Gastric aspiration, epithelial injury and chronic lung allograft rejection

PhD ThesisIntroduction For patients with a variety of end stage lung diseases, lung transplantation has become an effective therapy. Chronic allograft rejection occurs in over 50% of patients 5 years post transplantation however. Although alloimmune-mediated injury directed against endothelial and epithelial structures were traditionally thought to be the major culprit, non-alloimmunologic inflammation after bile acid aspiration has been implicated in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung injury, after transplantation. Hypothesis Reflux with aspiration of bile acid is present in the lower airways of people with cystic fibrosis associated lung injury before and after transplantation. Bile acid challenge would cause cytoxicity and release of inflammatory mediators from patient derived primary epithelial cells (PBECs), before and after transplantation. Methods PBECs from lung transplantation patients, explanted CF patient cultures and a goblet cell line were used to perform proof of concept experiments. In these experiments the effect of individual primary and secondary bile acids, porcine pepsin, different patient derived gastric juices (whole or filtered and dialysed) samples and an artificial bile acid mixture were evaluated. Cell death, Interleukin 8 (IL-8), Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and Granulocyte Macrophage Colony Stumulating Factor (GMCSF) production were measured by Titer blue and multiplex ELISA. Results Epithelial cells can be cultured successfully from the bronchial brushings of lung transplant recipient, CF patient explanted lungs and a Goblet cell line. In work connected with this study my research group has demonstrated that the lungs of people with advanced CF lung disease removed at the time of transplantation contained significant levels of bile acids higher than expected based on normal serum levels. I therefore tested the effects of bile acids on PBECs from lung transplant and CF patients. Challengesof ≥10mol/l was associated with significant cell death. Potentially physiological challenges with 1, 5 and 10 mol/l bile acids led to a significant release of pro-neutrophilic cytokines from lung transplant PBECs and CF PBECs .The goblet cell line HT-29 MTX was resistant to bile acids. Conclusion Aspiration of bile acids in CF lungs before and after transplantation may cause cell damage and inflammation. This injury may benefit from medical and surgical treatments for reflux, which may benefit the lung allograft generally

Lightweight community-driven approach to support ontology

The challenge for businesses today is to operate efficiently and effectively by ensuring the availability of updated information necessary for business activities. At situations where daily operations require collaborative communication among staff working in dispersed locations - characterised by different time zones and working conditions - it is essential that the staff have and share common knowledge, especially since staff members may have diverse understandings and perceptions of an issue.In order to overcome such challenge in business, using the oil and gas industry as a case study, this research proposes a platform based on a Lightweight Community-driven approach whereby staff are presented with opportunities to raise and discuss a particular issue in a systematic manner. In addition, ontology is used to support the representation of domain knowledge in which evolution is expected as human knowledge is not static. The fundamental principle of the Lightweight Community-driven approach is to involve organisation personnel in an exchange of ideas and opinions that lead to a higher quality of output. Staff are categorised in two groups, the Contributor Group and the Admin Group, each of which has a different role and responsibility in the whole process of communication. Members of the Contributor Group are those who are actively participating in the discussion by raising issues, providing feedback, and voting on an issue. This group is responsible for the quality of the discussion result which includes reliability of the ontology. The Admin Group are tasked with the managerial aspects of discussion to ensure the eligibility of every participant.Ontology evolution, subsequently, takes place to incorporate the result of the discussion. When there is a need to revise the intended ontology, the current ontology will be improved and archived ontology is created. Otherwise, ontology will remain the same as it is considered relevant by employees of the oil and gas industry. The proposed platform is explained and validated in detail in this thesis. The outcomes of the collective efforts to improve the quality of information within the domain are: a decrease of day-to-day work, cost saving, increased productivity and the availability of a communication forum

The Reality of Professional Development of Mathematics and Science Teachers at Elementary Schools in Najran, Saudi Arabia

This study aimed to identify the practice extent of mathematics and science teachers of professional development activities, its sources and obstacles at elementary schools in Najran, and its relationship with specialty, gender, number of training courses. To achieve the study aims, the research questionnaire was prepared and consisted of (70) items distributed to three fields related to the activities, sources, and obstacles of the professional development in curriculum developed of the American McGraw Hill Education. Validity of the questionnaire was asserted by submitting it to a number of specialist arbitrators. Reliability was also verified and Cronbach Alpha correlation coefficient was (0.97). The study sample consisted of (201) teachers among which (103) mathematics teachers and (98) science teachers who were all teaching the developed mathematics and science curricula at the elementary schools in Najran during the academic year 2014/2015. Findings showed that the practice level of teachers’ practice degree of professional development activities was moderate.  The sources of which they receive professional development programs and obstacles they face were moderate, too. Results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences due to specialization and training courses, while there were significant differences (α=0.01) among teachers with regard to the practice degree of professional development activities and the number of training courses due to gender in favor of females. The study recommended paying attention to the programs of teachers’ professional development and their participation to meet their needs and requirements to attend conferences, seminars, workshops at the universities. Keywords: Curriculum development, Mathematics and science education, Najran University, teachers’ professional development.

Medical health knowledge management using wireless network: Moroccan hospitals case study

Hospitals and medical health services are large business that we have to make them successful for their earned profits and incomes. Unifying the communication in hospitals can approve the environments and avoid the problems faced. Wireless networks are very useful in large crowded places like hospitals. Wireless technology has empowered the medical health systems by reducing the paperwork that nurses or doctors have to deal with them whole day. Its primary purpose is to ensure effective care of patients by increasing the accuracy and speed of health care. This paper highlights patients' knowledge management in hospitals using the wireless communication since the rate of medical errors has increased lately. The intention of this paper is to utilize an advanced technology to help hospitals raise the rate of care of patients throughout the use of mobile data collection device that transmits data to a centralized database to raise the visibility of data to the receivers

Perceived Challenges of Working Environment Among Emergency Department Nurses in Saudi Arabia

Background: Emergency room nurses are faced with many challenges related to the nature of complex practices and the environment. Research has approved a number of characteristics of emergency department nurses in order to fulfill the required role.Objectives: To determine the perception of nurses of the Emergency Department to the challenges associated with their working environment.Methods: A cross-sectional design was used in four selected governmental hospitals in Hail. Among one hundred and seventy-five of Emergency registered nurses; One Hundred and Fifty-Eight emergency registered nurses were recruited conveniently based on the inclusion criteria. A closed ended questionnaire sheet was marked out by all the selected nurses to determine their perception towards challenges associated with their working environment.Results: In this study among the total population of Emergency Room staffs, 90 % of staffs were included; ages ranged between 23-29 yrs were 77.8%. Majority of female nurses were 88.6% most of the sample 83.5% hold bachelor’s degree in nursing. Moreover, 48.7% practicing as a nurse about 1-4 yrs. The ER nurses ranged from 1- 4 yrs of experience were 75.9%. Majority of 79.7% were working as a staff Nurse. More than half of the Non-Saudi were working in ER was 54.4%. The variables under the quality of environment for professionals, most of them shows bad perception in working environment so far in comfort zone were 27.8%, nursing assistance and technician, hours of work shift have higher in bad perception overall level of 22.7%. In regards the Cleaning were 29.7%, Quality of materials were 37.9%, Physician were 36.7%, Number of calls per shift were 39.2%. In determining the perception of Emergency Department nurse towards challenges associated with their working environment shows higher perception level with the mean value of 32.03 and standard deviation was 5.6.Conclusion:From this study we concluded that, the healthcare policy makers may have concern about health care providers. The working condition of the Emergency Room nurses Perceived that they have somewhat discouragement in their working environment. Some changes in reimbursement and the practice of health care delivery required hospital to change the way they operate. These results will also propagate the managers to re-define a development plan for the Emergency Department working Environment of the selected Hospitals, in hail. Keywords: Nurse, Perception, Emergency Department, Challenges, Working Environment. DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-10-05 Publication date:May 31st 2020

Technological and human factors for supporting big data analytics in Saudi Arabian higher education

© 2020 26th Americas Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS 2020. All rights reserved. Big data analytics is an emerging technology that is widely utilized across industries and is increasingly discussed among researchers. This study investigates the effects of Technological and Human Factors for Big Data Analytics (THFFBDA) on technological improvements of big data analytics (BDA) towards improved decision making by top management in Saudis' Higher Education. This paper seeks to enhance our understanding of how these components impact on the implementation of big data analytics to improve decision making by top management in Saudi Arabian Higher Institutions. This study draws on the Sociotechnical theory to define and investigate THFFBDA, and the Delone & McLean Information System success model to highlight the technological improvements in BDA. This research paper concludes with propositions on the potential effects of THFFBDA on decision making among universities' top management and proposes a mixed-methods approach to study the above phenomenon

Solving the Klein-Gordon equation using Fourier spectral methods: A benchmark test for computer performance

The cubic Klein-Gordon equation is a simple but non-trivial partial differential equation whose numerical solution has the main building blocks required for the solution of many other partial differential equations. In this study, the library 2DECOMP&FFT is used in a Fourier spectral scheme to solve the Klein-Gordon equation and strong scaling of the code is examined on thirteen different machines for a problem size of 512^3. The results are useful in assessing likely performance of other parallel fast Fourier transform based programs for solving partial differential equations. The problem is chosen to be large enough to solve on a workstation, yet also of interest to solve quickly on a supercomputer, in particular for parametric studies. Unlike other high performance computing benchmarks, for this problem size, the time to solution will not be improved by simply building a bigger supercomputer.Comment: 10 page

From gastric aspiration to airway inflammation

The airways are poorly protected from potentially damaging agents contained within gastric contents. While digestive factors are obvious damaging agents, gastric aspiration may also deliver microbial agents, cytokines or food antigens to airway tissues. Direct damage or the triggering of the inflammatory cascade by gastric aspiration is believed to drive airways disease onset and/or progression. Evidence exists from experimental models demonstrating direct instillation of damaging factors to a range of airways epithelia causes damage and/or an inflammatory response. Clinical longitudinal studies have also noted an association between the presence of biomarkers of reflux in airways samples and disease progression. A shared pathophysiology of many chronic airways diseases is a more negative intrathoracic pressure. Such changes would drive an increased abdominothoracic pressure gradient. These changes in respiratory mechanics mean that chronic lung disease patients may be predisposed to reflux and subsequent aspiration. Therefore, it appears that gastric aspiration and airways disease progression may be linked not solely as cause and effect, but seemingly within a vicious cycle. A range of physiological factors govern both occurrence of gastric reflux into the pharynx/larynx and could also increase the susceptibility of certain individuals to disease progression. A range of long-term surgical and pharmacological intervention studies are necessary to test the benefit of such therapies in reducing disease progression or driving symptom improvement. Such studies may be hampered by the reliability of available therapies in halting gastric aspiration and the difficulty in the clinical or biochemical assessment of gastric aspiration

Design of Compact and Superdirective Metamaterial-Inspired Two- and Three-Elements Antenna Arrays

This paper presents the development of a miniature antenna array in a small space in order to achieve superdirectivity for long-range communication. The proposed structures consist of a superdirective metamaterial-inspired array based on a capacitively loaded loop (CLL) driven by an electrically small monopole antenna. This elementary antenna is then used in two- and three-array configurations separated by a fixed interelement distance of 0.1λ to achieve a higher directivity and compact size (with λ the wavelength calculated at the operation frequency 1.850 GHz). The design of the elementary antenna, its simulated radiation performances, as well as those of the parasitic array are also reported. The results of the optimization of two- and three-antenna arrays are discussed. For this study, three corresponding prototypes were fabricated and tested. The measured impedance mismatch and radiation pattern results are presented and shown to be in good agreement with their simulated values. The maximum measured directivity is equal to 5.9 dBi and 4.75 dBi in the case of the two- and three- elements, respectively. The proposed antenna arrays can serve for the realization of point-to-point wireless links and can have a significant impact on compact and high-directive radiofrequency front-ends of a wireless system and for wireless power transfer applications