Assessment and Sourcing of Heavy Metal Contamination of Middle East Semi-Enclosed Marine Environs Via Near-Shore Sediment Analysis

Heavy metal contamination in the natural world is complex as many metals can be sourced anthropogenically, naturally, or via both vectors. Many heavy metals are known to be toxic, non-biodegradable, and trophic level bio-magnifiers. Therefore, it is important to monitor and study their concentrations, distributions, and processes for transport and sequestration. Near-shore marine sediments act as a sink for heavy metals in the water column due to their physiochemical properties. In this dissertation’s second chapter, thirty sediment samples from three latitudinally distinct mangrove areas from the Red Sea of Saudi Arabia (near Yanbu, Jeddah, and the Farasan Islands) were analyzed for lead concentrations and isotopic ratios. Lead is persistent in the environment and can cause health problems for humans when exposed. Lead isotopic ratios are used to determine potential sources. End member mixing models were then used to quantify source contribution. Results showed that legacy leaded gasoline and natural sources dominate the lead loading of the Jeddah and Farasn Islands environments while the industrial city of Yanbu has an additional anthropogenic lead source, likely industrial ore. Jeddah has the highest petrol impact compared to the Farasan Islands and Yanbu sites while the dominant Pb source in the Farasan Islands is natural. This is one of very few studies in the region to report environmental Pb isotopic ratios and the first to do so for mangrove sediments. The third chapter here assessed current and historical ecosystem risk of total heavy metal loadings on mangrove environments in the near-shore mangrove stands of the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. Concentrations of numerous metals (V, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Cd, and Pb) and associated sediment parameters (sediment organic matter, carbonate, and silicate) were measured. Associated environmental risk indices were calculated for distinct mangrove regions, Yanbu, Jeddah, and the Farasan Islands, at surface and at depth. Heavy metal sources were determined and categorized as anthropogenic, natural, or both. Results showed that the Yanbu site has experienced higher stress compared to the other two sites due to its elevated metals concentrations in its lower sediments. The Yanbu location has mostly anthropogenic metals sourcing in addition to natural sources for Cr, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb while V and Ni have solely a natural delivery. The Farasan Islands ecosystem receives Cd from anthropogenic sources while Cu and Zn have been derived from natural and anthropogenic sources to the sediments. The rest of elements (V, Cr, Ni, and Pb) have a natural delivery to the Farasan Islands. For the Jeddah site, all measured heavy metals have been delivered to the Jeddah environment via an anthropogenic source, mostly likely wastewater discharge. The lower, older, sediments of Yanbu were the most polluted by heavy metals compared to the older, or lower, sediments of Jeddah and the Farasan Islands. Surface values suggest an amelioration of Yanbu as they show, in general, similar metal concentrations to Jeddah and the Islands. Jeddah and the Farasan Islands have a similar trend in heavy metals concentrations with respect to depth. Organic matter, carbonate, and silicate were measured, and the results showed that most of the heavy metals across the three locations have been complexed by silicates when sequestered to the sediments. This study provides a bigger picture of the current heavy metal environmental status in mangrove sediments as the number of prior studies on mangrove sediments in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea is limited. The overall heavy metals concentrations are relatively low compared to other local and worldwide studies. However, the elevated metal concentrations in the lower sediments of Yanbu made Yanbu site as the most contaminated region in the study area. The controlling anthropogenic source (wastewater discharge) in the Jeddah environment makes the Jeddah site an environmental concern despite low concentrations compared to Yanbu. Clearly, exacerbation is possible, thus, the outcomes of this chapter could inform environmental management decision makers in the region to regulate heavy metals inputs to the Red Sea environment. The fourth chapter of this dissertation is a meta-analysis of published work on heavy metal loadings in near-shore surface sediment data from the Arabian Gulf. Numerous studies have been published in the last two decades with little to no cross-work synthesis. As the area continues to grow, a holistic summary of these data is necessary for the research and environmental management community. Heavy metal concentrations in 2086 sediment samples from 106 sites distributed across the Arabian Gulf were collected from literature to assess the degree of contamination for the Gulf marine system as well as sourcing. These sites have been divided into three sub-regions to contrast the heave metal contamination level by region. Results showed that the Gulf has a high environmental stress from Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Fe, V, and As with different degrees of contamination. Cr, Ni, and Fe have lower contaminations than Cd, Co, Cu, Pb and As. Zn and V have the lowest environmental pressure among all elements. Mn has been delivered to the Gulf marine environment from natural sources. The current environmental status of the Arabian Gulf basin is that of heavy pressure from the human and industrial activities which needs urgent attention from management entities in the surrounding countries to help mitigate contamination. The Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast and the countries adjacent to the Arabian Gulf basin have undergone major coastal economic and urban development due to population growth. This dissertation gives a current assessment of heavy metal pollution in both basins’ environments. Chapter 2 suggests that the northern end of the Saudi Red Sea (Yanbu) has higher Pb concentration from three sources, natural, gasoline, and industrial ore. Meanwhile, the mid-coast and southern end of the Saudi Red Sea (Jeddah and the Farasan Islands, respectively) have a comparable amount of Pb, and both have received Pb from natural and gasoline sources with no third Pb component. However, Jeddah has the highest petrol Pb impact among the three regions. Chapter 3 illustrates that heavy metal contamination was highest in the Yanbu environment based on its lower sediments as Jeddah and the Farasan Islands have similar, and lower, metal concentrations with respect to depth. Both chapters have different methods yet show similar major observations. Yanbu has notably higher environmental risk across the study area of the Red Sea while Jeddah is the next most contaminated site and the Farasan Islands have the least environmental pressure among the three regions. Eleven elements were analyzed in the near-shore sediments of the Arabian Gulf and only one element was naturally delivered to the Gulf basin while the rest have been anthropogenically delivered. Specifically, the Gulf basin is at very serious environmental risk from Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Fe, V, and As which have been delivered to the Gulf marine system from anthropogenic sources. These elements have different degrees of pollution where Cd, Co, Cu, Pb and As are the highest contaminants. Cr, Ni, and Fe are the second highest pollutants while Zn and V have the lowest contamination degree. The only element found as solely natural across the Gulf ecosystem is Mn. This dissertation provides useful records of heavy metal contamination status and sourcing in sediments from the Saudi Arabian Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf basins. Also, this work suggests spatial trends of heavy metals in both basins as well as historical changes in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. These updated records are not only valuable for the research community, but also for the management and environmental regulation entities in the regions

A REVIEW ON NASAL DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM AND ITS CONTRIBUTION IN THERAPEUTIC MANAGEMENT

Nasal drug delivery has received a great deal of attention as a convenient, reliable, and promising method for the systemic administration of drugs. It is especially for those molecules which are ineffective orally and only effective if administered by injection. The nasal route of drug delivery has advantages over the other alternative systems of non-invasive drug administration. The present review describes nasal delivery systems in recognizing to its potential and limits. The present review is an attempt to provide some information concerning nasal drug delivery system such as limitations, advantages, mechanism of drug absorption, anatomy of nasal cavity, factors affecting of nasal drug delivery, strategies to enhance nasal absorption, strategies to extend duration of drug formulations within the nasal cavity, leading to improved nasal drug absorption, novel drug formulations, sorts of nasal drug delivery system with uses of nasal drug delivery in various diseases, and recent advancement of nasal delivery systems

Phase-shifting Haar Wavelets For Image-based Rendering Applications

In this thesis, we establish the underlying research background necessary for tackling the problem of phase-shifting in the wavelet transform domain. Solving this problem is the key to reducing the redundancy and huge storage requirement in Image-Based Rendering (IBR) applications, which utilize wavelets. Image-based methods for rendering of dynamic glossy objects do not truly scale to all possible frequencies and high sampling rates without trading storage, glossiness, or computational time, while varying both lighting and viewpoint. This is due to the fact that current approaches are limited to precomputed radiance transfer (PRT), which is prohibitively expensive in terms of memory requirements when both lighting and viewpoint variation are required together with high sampling rates for high frequency lighting of glossy material. At the root of the above problem is the lack of a closed-form run-time solution to the nontrivial problem of rotating wavelets, which we solve in this thesis. We specifically target Haar wavelets, which provide the most efficient solution to solving the tripleproduct integral, which in turn is fundamental to solving the environment lighting problem. The problem is divided into three main steps, each of which provides several key theoretical contributions. First, we derive closed-form expressions for linear phase-shifting in the Haar domain for one-dimensional signals, which can be generalized to N-dimensional signals due to separability. Second, we derive closed-form expressions for linear phase-shifting for two-dimensional signals that are projected using the non-separable Haar transform. For both cases, we show that the coefficients of the shifted data can be computed solely by using the coefficients of the original data. We also derive closed-form expressions for non-integer shifts, which has not been reported before. As an application example of these results, we apply the new formulae to image shifting, rotation and interpolation, and demonstrate the superiority of the proposed solutions to existing methods. In the third step, we establish a solution for non-linear phase-shifting of two-dimensional non-separable Haar-transformed signals, which is directly applicable to the original problem of image-based rendering. Our solution is the first attempt to provide an analytic solution to the difficult problem of rotating wavelets in the transform domain

What Overweight Women Want From a Weight Loss App : A Qualitative Study on Arabic Women

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Relationship Between Evidence Requirements, User Expectations, and Actual Experiences : Usability Evaluation of the Twazon Arabic Weight Loss App

Acknowledgments: This research project was supported by a grant from the Research Center of the Female Scientific and Medical Colleges, Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Bacteriological and Chemical Characterization of Groundwater Samples in Homs Governorate

Twenty-eight groundwater samples were collected from basins of various areas in Homs Governorate, which were harvested in sterile containers until they were transferred for analysis. They were germically analyzed by planting on the tregitol 7 agar plant. 35% of the samples showed positive bacterial contamination while 65% The concentration of sulphate, nitrate and nitrite in the samples was all within the limits allowed by the World Health Organization.

Bacteriological and Chemical Characterization of Groundwater Samples in Homs Governorate

Twenty-eight groundwater samples were collected from basins of various areas in Homs Governorate, which were harvested in sterile containers until they were transferred for analysis. They were germically analyzed by planting on the tregitol 7 agar plant. 35% of the samples showed positive bacterial contamination while 65% The concentration of sulphate, nitrate and nitrite in the samples was all within the limits allowed by the World Health Organization

Validity of the Public Health Accreditation Board’s Governance Measures

Background. The dynamics through which governance operates and impacts performance has been the focus of scholars in recent years. This is also true in public health systems, where there is a growing tendency to understand governance mechanisms and dimensions, as illustrated in the Public Health Accreditation Board’s (PHAB’s) Domain 12, which tends to measure governance engagement in health departments. The development of Domain 12 standards and measures has undergone systematic revisions by subject matters and experts. However, there is still a need for a scientific approach to assess the validity of such measures, or examine whether they measure what they were set to measure. Objectives. To provide an understanding of how governance, and public health governance in particular, has been operationalized and measured in the literature; what measures offer high degrees of validity; and evidence of the conformity and validity, or the lack thereof, of Domain 12 standards and measures. The project findings will enable accreditation experts in PHAB to improve their understanding and use of the standards and measures. Methods. This study was divided into three separate papers. First, a systematic review of the literature of public health governance measures and validity studies was conducted. Second, we employed empirical data, using Chi-Square test and t-test, of health departments’ characteristics and performance in relation to Domain 12 to assess the conformance of Domain 12 measures against the existing governance structure and the type of governing entities. Third, health departments’ performance scores in Domain 12 were tested against their performance scores in the other domains (convergent validity). Results. Surveys and questionnaires were the most commonly used instruments in the literature to evaluate governance. A large number of governance dimensions emerged but few validity studies were performed to assess these dimensions. In terms of governance conformance of PHAB’s Domain 12, the resulted associations were statistically insignificant, which indicate that there is no evidence to support the conformity of PHAB’s Domain 12 measures. As for the convergent validity study, results showed a lack of meaningful associations (few statistically significant associations) between Domain 12 measures and measures under other PHAB’s domains. Conclusion. Although there seems to be no one particular and valid measure of governance with the various governance measures and few validity studies that the literature yielded, the literature review may assist in identifying appropriate theoretical frameworks for measuring public health governance. Also, despite the fact that the analysis of conformity and the validity study show no evidence of “valid” measures of Domain 12, other attributes must be considered such as data limitations and inadequacies in the data collection process, in addition to conducting more validity studies using different validation approaches

Characterisation of cyanobacteria cultivation in a tubular baffled photo bioreactor (TBPBR)

Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae are important resources. In some parts of the world, cyanobacteria are used as a staple food and their ability to fix nitrogen has been explored toincrease the productivity of many crops and transform a barren soil into a fertile one. An interesting property of cyanobacteria is their ability to absorb nitrogen and inorganic phosphorous, so they have been seen in water purification systems. Most interestingly cyanobacteria produce O2 and H2 by the combination of photosynthesis and nitrogen fixing ability; they could potentially become a producer of hydrogen fuel. This project investigates the characterizations of cyanobacteria cultivation in a tubular baffled photo bioreactor(TBPBR). Many benchmarking experiments were conducted in light boxes in order to understand the reaction kinetics and to examine the effects of the ratio of aeration surface over culture volume, light intensity, light quality, light cycle, mixing, initial cell density and temperature on the growth of Gloeothece membranacea and Oscillatoria amoena. Based on the benchmarking results, a tubular baffled photo bioreactor (TBPBR) was designed, constructed and commissioned. Further experiments were conducted using Gloeothece membranacea in order to characterize the continuous cultivation of in this novel photobioreactor; examine the effects of the light saturation and the period of light availability V on cell growth and determine the critical cell density for optimal growth. The kinetics information was extracted and compared with that of the benchmarking trials. The light saturation level for Gloeothece membranacea in the TBPBR was 80 μmole m-2 sec-1, and the minimum light exposure without affecting the growth was 6 hours, same as that in the light boxes. Also, much higher critical cell density (CCD)g of Gloeothece membranacea could be accommodated in the TBPBR than that in the light boxes. Furthermore, the optimum specific growth rate of Gloeothece membranacea was obtained at aeration flow rate of 0.08 vvm and Vol CO2/ Vol air = 6%