A systematic review of associations between environmental exposures and development of asthma in children aged up to 9 years

Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Natural Regeneration of Severely Degraded Terrestrial Arid Ecosystems Needs More Than Just Removing the Cause of the Degradation

Rangelands cover over 75% of Kuwait’s total land area. Most of these rangelands are severely degraded because of overgrazing, poor anthropic utilization, and mismanagement. Restoring natural rangelands is a way to increase forage productivity, enhance biodiversity, and achieve sustainable development. When degradation has not reached the point of irreversibility, natural restoration through resting is one of the best low-cost restoration techniques. This study evaluated the effect of natural restoration on vegetation cover and species richness in the desert rangelands of Kuwait. The studied rangeland was a completely fenced area of 1 km2. The percent of vegetation was measured using the line- intercept method. The cover of perennial species was the same in fenced and unfenced areas (0%), but annual species cover was 19.67% in fenced areas and 6% in unfenced areas. There was no significant difference in the contribution to the total cover of the dominant invasive species Stipa capensis between fenced (90%) and unfenced areas (83%). All recorded species are therophytes, which raises the disturbance index to 100%. This therophytization demonstrates an imbalance in the rangeland ecosystem and desertification due to the high anthropozoogene pressure. Under such a severely degraded ecosystem, natural restoration cannot restore vegetation. Reintroducing native species including Helianthemum lipii, Haloxylon salicornicum, Rhanterium epapposum, and Calligonum comosum, is required to restore the ecosystem, facilitate the growth of annual palatable species, and enhance the flora diversity

The loss of the vocalic case markers and its consequences on surfacing complexity :postulating phonological and morphological change in the Arabic language

PhD ThesisThis thesis examines the loss of case markers in Arabic. It provides a morphophonological investigation assuming there are consequences for losing the vocalic case markers in Arabic. The main consequence is the innovation of the CVCC syllable type in Arabic. The investigation focuses on trilateral nominal that consists underlyingly of فؼًْ CVCC. In its nature, it is a diachronic-synchronic examination that was undertaken upon finding a research gap in literatures. The rationale for conducting this investigation is the evident parallel in the phonological function and the locus between the lost vocalic short markers and the modern epenthetic vowels. In addition to the morpho-syntactical function, case markers in Arabic phonologically prevent final-clusters from surfacing in CVCC underlying sequences. Since modern Arabic dialects lost the vocalic case markers it is expected that they manifest final consonantal clusters on the surface of such nominal underlying CVCC sequences. However, contrary to this expectation, an epenthesis process, which has captured a synchronic interest from phonologists, occurs in the dialects preventing the realization of CVCC syllable type. Notably, no investigation was done to examine the possibility that this epenthesis originated due to the loss of the markers even though phonologists realized that the epenthesis is provoked to prevent the final-clusters from surfacing. This study contributes towards understanding: (i) the loss of the vocalic markers, (ii) the raise of the modern epenthesis and (iii) the innovation the superheavy syllable type CVCC in Arabic. Moreover, a goal in this study is to present an account for the data within a moraic approach in a framework that characteristically captures generalizations through a ranking for constraints in different levels. The account for data in this thesis is through the tools of the Stratal version of Optimality Theory

Cloud Forensics : Isolating Cloud Instance

Cloud computing has been the trending model for storing, accessing and modifying the data over the Internet in the recent years. Rising use of the cloud has generated a new concept related to the cloud which is cloud forensics. Cloud forensics can be defined as investigating for evidence over the cloud, so it can be viewed as a combination of both cloud computing and digital forensics. Many issues of applying forensics in the cloud have been addressed. Isolating the location of the incident has become an essential part of forensic process. This is done to ensure that evidence will not be modified or changed. Isolating an instant in the cloud computing has become even more challenging, due to the nature of the cloud environment. In the cloud, the same storage or virtual machine have been used by many users. Hence, the evidence is most likely will be overwritten and lost. The proposed solution in this paper is to isolate a cloud instance. This can be achieved by marking the instant that reside in the servers as "Under Investigation". To do so, cloud file system must be studied. One of the well-known file systems used in the cloud is Apache Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Thus, in this paper the methodology used for isolating a cloud instance would be based on the HDFS architecture

Antimicrobial in vitro activities of condensed tannin extracts on avian pathogenic Escherichia coli

Condensed tannins (CTs), which extracted from yew leaves, tilia flower and black locust leaves, were examined for their antimicrobial in vitro activity against avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC). Past research demonstrated that CTs which contain procyanidins and prodelphinidins that could inhibit the growth of a wide range of bacteria. However, there is no information on how these affect pathogenic bacteria from chickens such as APEC. The high concentration of extracts, 10, 5, 2.5 mg/ml, affected the growth curves of APEC, which gave different inhibition values for the three CT extracts. Further, these CTs had significant effects (P≤0.05) on APEC biofilm and motility depending on each CT concentration and composition. However, at low concentration (0.6 mg/ml), the tilia flowers, a high molar percentage of procyanidins, enhanced bacterial cell attachment and improved the swimming motility of APEC. In contrast, yew, an equal molar percentage of procyanidins/prodelphinidins, and black locust, a high molar percentage of prodelphinidins, interrupted and blocked swarming and swimming motility. The data suggested that the antimicrobial activity of the CT extracts was elicited by a positive relationship between anti-biofilm formation and anti-motility capacities

Global variation in diabetes diagnosis and prevalence based on fasting glucose and hemoglobin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but these measurements can identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening, had elevated FPG, HbA1c or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardized proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed and detected in survey screening ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the age-standardized proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29–39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c was more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global shortfall in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents’ growth and development

Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified