS) and a simple, yet, efficient identification mechanism using the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal as a biometric trait. Moreover, the paper presents the hardware implementation of the proposed solution on a system on chip (SoC) platform with an optimized architecture to further reduce hardware resource usage. First, we investigate the feasibility of compressing the ECG data while maintaining a high identification quality. The obtained results show a 98.88% identification rate using only a compression ratio of 30%. Furthermore, the proposed system has been implemented on a Zynq SoC using heterogeneous software/hardware solution, which is able to accelerate the software implementation by a factor of 7.73 with a power consumption of 2.318 W

Anti-hypertensive Herbs and their Mechanisms of Action: Part I

The use of herbal therapies for treatment and management of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is increasing. Plants contain a bounty of phytochemicals that have proven to be protective by reducing the risk of various ailments and diseases. Indeed, accumulating literature provides the scientific evidence and hence reason d'etre for the application of herbal therapy in relation to CVDs. Slowly, but absolutely, herbal remedies are being entrenched into evidence-based medical practice. This is partly due to the supporting clinical trials and epidemiological studies. The rationale for this expanding interest and use of plant based treatments being that a significant proportion of hypertensive patients do not respond to Modern therapeutic medication. Other elements to this equation are the cost of medication, side-effects, accessibility, and availability of drugs. Therefore, we believe it is pertinent to review the literature on the beneficial effects of herbs and their isolated compounds as medication for treatment of hypertension, a prevalent risk factor for CVDs. Our search utilized the PubMed and ScienceDirect databases, and the criterion for inclusion was based on the following keywords and phrases: hypertension, high blood pressure, herbal medicine, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), nitric oxide, vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation, hydrogen sulfide, nuclear factor kappa-B, oxidative stress, and epigenetics/epigenomics. Each of the aforementioned keywords was co-joined with herb in question, and where possible with its constituent molecule(s). In this first of a two-part review, we provide a brief introduction of hypertension, followed by a discussion of the molecular and cellular mechanisms. We then present and discuss the plants that are most commonly used in the treatment and management of hypertension.NPRP# 4-571-3-171 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation)

Influence of temperature, salinity and Mg:Ca ratio on microbially-mediated formation of Mg-rich carbonates by Virgibacillus strains isolated from a sabkha environment.

Studies have demonstrated that microbes facilitate the incorporation of Mg into carbonate minerals, leading to the formation of potential dolomite precursors. Most microbes that are capable of mediating Mg-rich carbonates have been isolated from evaporitic environments in which temperature and salinity are higher than those of average marine environments. However, how such physicochemical factors affect and concur with microbial activity influencing mineral precipitation remains poorly constrained. Here, we report the results of laboratory precipitation experiments using two mineral-forming Virgibacillus strains and one non-mineral-forming strain of Bacillus licheniformis, all isolated from the Dohat Faishakh sabkha in Qatar. They were grown under different combinations of temperature (20°, 30°, 40 °C), salinity (3.5, 7.5, 10 NaCl %w/v), and Mg:Ca ratios (1:1, 6:1 and 12:1). Our results show that the incorporation of Mg into the carbonate minerals is significantly affected by all of the three tested factors. With a Mg:Ca ratio of 1, no Mg-rich carbonates formed during the experiments. With a Mg:Ca ratios of 6 and 12, multivariate analysis indicates that temperature has the highest impact followed by salinity and Mg:Ca ratio. The outcome of this study suggests that warm and saline environments are particularly favourable for microbially mediated formation of Mg-rich carbonates and provides new insight for interpreting ancient dolomite formations

Investigating the simultaneous removal of hydrocarbons and heavy metals by highly adapted Bacillus and Pseudomonas strains

The status, content and availability of heavy metals and hydrocarbons are highly affected by weathering processes – particularly – in areas characterized by harsh conditions. Their concomitant removal by highly adapted strains of Bacillus and Pseudomonas to weathered oil components was investigated. Indeed, weathered soil collected from Dukhan dumpsite was shown to contain 14 heavy metals with concentrations exceeding the US-EPA limits. Their distribution in such soil was not affected by the soil organics, which is important for the remediation processes. Most of them were strongly bonded to the iron–manganese oxide and the residual fractions, justifying their bioremediation. This study used 18 adapted bacterial strains isolated from extremely weathered oily soils, including the studied soil, all shown tolerant up to 5 mM and above of heavy metals. 4 Bacillus and 3 Pseudomonas strains exhibited the capability to remove 70%–80% of the heavy metals. Concomitantly, they removed up to 73% of the diesel-range organics. Using the PCA methodology with multivariate (bacterial type and adaptation and heavy metals properties), the efficiency of heavy metals removal was shown not related to the adapted bacteria, but to the heavy metal status. This means that the adaptation of these bacterial strains was at the level of the cells’ structure and/or their exopolymeric substances which immobilize the heavy metals and reduce their toxicity allowing their growth and removing hydrocarbons. It is then, a double-adaptation route, leading to concomitant removal of organics and heavy metals, which is of high importance from the practical point of view