Gender Role Attitudes among Higher Education Students in Jordan

Youth are the change agents of any society, therefore, it is critical to identify their attitudes toward gender roles. The study utilizes a social survey approach, where a stratified random sample is selected from the study population, which consists of Jordanian youth who are enrolled at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan. The size of the sample is 848 youth, with 33.5% (N=284) males and 66.5% females (N=564). A survey, based on two scales, is developed to measure youth’s attitudes toward gender roles: the gender professions scale and the gender skills scale. The study also examines the effect of the following variables: age, type of college, place of residence, monthly income, and educational level of the mother. The analysis uses statistical methods to recognize differences in attitudes, to understand the relationship between the independent and dependent variables, and to determine statistical significance (set at p ≤ 0.05). The results show that the attitudes of female youth toward gender roles are nontraditional in comparison to those of their male counterparts. Moreover, attitudes toward gender roles tend to be gender-balanced among older youth who live in urban areas, study in humanitarian colleges, and whose mother’s educational level is high. The study highlights the importance of institutionalizing the concept of gender in higher educational institutions

Automatic video fire detection approach based on PJF color modeling and spatio-temporal analysis

Recently, due to the huge damage caused by fires in many countries in the world, fire detection is getting more and more interest as an increasing important issue.Nowadays, the early fire detection in video surveillance scenes is emerging as an alternative solution to overcome the shortcomings of the current inefficient sensors. In this paper, we propose a new video based-fire detection method exploiting color and motion information of fire. Our approach consists in detecting all moving regions in the scene to select then areas likely to be fire. Further, motion analysis is required to identify the accurate fire regions. The proposed method is evaluated on different video datasets containing diverse fire and non-fire videos. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method by achieving high fire detection and low false alarms rates. Moreover, it greatly outperforms the related works with 98.81 % accuracy and only 2% of false positive rate

Virilizing adrenocortical oncocytoma in a toddler

Functioning adrenocortical oncocytomas are extremely rare and most reported patients are 40–60 yr of age. To our knowledge, only 6 cases of functioning adrenocortical oncocytomas have been reported in childhood. We report a case of functioning adrenocortical oncocytoma in a 3 year 4 month-old female child presenting with hirsutism, acne and virilization. She presented with coarse features, deepening of the voice and excessive hair growth, and elevation of plasma testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. She had an adrenalectomy. The completely resected tumor composed predominantly of oncocytes without atypical mitosis and necrosis. A discussion of this case and a review of the literature on this entity are presented

Solvent extraction effects on phytochemical constituents profiles, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities and functional group analysis of Ecballium elaterium seeds and peels fruits

Abstract Ecballium elaterium is a perennial herb with multiple medicinal properties. It was widely used in folk medicine as cathartic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic agents. The present study was devoted to investigate the effect of diethyl ether, acetone, and methanol solvent on the extraction, phytochemicals profiles, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of Ecballium elaterium seeds and peels fruits. The total phenolic, flavonoid, flavonol, condensed tannins and carotenoids contents were estimated. Maximum phenolic (107 ± 4 mg GAE/g) and flavonoid (18 ± 0 mg QE/g) contents were also found in the methanol peels fruits extract. Results showed that methanol peels fruits extract have the highest antioxidant activity with IC50 values of 1.2 ± 0.1 and 1 ± 0 mg/mL for DPPH and ABTS, respectively, and EC50 value of 1040 ± 5 mg/mL for reducing power assays. Acetone and diethyl ether peels fruits extracts showed the best antibacterial agents especially against Micrococcus luteus, however no antifungal activity was observed. Spectral data of FT-IR analysis of Ecballium elaterium seeds and peels fruits extracts revealed the presence of functional groups such as ─OH, C─H, C─O and C=O. Due to their high antioxidant and antibacterial activities, E. elaterium seeds and peels fruits extracts have promising potential as future natural antioxidant and antibacterial agents in food industry

Proximate analysis, mineral composition, phytochemical contents, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities and GC-MS investigation of various solvent extracts of cactus cladode

Abstract Cladodes Powder Extracts (CPE) are known for their medicinal properties such as being an auxiliary treatment for obesity and gastrointestinal or cardiovascular disorders as well as lowering cholesterol levels. The presented results proved that CPE was found to be a rich source of carbohydrate, ash, moisture and minerals namely Magnesium, Calcium and Zinc which highlighted its good nutritional value. Moreover, the solvent extracts displayed appreciable level of polyphenols, flavonoids and tannins contents compounds which may explain their higher and varied antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. The time-kill assay revealed that the bactericidal concentration required for cladode to kill M. luteus should be less than 3.12 mg/mL (2MIC). Interestingly, GC-MS analyses of ethyl acetate CPE demonstrate the presence of six compounds. The overall data emphasize the nutritional potential of CP as a promising natural preservative and a substitute to the synthetic counterparts and therefore to be consumed in a healthy diet

Investigation of phytochemical contents, in vitro antioxidant and antibacterial behavior and in vivo anti-inflammatory potential of Ecballium elaterium methanol fruits extract

Abstract Ecballium elaterium species are mostly used as therapeutic agents and food ingredient. The current work was designed to investigate phytochemical contents, antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties of methanol fruits extract of Ecballium elaterium. Good antioxidant activity was observed with IC50 values of 156 ± 4 and 377 ± 6 μg/mL for DPPH and ABTS, respectively, and EC50 of 126 ± 4 µg/mL for FRAP assays, which is related with their richness in total phenolic, flavonoid and condensed tannins contents. The results of antibacterial activity showed the effectiveness of methanol extract against Bacillus cereus with value of inhibition zone diameter of 15 ± 0 mm and a MIC and MBC values of 6 ± 0 and 12 ± 0 mg/mL, respectively. The in vivo anti-inflammatory effects have been also studied by carrageenan induced rat paw edema assay and the results revealed that a dose of 75 mg/kg induced a significant inhibition of 66.4% at 2 h. FT-IR spectral data justified the presence of biological functional groups such as ─OH, C─H, C─O, C─C and C=O. These results highlighted the potential using of Ecballium elaterium fruits extract as natural antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents for food applications and for the pharmaceutical industry