COVID-19 knowledge and perception among healthcare professionals in two Arabian Gulf countries

Introduction: The WHO announced on 30 January 2020 the respiratory tract infection outbreak caused by Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) that was first recognized in China to be a global public health emergency. Objective: To investigate healthcare professional's knowledge and awareness about COVID-19. Methods: The study was conducted across four hospitals in Saudi Arabia and two hospitals in Kuwait. The questionnaire was completed between 18th May and the end of June 2020. Results: A total of 460 healthcare professionals completed the questionnaire, 37.8%(n=174) were males. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 64 and 80.4% (n=370) of the participants were aged 34 or below. Official government websites 54.8% (n=252) and social media 43.3% (n=199) were the major reliable information sources related to COVID-19. only 37% (n=170) mentioned that the coronavirus disease could transmit through contact. In addition, only 42% (n=191) of the study participants had the correct knowledge about the incubation period of the disease. Moreover, 43.5% (n=200) of the participants were able to identify the symptoms of COVID-19. Conclusion: The study recommended the need to focus more on educational and awareness programs targeting all healthcare professionals to ensure the best practice and provide the optimal care

Metal Organic Frameworks as Emerging Photocatalysts

Increasing number of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently been recognised as a new generation of emerging porous photocatalysts in photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis, since their intrinsic coordination structure between the metal cluster and organic ligands offers MOFs great flexibility to tune their semiconducting property for enhanced light harvesting. In order to improve their performance substantially and achieve widespread application of MOF photocatalysts, it is necessary to develop effective synthesis strategies and understand their semiconducting crystal structure, photocatalytic mechanism in depth. This chapter firstly provides a brief introduction of the MOF materials; this chapter addresses the crystallinity, porosity and electronic semiconducting structures that are essential in solar energy conversion. Established and innovative syntheses strategies of MOFs are then categorised and illustrated, followed by various characterisations techniques applied to investigate their structural and semiconducting properties (band structure and charge transfer), including X-ray Diffraction XRD, small angle X-ray Diffraction SAXRD, adsorption/desorption, UV-Vis, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), extended fine Auger structures (EXFAS), inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR)TEM and electrochemical measurements. The photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic application of MOFs are introduced addressing their unique photocatalytic mechanism. The perspectives of MOF photocatalysts are finally presented to encourage the future development. The content of this chapter suits the users including beginners, postgraduates and professionals

Can alternative medical methods evoke neuro-functional somatosensory responses? A case study suggesting functional improvement

Somatosensory pathways act as the avenue in transferring information concerning the body and its interaction with the external environment to the brain. We aim to demonstrate that through studying somatosensory, motor cortical and subcortical networks, we can explain functional recovery after stimulations applied as an alternative medical treatment. Those stimulations might have evidenced neural pathways and networks important in recovery of function. Materials and methods: The de-identified medical reports of nine patients with initial presentations of cerebral trauma or stroke inducing paralysis were studied.These included the alternative treatments they received and other available materials such as videos and photographs. Patients were either males or females and their ages ranged from 20 to 95-year old. All patients, were first treated through conventional medical interventions, including physical therapy. Patients consulted for alternative medical treatment, one year or more, after the initial diagnosis. The alternative medical treatment consisted in multiple points stimulations. Twelve points of stimulation on the skull were used. Additional 4 points of stimulation were located at the right and left calves and at the right and left forearms. All stimulations had nociceptive and proprioceptive components. The stimulations were applied successively one by one (legs, arms, skull). The treatment consisted in a one-time (exceptionally two) session. The duration of each stimulation was about 0.5 s. Results show that in all 9 cases, patients had improvement in their motor skills, including gain of weight support and unassisted small walks, independent and voluntary movements of limbs. Improvement was steady over a period of one to several years. We believe that whether lesions included prefrontal cortical areas, or motor and sensory areas, the alternative treatment triggered existing or new neuronal networks as well as synaptic efficiency or reactivation, through highly increased, sensory nociceptive coupled to proprioceptive, afferences. Those results highlight the need to further investigate neural function of cortical and subcortical areas through non-invasive and indirect pathways stimulations, during a stable chronic phase after a CNS insult

ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF CARDIAC MEASURES AND DECLINING OF COMORBIDITIES.

Background: Regular physical activity (PA) can prevent many non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes mellitus (DM). The present study aimed to assess the health benefits of physical activities including blood pressure and comorbid conditions. Methodology: This is a prospective cohort case-control study that recruited 300 Saudi volunteers living in the city ofHail, Northern Saudi Arabia. Results: Out of 300 participants 155(51.7%) were males and 145 (48.3%) were females. There were 111(37%) participants committed to regular physical activity and the remaining 189(63%) without a defined commitment to physical activity (Uncommitted). Among 111 persons who claimed a commitment to regular physical activity (committed), 61(55%) were males and 50(45%) were females. The majority of committed individuals were at the age group 21-25 years followed by age group 26-30 and 31-35 years representing 32, 30, and 20 persons, respectively. The physical activity was highly practiced at the age range 21-30 years and this was found to be statistically significant P < 0.001. Conclusion: There is a low prevalence of physical activity in Hail region, particularly among females, which necessitates the suggestion of appropriate awareness programs. Younger and elder populations are in much need to be targeted with PA awareness programs

A switching multi-level method for the long tail recommendation problem

Recommender systems are decision support systems that play an important part in generating a list of product or service recommendations for users based on the past experiences and interactions. The most popular recommendation method is Collaborative Filtering (CF) that is based on the users’ rating history to generate the recommendation. Although, recommender systems have been applied successfully in different areas such as e-Commerce and Social Networks, the popularity bias is still one of the challenges that needs to be further researched. Therefore, we propose a multi-level method that is based on a switching approach which solves the long tail recommendation problem (LTRP) when CF fails to find the target case. We have evaluated our method using two public datasets and the results show that it outperforms a number of bases lines and state-of-the-art alternatives with a further reduce of the recommendation error rates for items found in the long tail

The effect of wildfires on wood-decay fungi in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Background: In late November and early December of 2019, wildfires occurred over portions of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. More than 4,000 ha were affected by the wildfires. The objective of the research reported herein was to access the impact of these wildfires on the assemblages of wood-decay fungi associated with the study areas in the park.Methods: The investigated fungi were confined to two study areas; the first subjected to a relatively high intensity burn and the second subjected to a relatively low intensity burn. In addition to specimens of fungi obtained in the field, small pieces of coarse woody debris were assembled, brought back to the laboratory and placed in plastic chambers for incubation and kept moist. Over the course of two months, fruiting bodies appearing in these incubation chambers were observed and collected. All specimens from both the field and incubation chambers were identified from sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal DNA.Results: A total of 31 different taxa were identified along with nine taxa reported previously as unknown and uncultured. However, almost all of these records were from the study area subjected to the relatively low intensity burn.Conclusion: The relatively high intensity burn site was almost completely devoid of wood-decay fungi.Keywords: Great Smoky Mountains National Park; ITS ribosomal DNA region; Wood-decay fung

Applying Best Practices for The Prevention of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) and Reducing Risk Factors for Patients: Meta-Analysis Theoretical Review

This study aimed at providing a comprehensive range of evidence-based recommendations for interventions to be applied during the pre-, intra- and postoperative periods for the prevention of the surgical site infection SSI, while also considering aspects related to resource availability and values and preferences. An initial search identified more than 200 titles published in 2006-2017 as relevant for data extraction, the researchers dealt with the extracted information included study design and methodology, reported cumulative incidence and post-surgical time until onset of SSI, and odds ratios and associated variability for all factors considered in univariate and/or multivariable analyses. And then the study recommended the best producers for reducing the risk factors for patients by conducting the findings of the meta-analysis theoretical review. Keywords: Surgical Site Infection, Risk Factors, Best Practices, Patient

Efficient Synthesis of Various Substituted (Thio)Ureas, Semicarbazides, Thiosemicarbazides, Thiazolidones, and Oxadiazole Derived from [2.2]Paracyclophane

The strategies of the syntheses of various (thio)ureas, semicarbazides, thiosemicarbazides, thiazolidones, and oxadiazole derived from the [2.2]paracyclophane molecule are achieved starting with 4-(2.2]paracyclophanyl)isocyanate. The structures of the obtained products were elucidated by NMR, mass spectrometry, and infrared (IR) spectroscopy in addition to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). X-ray structure analysis was also used to prove the assigned structure

Efficient Synthesis of Various Substituted (Thio)Ureas, Semicarbazides, Thiosemicarbazides, Thiazolidones, and Oxadiazole Derived from [2.2]Paracyclophane

The strategies of the syntheses of various (thio)ureas, semicarbazides, thiosemicarbazides, thiazolidones, and oxadiazole derived from the [2.2]paracyclophane molecule are achieved starting with 4-(2.2]paracyclophanyl)isocyanate. The structures of the obtained products were elucidated by NMR, mass spectrometry, and infrared (IR) spectroscopy in addition to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). X-ray structure analysis was also used to prove the assigned structure.Peer reviewe

Substituted pyrazoles and their heteroannulated analogs—recent syntheses and biological activities

Pyrazoles are considered privileged scaffolds in medicinal chemistry. Previous reviews have discussed the importance of pyrazoles and their biological activities; however, few have dealt with the chemistry and the biology of heteroannulated derivatives. Therefore, we focused our attention on recent topics, up until 2020, for the synthesis of pyrazoles, their heteroannulated deriva-tives, and their applications as biologically active moieties. Moreover, we focused on traditional procedures used in the synthesis of pyrazoles