The Hospital’s role within a regional disaster response: A Comparison study of an urban hospital versus a rural hospital

The goal of this research is to evaluate the hospital\u27s role in a regional disaster response. It focuses on identifying the level of the hospital\u27s preparedness and its response to disasters and includes a comparison study between an urban and a rural hospital in New York state. The findings of this work show some differences between the urban and rural hospitals in terms of their capabilities and available resources and the effect of the community infrastructures on their preparedness. Both hospitals have similarities in the way participants view the hospital\u27s role during a regional disaster response. It is noted that the urban hospital has more resources, a better geographical location, staff, medical centers, equipment, and supply management

Regulation of splicing integrin ɑ6 during development and differentiation

PhD ThesisAlternative splicing is an important mechanism for creating protein diversity. Integrins are significant in many aspects of cell biology, including cell signalling and interaction with the cell matrix. ITGA6 has two different cytoplasmic C-termini (a6A and a6B) that shift 100% between stem cells and fibroblasts. The primary aim in this thesis was to monitor splicing patterns during development and differentiation integrin subunit alpha 6 (ITGA6) to see which alternative splicing events are similarly regulated in fish and humans using early zebrafish development. The a6A and a6B integrins had been differentially implicated in the expression in the function of breast cancer and cancer stem cells. Therefore, the second aim was to monitor splicing patterns for ITGA6 in different cancer cell lines and to compare them with stem cell patterns, fibroblast, and zebrafish, determining which splicing regulator protein regulates the ITGA6 alternative exon. It was confirmed that the ITGA6 alternative exon 25 was activated by MBNL1, RBFOX2 and ESRP in cancer cell lines, and PTBP was discovered as a novel regulator for ITGA6 splicing that inhibited the exon of ITGA6 in cancer cell line. The third aim for this project was to identify the mechanism of splicing of this ITGA6 alternative exon, including identifying the PTB binding site that regulates ITGA6. A minigene system was established to study the regulation of the ITGA6 alternative exon. The ITGA6 1.3 minigene positively responded to siRNA mediated depletion of splicing factors in the same way as the endogenous gene, indicating this minigene was a good model. The alternative exon of ITGA6 was activated by MBNL1 and was inhibited by PTBP, leading to more production of ITGA6B. Using this minigene plasmid it was confirmed that PTBP inhibited alternative splicing of ITGA6. The last aim of this chapter was to discover the PTB binding sites. Through a series of in silico analyses, a binding site for PTB was identified downstream of the regulated exon. Surprisingly, loss of this PTB binding site actually repressed this splicing event. These data suggest that PTB both activates this alternative splicing event through direct RNA-protein interactions, but also more strongly represses this exon, possibly through protein interactions with other regulatory factors.Saudi Arabian culture bureau in London and the Najran Universit

The Perception Created of Online Home Work by High School Student, Their Teacher and Parents in Saudi Arabia

The paper investigates the internet utilizing in online homework accomplishing at Saudi High Schools.  The study covered three Saudi cities, namely; Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.  The paper concerned about the teachers, parents and students perceptions toward using internet in education path with concentration on online home works, and its effect in the view of student performance and grades. The study methodology represented in Questionnaires distributed over the study's sample and interviews with participants. Questionnaires distributed on 91 students,45 teacher, and 43 parents where the interviews involved 3 students, 2 teachers, and only one parent.  The study showed that the internet usages have promising consequences on the homework completion and students' performance. Furthermore, there were some unpersuaded participants towards the benefits of internet usages on students' growth. Also, the study finding proposed related aspects to be studied and taken in concern in future studies. Keywords: Online homework, Saudi High Schools, Student performanc

Explanatory and Causality Analysis in Software Engineering

Software fault proneness and software development efforts are two key areas of software engineering. Improving them will significantly reduce the cost and promote good planning and practice in developing and managing software projects. Traditionally, studies of software fault proneness and software development efforts were focused on analysis and prediction, which can help to answer questions like `when’ and `where’. The focus of this dissertation is on explanatory and causality studies that address questions like `why’ and `how’. First, we applied a case-control study to explain software fault proneness. We found that Bugfixes (Prerelease bugs), Developers, Code Churn, and Age of a file are the main contributors to the Postrelease bugs in some of the open-source projects. In terms of the interactions, we found that Bugfixes and Developers reduced the risk of post release software faults. The explanatory models were tested for prediction and their performance was either comparable or better than the top-performing classifiers used in related studies. Our results indicate that software project practitioners should pay more attention to the prerelease bug fixing process and the number of Developers assigned, as well as their interaction. Also, they need to pay more attention to the new files (less than one year old) which contributed significantly more to Postrelease bugs more than old files. Second, we built a model that explains and predicts multiple levels of software development effort and measured the effects of several metrics and their interactions using categorical regression models. The final models for the three data sets used were statistically fit, and performance was comparable to related studies. We found that project size, duration, the existence of any type of faults, the use of first- or second generation of programming languages, and team size significantly increased the software development effort. On the other side, the interactions between duration and defective project, and between duration and team size reduced the software development effort. These results suggest that software practitioners should pay extra attention to the time of the project and the team size assigned for every task because when they increased from a low to a higher level, they significantly increased the software development effort. Third, a structural equation modeling method was applied for causality analysis of software fault proneness. The method combined statistical and regression analysis to find the direct and indirect causes for software faults using partial least square path modeling method. We found direct and indirect paths from measurement models that led to software postrelease bugs. Specifically, the highest direct effect came from the change request, while changing the code had a minor impact on software faults. The highest impact of the code change resulted from the change requests (either for bug fixing or refactoring). Interestingly, the indirect impact from code characteristics to software fault proneness was higher than the direct impact. We found a similar level of direct and indirect impact from code characteristics to code change

Evaluating Opportunities for Improved Processes and Flow Rates in Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 Reparable Items Supply Chain

This research focuses on improving the F-15 reparable parts supply chain process in the Royal Saudi Air Force. The F-15 reparable parts supply chain process currently requires too much time to repair and return parts which affect the capability of aircraft operational missions. Because the F-15 is the first line of Saudi Arabia s defense, it is essential that they be fully mission ready in the shortest time possible. That can be done by improving relationships, communication, reducing batching before shipments and by efficient use of the available qualified workforces, tools and equipment. Consideration is given to applying an existing management technique to the Royal Saudi Air Force s F-15 supply chain. The selected techniques are supply chain mapping, Lean management approach and gap analysis. The research suggests that those techniques can improve the F-15 supply chain process in the Royal Saudi Air Force

The Strategic Impacts Of Deregulation Of Civil Aviation Industry: Modernization Of Air Navigation Technology On Saudi Air Navigation Services

Civil aviation industry is in conversion from a strictly government-controlled transport sector to a much more competitive, liberalized operating environment. For many years the air navigation services has been under pressure to adapt to new institutional arrangements and increased operational requirements. Air traffic management must meet the challenges of the twenty-first century - in which a global, seamless airspace is developed, based on cost-effective and efficient services, with sufficient capacity to meet the world's air transport needs. Modernization of air navigation services technology is intended to give users new abilities such as flexible departure and arrival routes and increased usage of preferred flight trajectories. The goal of air navigation technology modernization is to increase the flexibility and efficiency of the air navigation services by improving traffic flow and reduce user operation costs. CNS/ATM systems are global in nature and usually planned and implemented at a regional or global level, in some cases by collective regional entities or commercial service suppliers. The result of the proposed development would combine space and computer technology, which would render obsolete much of the existing system ground based equipment. This study has developed a better understanding of the new uncertain environment for air navigation services from global perspective through the analysis of the deregulation of civil aviation industry and the new air navigation technology

Antidiabetic Activity of \u3cem\u3eCissus rotundifolia\u3c/em\u3e Plant Growing in Saudi Arabia

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease characterized by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production or action. A world-wide increase in the diabetes rate is projected to reach pandemic levels over the next 10-20 years. Current data shows that high numbers of the population in Saudi Arabia suffer from diabetes and prediabetes. Non-traditional treatments of diabetes from medicinal plants has shown potential antidiabetic activity. A considerable percentage of the population still prefer or use medicinal plants as a treatment or supplement to traditional medicine. Cissus rotundifolia (family Vitaceae) is a known plant in southwestern Saudi Arabia used by people in the region to treat skin diseases, burns and diabetes. The chemical and biological characteristics of Cissus rotundifolia’s active compounds are unknown. The aim of this study to investigate the chemical and biological properties of this medicinal plant using bio-assay guided separation. Aqueous methanol extract of Cissus rotundifolia was fractionated by partitioning against hexane and ethyl acetate. Methanol, ethyl acetate and hexane extracts were then screened for antidiabetic activity using an alphaglycosidase assay at a concentration of 12.5-50 mg/ml. Methanol extract showed a significant alpha-glucosidase inhibition percent of 58-95%. Further, LC separation afforded six compounds isolated and characterized using 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and 2DNMR. Two of the isolated compounds: 3 and 4 (1,4-dimethyl 2-hydroxybutanedioate and 3-hydroxy-4-methoxy-4-oxobutanoate, respectively) showed a significant inhibition of alpha-glycosidase enzyme in the range of 25% to 50% at a concentration range from 1.00 – 0.25 mg/ml. Also, since glucose uptake is considered one of the main pathways to control blood sugar levels, the fractions and the isolated compounds were investigated for their glucose uptake activity. Glucose uptake assay results showed that the ethyl acetate fraction has a significant uptake activity. The isolated compounds 3 and 4 showed increased of glucose uptake activity reach of 19 % and 25%, respectively, with Insulin used as the positive control. Structural similarities of isolated compounds to malate which is a main substrate of citric acid cycle, prompted us to build hypothesis that these compounds might interfere with gluconeogenesis process through inhibition of the citric acid cycle. Molecular modeling study of isolated compounds and their analogs targeting all enzymes involve in citric acid cycle was conducted to examine potential binding affinity of these compounds toward proteins in citric acid cycle. Docking study showed analogs S-2-aminosuccininamide (AN21), levulinic acid and isolated compound SAA4 exhibiting high affinity binding to the fumarase enzyme that plays an important role in citric acid cycle. Docking study clearly suggest compound SAA4 has potential inhibition of gluconeogenesis. In conclusion, this study authenticated that C. rotundifolia potential antidiabetic activity through inhibition of intestinal α-glucosidase, induction of glucose uptake activity and possible inhibition of gluconeogenesis

Students’ Perceptions of Specific Laboratory Curricula on the Learning Experience in Chemistry Courses

Laboratory courses play a key role in developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills and providing experience in certain aspects of a laboratory setting including reactions, materials, and equipment. Prior studies suggest that a laboratory course assists students toward cognitive gain on lecture content. In contrast, other studies conclude that laboratory is uncorrelated with cognitive gain on lecture content. Thus, a discord exists between researchers regarding the role that laboratory experiences play in furthering the understanding of chemistry concepts taught in lectures. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of two different laboratory curricula on students’ performance in general chemistry. The first curriculum was designed to simultaneously match the topics being introduced in the lecture (concepts-based curriculum). The second curriculum was designed to include all the same lab experiences as the first curriculum but in a method organized around lab skills, not always linked simultaneously to concepts in lectures (skills-based curriculum). Subsequently, we compared students’ learning in the lecture course associated with these two laboratory settings. Additionally, we examined how these different curricula impacted students\u27 thinking about the particulate nature of matter (PNM). The research perspective reflected a phenomenography approach, as this study focused on the direct experience of students’ skills and performance in two different lab settings. General chemistry courses and laboratories offered by the chemistry and biochemistry department at South Dakota State University were the main focus of the study although some data was collected in organic and analytical laboratory sections. Our data include 1) the initial and the final surveys with particulate nature of matter questions, 2) post-lab surveys after each lab session, 3) open-ended exam questions in lecture courses, 4) laboratory observation notes, and 5) semi-structured interviews with students. Our finding indicates that by comparing trends in concept-based group with skills-based group, there was a notable difference between both groups. These trends were categorized into five main themes, 1) lab Importance, 2) lab and lecture connection, 3) flow of knowledge between lab and lecture, 4) students\u27 perspective on both lab\u27s settings, and 5) Particulate Nature of Matter (PNM) survey answers

Regulation of splicing integrin ɑ6 during development and differentiation

PhD ThesisAlternative splicing is an important mechanism for creating protein diversity. Integrins are significant in many aspects of cell biology, including cell signalling and interaction with the cell matrix. ITGA6 has two different cytoplasmic C-termini (a6A and a6B) that shift 100% between stem cells and fibroblasts. The primary aim in this thesis was to monitor splicing patterns during development and differentiation integrin subunit alpha 6 (ITGA6) to see which alternative splicing events are similarly regulated in fish and humans using early zebrafish development. The a6A and a6B integrins had been differentially implicated in the expression in the function of breast cancer and cancer stem cells. Therefore, the second aim was to monitor splicing patterns for ITGA6 in different cancer cell lines and to compare them with stem cell patterns, fibroblast, and zebrafish, determining which splicing regulator protein regulates the ITGA6 alternative exon. It was confirmed that the ITGA6 alternative exon 25 was activated by MBNL1, RBFOX2 and ESRP in cancer cell lines, and PTBP was discovered as a novel regulator for ITGA6 splicing that inhibited the exon of ITGA6 in cancer cell line. The third aim for this project was to identify the mechanism of splicing of this ITGA6 alternative exon, including identifying the PTB binding site that regulates ITGA6. A minigene system was established to study the regulation of the ITGA6 alternative exon. The ITGA6 1.3 minigene positively responded to siRNA mediated depletion of splicing factors in the same way as the endogenous gene, indicating this minigene was a good model. The alternative exon of ITGA6 was activated by MBNL1 and was inhibited by PTBP, leading to more production of ITGA6B. Using this minigene plasmid it was confirmed that PTBP inhibited alternative splicing of ITGA6. The last aim of this chapter was to discover the PTB binding sites. Through a series of in silico analyses, a binding site for PTB was identified downstream of the regulated exon. Surprisingly, loss of this PTB binding site actually repressed this splicing event. These data suggest that PTB both activates this alternative splicing event through direct RNA-protein interactions, but also more strongly represses this exon, possibly through protein interactions with other regulatory factors.Saudi Arabian culture bureau in London and the Najran Universit