Adopting Quranic Intertextuality in the Translation of Canonical Literature: A Lexical & Rhetorical Take on Intertextuality

The present paper suggests that the Quranic language is a source of rhetoric and eloquence, contributing to a more elevated translation of English classics. Hence, the paper identifies some of the linguistic and stylistic features of the Holy Quran at the rhetorical and lexical levels that can be utilized in translation in the form of either implicit or explicit intertextuality. The researchers apply this proposed translation approach to selected parts of a 19th-century novel, namely Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The method used to assess the success of this approach was to present the translated excerpts using lexical and rhetorical intertextuality against Helmy Murad’s published translation of the novel. The excerpts were then evaluated by a jury of judges comprising nine experts specialized in translation, linguistics, English literature, and Arabic literature in order to provide their input and evaluation on a Likert scale. The statistical analysis of jury responses suggests that the researchers’ translation was fairly successful in general, scoring an average of 4.35 and 4.30 out of 5.00 for the rhetorical and lexical intertextuality respectively. The paper concludes that Quranic intertextuality can be applied to texts selectively depending on several considerations as part of other strategies rather than on its own account. The researchers also recommend conducting further studies on the Quranic style and expressions that can be utilized in the translation of various types of canonical literature, whether prose or verse

The Relationship of Gold Price with the Stock Market: The Case of Frankfurt Stock Exchange

This paper considers the relationship between two main economic variables: Gold & Stock market in Germany that is represented by the HDAX Index under the FSE. The researchers used monthly data collected from Bloomberg database spanning from August 2004 to September 2016 (12 years) in order to use them in the selected tests in this research which are: (Descriptive statistic tests, Pearson's correlation test, Unit root test to assure data are stationary for the Johansen's Co-integration test and the Granger Causality test.)  The data were divided into three periods: pre, during and post to financial crisis in order to measure the different effect in each period. The results showed that there is a correlation between gold and stock market that differs in each period, as for the whole period of 12 years there was a moderate positive correlation, before the financial crisis there was a very strong positive correlation, during the financial crisis the correlation was positive but weak and low which means its insignificant, while at the period after the financial crisis the correlation changed in nature as it became a strong high negative correlation. The co-integration test results were all the same for all the three different periods (before, during and after financial crisis) and also for the whole 12 years period that is there is a long run relationship between gold and stock market (represented by the HDAX Index). The same thing applies on the Granger causality test, as there was no Granger causality (No Cause-effect relationship) between gold and stock market.  Keywords: Gold Price, Stock Market, Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE), HDAX Index, JEL Classifications: C01, C58, G01, G11 and G15

The medical and biochemical knowledge of health care professionals regarding the management of MERS-CoV: lessons from 2019 pilgrimage season in Al-Madinah, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

Background: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) epidemic was a serious healthcare concern not responding to conventional anti-viral therapies between 2012 and 2017 with high fatality rates. Saudi Arabia is still among the best world examples in combating both MERS-CoV and COVID-19 pandemics. Objectives: Investigating the medical and biochemical knowledge of healthcare professionals in Al-Madinah, Saudi Arabia on preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic measures against MERS-CoV epidemic. Subjects and methods: In 2019, this cross-sectional study included 416 healthcare personnel of which 402 participants answered the questions with a response rate of 96.7%. Specialties of participants were medical students (1.4%), physicians (64.4%), nurses (23.6%) and others (10.7%). Results: The vast majority of the investigated healthcare personnel gave the right answers. 96.7% of the participants answered that washing hands using water helps prevent MERS-CoV. 90.8% of the participants answered that wearing a clean non-sterile long-sleeved gown and gloves does helps prevent MERS-CoV infection. 94.7% of participants answered that using alcohol-based hand rub helps prevent MERS-CoV infection. 92.03% of the participants thought that wearing protective equipment does help preventing MERS-CoV infection. 86.1% answered that there is no vaccine available against MERS-CoV infection and 86.1% answered that taking vaccines is suitable for preventing MERS-CoV infection. 90.04% of the participants answered that MERS-CoV patients should be diagnosed using PCR and 84.3% thought that the highest levels of anti-CoV antibodies are in abattoir workers while 87.8% thought that isolation of suspected cases helps preventing MERS-CoV infection. Conclusion: The investigated healthcare workers had a satisfactory knowledge on the preventive and therapeutic measures and biochemical knowledge against MERS-CoV epidemic at mass gatherings as pilgrimage season

Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use in early acute respiratory distress syndrome : Insights from the LUNG SAFE study

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background: Concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of unnecessary oxygen use in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We examined this issue in patients with ARDS enrolled in the Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE (LUNG SAFE) study. Methods: In this secondary analysis of the LUNG SAFE study, we wished to determine the prevalence and the outcomes associated with hyperoxemia on day 1, sustained hyperoxemia, and excessive oxygen use in patients with early ARDS. Patients who fulfilled criteria of ARDS on day 1 and day 2 of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure were categorized based on the presence of hyperoxemia (PaO2 > 100 mmHg) on day 1, sustained (i.e., present on day 1 and day 2) hyperoxemia, or excessive oxygen use (FIO2 ≥ 0.60 during hyperoxemia). Results: Of 2005 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 131 (6.5%) were hypoxemic (PaO2 < 55 mmHg), 607 (30%) had hyperoxemia on day 1, and 250 (12%) had sustained hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use occurred in 400 (66%) out of 607 patients with hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use decreased from day 1 to day 2 of ARDS, with most hyperoxemic patients on day 2 receiving relatively low FIO2. Multivariate analyses found no independent relationship between day 1 hyperoxemia, sustained hyperoxemia, or excess FIO2 use and adverse clinical outcomes. Mortality was 42% in patients with excess FIO2 use, compared to 39% in a propensity-matched sample of normoxemic (PaO2 55-100 mmHg) patients (P = 0.47). Conclusions: Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use are both prevalent in early ARDS but are most often non-sustained. No relationship was found between hyperoxemia or excessive oxygen use and patient outcome in this cohort. Trial registration: LUNG-SAFE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02010073publishersversionPeer reviewe

Literary theory and its role in modern and contemporary criticism: A critical approach

This research aims to identify the relationship between the concepts of "literary theory" and "literary criticism"; as a crisis was formed in reaching an agreement between the critics on defining the concept of these terms. Thus, the research seeks to identify these two terms and examine their implications in the modern literary lesson. The research takes an analytical and investigative approach based on how to use terms, understand them and apply them in research writing. The research has found that there is a discrepancy in the use of terms and their understanding and invocation in research writing. These terms came to us from Europe, which took them from the Greek and Latin cultures. The research concludes that there is a difference between critics and writers during the literary study about basic concepts, which requires them to go through them by definition, commentary, and deduction, such as the concept of literature itself, creativity, reception, criticism, literary history, literary schools, and others

Knowledge and healthcare professionals’ perceptions of influenza vaccination in the Qassim region, Saudi Arabia (2019-2020)

Influenza is associated with a substantial economic burden owing to the extensive immediate and circuitous medicinal service costs at the individual and institutional levels. We aimed to evaluate healthcare workers’ perceptions of the influenza vaccination in the Qassim region in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional study was conducted at selected hospitals from November to March 2020, in which healthcare workers completed a self-administered questionnaire. Of 327 participants, most were equally distributed between the ages 18–30 and 31–45 years (42.8% each), with 57.5% female and 42.5% male. Both Saudi (47.7%) and non-Saudi participants (52.3%) were included. The majority were physicians (29.7%), pharmacists (28.1%), and nurses (27.5%). Overall, 60.9% had good knowledge, 89% had positive perceptions, and 10.7% had negative perceptions. The primary reason for not getting vaccinated was a concern for complications. Moreover, 20.8% had never previously been vaccinated. Knowledge was positively correlated with nationality, educational level, and perception (p = .002, p = .047, and p = .021, respectively). Perceptions were significantly correlated with nationality (p =.009). Furthermore, 24.5% completely disagreed with compulsory vaccination and believe it would not improve coverage. Once fitted using a multinomial regression model, an r-square value of 0.026 indicated that nationality and history of previous vaccination significantly contributed to negative perceptions. We concluded that most healthcare workers had good knowledge and positive perceptions, and more than a third of the participants adhered to seasonal vaccination. Saudi patients and those who had never been vaccinated were more likely to have negative perceptions

Synthesis and evaluation of novel and efficient Ni-based dual functional materials (DFMs) for integrated CO2 capture and hydrogenation

We report on the synthesis and evaluation of novel, highly active and stable bimetallic DFMs for simultaneous CO2 adsorption and subsequent hydrogenation to value added products. The DFMs contain various combinations of Ni (5–15 wt%) and Cu (5–15 wt%) with Na2O (5–15 wt%) as adsorbent supported on alumina (γ-Al2O3). The DFMs were synthesized via sequential incipient wetness impregnation method and were thoroughly characterized by combination of various surface sensitive and bulk sensitive analytical tools such as XRD, XPS, BET surface area, HR-TEM and H2-TPR. The DFMs were evaluated for CO2 capture and subsequent hydrogenation in a fixed-bed quartz tubular reactor connected with an online gas analyzer. The results demonstrated that at an operating temperature of 320 ℃ , the DFM with a composition of 10 wt%Ni5wt%Cu/10 wt%Na2O.Al2O3 resulted in exceptionally high CO2 adsorption (310.84 mol/g) and subsequent hydrogenation to methane (249.2 mol CH4/gDFM). The XPS analysis revealed that this DFM contains comparatively larger percentage of highly ionized and/or induced Ni2+ as well as Cu+1 species. The results of H2-TPR also clearly indicated improvement in its reducibility. Moreover, the TEM analysis results revealed the presence of well-dispersed and smaller metal oxide particles in the bimetallic 10 wt%Ni5wt%Cu/10 wt%Na2O.Al2O3 DFM. In this regards, the exceptional high performance of the 10 wt%Ni5wt%Cu/10 wt%Na2O.Al2O3 DFM was attributed to the synergistic effects of the bimetallic combination of Ni with Cu resulting in enhanced physicochemical properties and thus demonstrated exceptionally higher performance.The author "Areej Tageldin" would like to express her special thanks and gratitude to Qatar University for the financial support through the graduate assistant position.Scopu

A systematic investigation of the bio-toxicity of core-shell magnetic mesoporous silica microspheres using zebrafish model

Abstract In this work, shearing interface coassembly in biliquid phase systems is employed to synthesize biocompatible core-shell magnetic mesoporous silica microspheres with uniform size of about 600 nm, perpendicular mesopores of 6.0 nm and large pore volume of 0.77 cm3/g. The toxicology assays based on the zebrafish model was conducted to test under a high-throughput manner for the biosafety of Fe3O4@RF@mSiO2 microspheres. The highest no observed toxic effect concentration (NOEC) estimated by the acute toxicity assay for the microspheres was 1.6 mg/mL. The estimated number (measured by ICP-MS) of the penetrated microspheres at this concentration was 2 × 106 per embryo. The results of three different performed toxicity assays show no overall acute toxicity, teratogenicity, or neurotoxicity of the microspheres on zebrafish embryos at any of the tested concentrations (from 0.1 to 1.6 mg/mL) via its multifunctional microstructure. Here, gemcitabine (GEM) as a model of anti-cancer drug was loaded into the mesopores of Fe3O4@RF@mSiO2 microspheres to study their drug release behavior. The microspheres were found to exhibit pH responsive property, which benefits for the GEM release under cancer therapy. Overall, this study offers promising avenue for effective evaluation of magnetic core-shell microspheres for drug delivery and cancer therapy applications