The Impact of Culture on Anxiety Related Cognitions: An exploration with Saudi-Arabian Individuals

AIMS: The popularity of CBT as a first-line treatment for many psychological disorders has resulted in its application to ethnically diverse populations, despite its evidence base being rooted in Western populations. Equivalence in results between clients from Middle-Eastern and Western ethnicity has not been established. The aims of this review were to summarise the literature on CBT for mental health difficulties among Arab individuals in Middle Eastern countries and Arab minority individuals in Western countries. METHOD: Studies were identified through a systematic literature search using the databases PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PUBMED. RESULTS: Eight studies were included in this review, encompassing quantitative, qualitative, and case-report articles. All studies reported on the outcome of CBT interventions with Arab participant(s). CONCLUSION: Despite the scarcity of studies, small sample sizes, and a majority of non-clinical samples, the outcomes demonstrated that Arab individuals benefited from CBT. In studies that compared Western and Arab samples, the results were better for Western samples, indicating that CBT is less efficacious with Arab clients. A discussion on the strengths and limitations of the studies is presented

Environmental impact of using geothermal clean energy (heating and cooling systems) in economic sustainable modern buildings architecture design in Iraq:a review

Nowadays, with all the climate change problems that we face worldwide, engineers from different specialists work together towards Sustainability and finding solutions, and investigating its environmental impact thoroughly. Architectural, Chemical, environmental, civil engineers have always been closely linked in designing and constructing buildings. Geothermal energy is a local, resilient, reliable, ecologically benign, and sustainable form of the renewable energy system. This type of natural energy could be generated from the earth’s heat and takes a variety of purposes, including building heating and cooling, electricity generation, supplying warm/cold water for agricultural products in greenhouses, as well as balneological usage. Furthermore, geothermal energy isn’t affected by weather and could provide electricity and heat nearly constantly through the year. This study intends to investigate the opportunity of using geothermal energy in Iraq under the ground represents one of the sustainable energy resources we can use it will be a significant environmental benefit in our housing in air conditioning applications. This review gives a summary of geothermal energy systems in general. Topics addressed include: an introduction to the environments and the energy, also their relationship, a geothermal energy history brief, an overview of geothermal energy systems throughout the world and also through Iraq, and an overview of geothermal systems environmental impacts as well as the environmental impact of Sustainable buildings architecture design, are just a few of the topics covered. Hence, the achieved conclusions of this review can make changes towards sustainable environmental design

The future of an intelligent and responsive architecture design after the COVID 19 epidemic

An intelligent building is much more than a set of walls; it’s a dynamic organism that employs integrated technologies to share data about the building among various systems to enhance efficiency and provide a better experience for its users. There are a number of challenges with intelligent buildings. They must respond to people’s requirements and needs, including their health and well-being; they must be resource-efficient, and they must include the most useful aspects of new technologies. The current COVID-19 outbreak has pushed architects to consider the future of architectural design technologies. Is it possible that the epidemic may influence the design of our buildings, causing them to become smarter or more intelligent? What role did architecture play throughout the epidemic and in the post-pandemic stage, as well? This paper aims to discuss the future of intelligent design technologies in light of the current Coronavirus epidemic and how it might reshape our architecture design. Finally, the impact of COVID-19 on people’s daily routines in the building design will be discussed

Regularized Mixed Variational-Like Inequalities

We use auxiliary principle technique coupled with iterative regularization method to suggest and analyze some new iterative methods for solving mixed variational-like inequalities. The convergence analysis of these new iterative schemes is considered under some suitable conditions. Some special cases are also discussed. Our method of proofs is very simple as compared with other methods. Our results represent a significant refinement of the previously known results

Autistic adolescents show atypical activation of the brain′s mentalizing system even without a prior history of mentalizing problems

AbstractSome autistic children pass classic Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks that others fail, but the significance of this finding is at present unclear. We identified two such groups of primary school age (labelled ToM+ and ToM−) and a matched comparison group of typically developing children (TD). Five years later we tested these participants again on a ToM test battery appropriate for adolescents and conducted an fMRI study with a story based ToM task. We also assessed autistic core symptoms at these two time points. At both times the ToM− group showed more severe social communication impairments than the ToM+ group, and while showing an improvement in mentalizing performance, they continued to show a significant impairment compared to the NT group. Two independent ROI analyses of the BOLD signal showed activation of the mentalizing network including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate and lateral temporal cortices. Strikingly, both ToM+ and ToM− groups showed very similar patterns of heightened activation in comparison with the NT group. No differences in other brain regions were apparent. Thus, autistic adolescents who do not have a history of mentalizing problems according to our ToM battery showed the same atypical neurophysiological response during mentalizing as children who did have such a history. This finding indicates that heterogeneity at the behavioural level may nevertheless map onto a similar phenotype at the neuro-cognitive level

Efficiency of Bacillus mucilaginosus isolated from the soil in dissolving potassium in its microenvironment

Soil bacteria have an effective role in dissolving soil potassium. Bacillus mucilaginosus plays an effective role in dissolving potassium in the soil so that the plant may absorb it easily. The present study aimed to test the efficiency of bacteria in dissolving potassium present in the soil surrounding the roots of crops. B. mucilaginosus was isolated and diagnosed from the rhizosphere soil of Celery, Wheat, Basil and Alfalfa plants. The diagnosis included studying the isolates' culture, microscopic and biochemical characteristics. The laboratory study also included testing the efficiency of these bacterial isolates in dissolving potassium compounds in Modified Aleksandrov agar medium and estimating the dissolution coefficient. The results of isolation and identification of bacteria isolated from 19 out of 50 soil samples planted with different crops (Celery, Wheat, Basil and Alfalfa) showed that 8 isolates could dissolve potassium. The results of the microscopic examination of these eight isolates showed that they were sticky in shape, positive for Gram-staining, forming spores and the capsule, while the movement examination showed that they were positive for these tests (movement test). The biochemical tests and cultural characteristics showed that the eight isolates bear the characteristics of B. mucilaginosus. The results showed that the dissolution coefficient of potassium for the different isolates ranged between 2.28 and 1.14, while the type of sugar added to the culture medium increased the efficiency of bacterial isolates for potassium solubility. The study demonstrated the bacteria's efficiency in the rhizosphere region in dissolving potassium, which helps the plant use it easily.

Digital architecture and designing architecture space and ITS effect on future life strategy

Technological advancements have altered nearly every aspect of individuals’ existence and operation in society. When technologies develop, architecture evolves as well: the architectural techniques change, as does the architectural outcome. The digital revolution reflected on architecture, as did other scientific and life fields. Its impact on the work and architectural space was evident. The architectural production became not limited to designing in traditional ways and directing it as computer drawings. Still, it went beyond that, as the designs produced became the product of an intelligent design process directly influenced by the digital community in general. Architectural space has gone through many developments throughout history influenced by technology and building techniques on the one hand and by functional and environmental issues and human factors on the other hand. The architectural space appeared in the form of a living being that grows over time and is influenced by all the variables of the times and expresses the personality of its inhabitants. If the architect determines space and its composition according to human needs, it is also influenced by the imagination of architecture and its vision of freedom. Therefore, the problem of research was determined by "the lack of a clear vision of the development of architectural space and how it is affected by the digital revolution," where the research aims to identify indicators of the development of architectural space in light of digital development and how architectural thought deals with the changes brought about by information technology, and how it was expressed in the form of areas that meet the needs of users, which in turn changed in terms of sensory needs or physical needs. The research thus assumed "the existence of mechanisms, strategies, levels, and degrees of digital use within the process of designing architectural and urban space to generate digital space," and to achieve this will begin to learn about the evolution of space and what it is over time with a quick presentation of the most prominent developments in the architectural and urban space, especially in the recent years, to a final formulation of the characteristics of knowledge of digital areas

A REVIEW ON THE BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS OF ALUMINA

This review presents the composition, structure, mechanical characteristics, and applications of alumina (aluminum oxide) in biomedical. Alumina used for implant manufacturing is either single-crystal sapphires or high density and quality polycrystalline. The major sources of highly-purity alumina are organic corundum and bauxite. Like any other brittle component, polycrystalline alumina's mechanical characteristics are largely dependent on grain size and porosity distribution. It was shown that, due to slowed subcritical crack production, the fatigue intensity of alumina could be increased above the crucial pressure due to the presence of liquid. Due to its high inertness, that results in outstanding biocompatibility and tissue nonsensitization, alumina has significant benefits over other products in biomedical uses. Just like in artificially joints and teeth, the higher compressive strength than tensile strength allows it more efficient for compressive loadings. There were some attempts for coating alumina on steel substrates in order to benefit of its outstanding biocompatibility and to resist metal oxidation

Self-assessment questionnaire development for soft skills competency and core value evaluations

Soft skills play a vital role for providing excellent customer service in the healthcare setting. This study aims to develop and assess the instrument validity and reliability before measuring the levels of soft skills competency and core value internalization on staffs at the Sultan Ahmad Shah Medical Centre @International Islamic University Malaysia (SASMEC@IIUM). A self-assessment questionnaire was developed through three phases. The first phase involved reviewing and identifying relevant literatures and existing soft skills assessment instruments through bibliographic searches and expert consultations. A conceptual model was then established based on the selected conceptual frameworks after determining all relevant soft skill domains. The second phase involved generating relevant items, removing duplicate or irrelevant items, and appraising the content validity by three experts. The third phase was data collection, wherein the finalized instrument was distributed to 32 staff of SASMEC@IIUM via google forms. The instrument reliability was investigated through internal consistency reliability or Cronbach’s alpha, with all items, except for the construct ‘gratitude’, achieving acceptable values by exceeding the threshold value of 0.7. Subsequently, two gratitude items were removed from the questionnaire. The current instrument and theoretical framework employed in the self-assessment questionnaire development are valid and reliable for the actual application

Variation in Nigella sativa quality and its standardization via instrumental analysis: A study based on geographical origin

Black seeds (Nigella sativa) owe an important place due to its more demand as a food as well as medicine. A lack of information does exist regarding the quality and safety for market-available food-grade samples of black seed (BS). The aim of this study is to investigate the quality and standardize the BS samples according to world health organization (WHO) guidelines of instrumental analysis and pharmacological activities. Instrumental analysis was performed with the help of ASE (accelerated solvent extraction), IR (infrared spectroscopy), UHPLC (ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography) and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy) whereas ash values and chemical tests were applied for physicochemical analysis. DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), ABTS (2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) and cytotoxicity assay were performed as well. A high extract yield (g) with recovery of 4.4 ± 7.7 (22%) for Pakistani, 3.3 ± 4.7 (16.5%) for Indian and 3.02 ± 10.2 (15.1%) for Saudi Arabian sample. Chemical tests showed the presence of phenolic compounds and flavonoids. Saudi Arabian samples showed less amount for ash values (total-, water soluble- and acid insoluble ash). The samples were standardized further with the help of NMR and IR. A significant amount of micro- and macronutrients was observed in Saudi Arabian sample. With regard to the major active substance Thymoquinone (THQ; ng/mL), the order of concentration was observed as; Saudi Arabian sample (33141.1) > Pakistani (7677.2) > Indian sample (3998.6). A more potency for Saudi Arabian sample was observed during antioxidant and cytotoxicity assays. The method was successful to effectively discriminate the samples from different geographical origin, in terms of quality