Evaluation of the effect of air pollution on human health in Kuwait.

Even before the 1990 war the populations of some areas of Kuwait was subject to severe atmospheric pollution. However, little was known about the effect of this pollution on health and on the use of health care. Three areas in Kuwait were chosen for study which were demographically similar and lay at a different distances to the north (i.e. usually downwind) of the industrial area. Plant in this area emits hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and carbon monoxide among other pollutants. A special survey was carried out to gather information on demographic, health and lifestyle factors including age, sex, place of residence, smoking, physical symptoms, psychological effects, life satisfaction, environmental problems, experience of air pollution and use of health care. A random sample of 136 households (1140 persons) was chosen from the three areas and studied over the period from lst February 1988 to 31st January 1989. Data on levels of pollution concentrations and meteorological conditions were also collected over the same period for each area studied. Data on use of health care were available from the health centres in the three areas studied and also from the population survey.The demographic similarity of the three areas studied was generally confirmed by the data from population survey. The relationships involved were examined for different age groups using cross tabulation, time series analysis and regression analysis. There were clear gradients with increased distance from the industrial area in levels of pollution, levels of selfreported physical and psychological symptoms and in the use of health care. Of the individual pollutants it appeared that carbon monoxide levels were most closely correlated with levels of symptoms. For those aged less than 18, the link to CO was closest for respiratory symptoms, while for those aged 18 to 64 the link was with headache. The use of primary care is more closely linked to H2S although this relationship is relatively weak. Consider the relationship between levels of pollution in the three areas studied and Kuwait City and the levels of pollution in Shuaiba area taking meteorological conditions into account. The purpose of this was to allow for estimates of the effect of pollution reduction in Shuaiba on the health of population elsewhere in the country. However, no way was and of making such estimates with sufficient prison. This analysis confirmed a number of recommendations that have been made by others

Genotypic and phenotypic diversity differences of presumptive commensal and avian pathogenic E. coli

1. The objective of the experiment was to characterise the genotypic and phenotypic differences between presumptive commensal E. coli and avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) of poultry. 2. DNA was extracted from 65 confirmed APEC E. coli from chicken, 100 presumptive commensal E. coli from healthy turkey and 35 from healthy chicken. Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR (ERIC-PCR) and virulence factors genotyping was performed to characterise genetic features. 3. Carbon source utilisation and antimicrobial susceptibility tests were performed to characterise phenotypic features of isolates. 4. The genetic divergence between E. coli strains tested by ERIC-PCR profiles and virulence associated genes showed a clear genetic separation between E. coli APEC and turkey E. coli strains. 5. The carbon utilisation profile of turkey isolates was different from chicken and APEC strains; whereas antimicrobial susceptibility was highest for turkey isolates (53%), and lowest for APEC strains (33.8%). 6. The study showed a significant negative correlation between utilisation of arabitol and adonitol with different virulence determinants tested, which suggests that the ability to utilise some uncommon carbon sources may be used to discriminate between presumptive commensal E. coli and APEC

Big Data Regulatory Legislation: Security, Privacy and Smart City Governance

Dubai is a smart city: this cannot be contested. The city has labelled itself as a globally recognized successful smart city and it has set in place a vision and a strategy to achieve the goal to become a smart city and to keep this status. Therefore, to sustain its competiveness, the Government of Dubai is considering the massive, fast and diverse data moving quickly everywhere creating what is known as “Big Data” era. This data is becoming the most important source of valuable insights and ultimately helping to make more informed decisions. Despite the growing demand and hopes with the big data, legal and ethical issues related to accessing data remains the main challenge. Therefore, in 2017, Dubai has announced its new Big Data Regulations Act aiming at regulating the big data usage and access to improve policies for better quality of life. This comes as part of the Smart Dubai roadmap to prepare Dubai to embrace the future and emerge as a world-leading city by 2021. The new regulations aim at ensuring privacy, security and governance of the data. The paper will explore the new regulatory act, and evaluate how it sustains and develop comprehensive infrastructure for the big data era in Dubai to maintain the city’s vision. Keywords: Big Data, Smart City, Dubai Data Law, Governance DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/95-03 Publication date:March 31st 202

PREDICTION OF A FUNCTION OF MISCLASSIFIED BINARY DATA

We consider the problem of predicting a function of misclassified binary variables. We make an interesting observation that the naive predictor, which ignores the misclassification errors, is unbiased even if the total misclassification error is high as long as the probabilities of false positives and false negatives are identical. Other than this case, the bias of the naive predictor depends on the misclassification distribution and the magnitude of the bias can be high in certain cases. We correct the bias of the naive predictor using a double sampling idea where both inaccurate and accurate measurements are taken on the binary variable for all the units of a sample drawn from the original data using a probability sampling scheme. Using this additional information and design-based sample survey theory, we derive a biascorrected predictor. We examine the cases where the new bias-corrected predictors can also improve over the naive predictor in terms of mean square error (MSE)

Teachers\u27 Perceptions Toward the Secondary Physical Education Program in the State of Kuwait

The purpose of this research was to determine the perceptions of physical education teachers and supervisors toward the secondary physical education program in eight domains in the State of Kuwait. Stratified and cluster sampling were used to select two schools of female teachers and two schools of male teachers from each district (6 districts); therefore, 24 schools were selected randomly. One hundred thirty-eight physical education teachers were selected and 66 supervisors were selected. A four-point rating scale (i.e., strongly disagree to strongly agree) and open-ended questions were included in the survey. Cronbach\u27s alpha reliability, descriptive statistics, and independent sample t tests were used in this study. The response rate of physical education teachers was 94% and the response rate of supervisors was 80%. The results of this research indicated that physical educators and supervisors had very negative perceptions toward safety factors in physical education, the evaluation process of the physical education program, and the society\u27s view toward physical education. Also, physical educators and supervisors had negative perceptions toward the program content, equipment, and the role of physical education teachers. However, physical educators and supervisors had somewhat positive perceptions toward the student relationship with physical educators and the school administration