Enhanced selectivity of hydrogel-based molecularly imprinted polymers (HydroMIPs) following buffer conditioning.

We have investigated the effect of buffer solution composition and pH during the preparation, washing and re-loading phases within a family of acrylamide-based molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for bovine haemoglobin (BHb), equine myoglobin (EMb) and bovine catalyse (BCat). We investigated water, phosphate buffer saline (PBS), tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (Tris) buffer and succinate buffer. Throughout the study MIP selectivity was highest for acrylamide, followed by N-hydroxymethylacrylamide, and then N-iso-propylacrylamide MIPs. The selectivity of the MIPs when compared with the NIPs decreased depending on the buffer conditions and pH in the order of Tris>PBS>succinate. The Tris buffer provided optimum imprinting conditions at 50mM and pH 7.4, and MIP selectivities for the imprinting of BHb in polyacrylamide increased from an initial 8:1 to a 128:1 ratio. It was noted that the buffer conditions for the re-loading stage was important for determining MIP selectivity and the buffer conditions for the preparation stage was found to be less critical. We demonstrated that once MIPs are conditioned using Tris or PBS buffers (pH7.4) protein reloading in water should be avoided as negative effects on the MIP's imprinting capability results in low selectivities of 0.8:1. Furthermore, acidifying the pH of the buffer solution below pH 5.9 also has a negative impact on MIP selectivity especially for proteins with high isoelectric points. These buffer conditioning effects have also been successfully demonstrated in terms of MIP efficiency in real biological samples, namely plasma and serum

A linguistic study of Islamic religious discourse: conceptual metaphors in the prophetic tradition

PhDThis study examines the emergence of metaphorical language in the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and tradition. It principally argues that the selection of metaphors in the Prophetic discourse is chiefly governed by the rhetorical aim of persuasion. Additionally, the Prophetic metaphors are discursively used to express a distinctive Islamic doctrine and ideology that embody the laws, principles, and beliefs of Islam. The study is anchored by the theoretical framework provided by the cognitive theory of metaphor developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and corpus-assisted and critical metaphor analysis approaches introduced by Jonathan Charteris-Black. The critical analysis of the Prophetic metaphors acknowledges the impact of the most frequent and significant metaphoric source domains appearing in a corpus compiled from the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and tradition. These metaphors are introduced to an audience on the basis of Islamic religious beliefs in addition to the socio-cultural experiences and knowledge of pre-Islamic Arabs and early Muslims of the time. This study demonstrates the Prophet Muhammad’s reliance on metaphorical language in introducing unfamiliar Islamic notions such as Islam and faith, rulership and Islamic laws, and rituals and unlawful practices among many other notions. The abstract nature of these concepts necessitates the use of conventional metaphors which provide epistemic and ontological information about the topics in hand. In addition, the study argues that behind his didactic discourse, the Prophet Muhammad’s selection of metaphors reflects a distinctive ideological perspective by which Muslims and non-Muslims are distinguished within the realm of spiritual life. Finally, the study establishes the persuasive impact of the Prophetic metaphors with reference to the three Aristotelian propositions: the ethical, emotional, and logical. The study provides the first effort to analyse conceptual metaphors used in the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and tradition on the basis of modern cognitive and critical approaches to metaphor analysis. Furthermore, this study builds upon the findings of previous studies on critical metaphor analysis of metaphors employed in other religious discourses, such as the Bible and the Qur’an; so, it draws attention to the need for more study of metaphors in Islamic religious discours

A March towards Reform: The Metaphorical Conceptualisation of ‘Reform’ in King Abdullah II’s Language

Reform has recently become an imperative topic in Jordanian politics. After waiting long for tangible political and economic programs to be initiated by political parties, King Abdullah II of Jordan introduced his vision of reform. Reform is a priority, and this is plainly reflected in King Abdullah II’s “reformist” discourse. This paper adopts a critical linguistic approach to metaphor analysis to study King Abdullah II’s employment of metaphorical language to accentuate his authority, dominance, and ideologies in the implementation of a vision of reform. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of a corpus of King Abdullah II’s discourse demonstrates extensive use of metaphors from the conceptual domains of path, war (and conflicts) to conceptualise reform. It is found that the choice of such metaphors reflects King Abdullah II’s belief in implementing reform while maintaining a stable political and social system. This vision adopts a pragmatic and realistic position that is not deluding Jordanians or making them expect instantaneous positive outcomes from the reform process.&nbsp

Interpretable Machine Learning Model for Clinical Decision Making

Despite machine learning models being increasingly used in medical decision-making and meeting classification predictive accuracy standards, they remain untrusted black-boxes due to decision-makers\u27 lack of insight into their complex logic. Therefore, it is necessary to develop interpretable machine learning models that will engender trust in the knowledge they generate and contribute to clinical decision-makers intention to adopt them in the field. The goal of this dissertation was to systematically investigate the applicability of interpretable model-agnostic methods to explain predictions of black-box machine learning models for medical decision-making. As proof of concept, this study addressed the problem of predicting the risk of emergency readmissions within 30 days of being discharged for heart failure patients. Using a benchmark data set, supervised classification models of differing complexity were trained to perform the prediction task. More specifically, Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forests (RF), Decision Trees (DT), and Gradient Boosting Machines (GBM) models were constructed using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD). The precision, recall, area under the ROC curve for each model were used to measure predictive accuracy. Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) was used to generate explanations from the underlying trained models. LIME explanations were empirically evaluated using explanation stability and local fit (R2). The results demonstrated that local explanations generated by LIME created better estimates for Decision Trees (DT) classifiers

Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation

In Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation, Carl Sharif El-Tobgui offers a comprehensive analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s ten-volume magnum opus, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql, elucidating its author’s foundational reconstitution of rationality through the multifaceted ontological, epistemological, and linguistic reforms he carries out. Readership: Students and scholars of Ibn Taymiyya or Islamic theology, philosophy, or rationalism; students and scholars of medieval Christian and Jewish scholasticism; general readers interested in questions of reason and revelation

Species distribution and antimicrobial susceptibility of gram-negative aerobic bacteria in hospitalized cancer patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nosocomial infections pose significant threats to hospitalized patients, especially the immunocompromised ones, such as cancer patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study examined the microbial spectrum of gram-negative bacteria in various infection sites in patients with leukemia and solid tumors. The antimicrobial resistance patterns of the isolated bacteria were studied.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The most frequently isolated gram-negative bacteria were <it>Klebsiella pneumonia </it>(31.2%) followed by <it>Escherichia coli </it>(22.2%). We report the isolation and identification of a number of less-frequent gram negative bacteria (<it>Chromobacterium violacum</it>, <it>Burkholderia cepacia, Kluyvera ascorbata, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis</it>, and <it>Salmonella arizona</it>). Most of the gram-negative isolates from Respiratory Tract Infections (RTI), Gastro-intestinal Tract Infections (GITI), Urinary Tract Infections (UTI), and Bloodstream Infections (BSI) were obtained from leukemic patients. All gram-negative isolates from Skin Infections (SI) were obtained from solid-tumor patients. In both leukemic and solid-tumor patients, gram-negative bacteria causing UTI were mainly <it>Escherichia coli </it>and <it>Klebsiella pneumoniae</it>, while gram-negative bacteria causing RTI were mainly <it>Klebsiella pneumoniae</it>. <it>Escherichia coli </it>was the main gram-negative pathogen causing BSI in solid-tumor patients and GITI in leukemic patients. Isolates of <it>Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter</it>, <it>Pseudomonas, and Acinetobacter </it>species were resistant to most antibiotics tested. There was significant imipenem -resistance in <it>Acinetobacter </it>(40.9%), <it>Pseudomonas </it>(40%), and <it>Enterobacter </it>(22.2%) species, and noticeable imipinem-resistance in <it>Klebsiell</it>a (13.9%) and <it>Escherichia coli </it>(8%).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This is the first study to report the evolution of imipenem-resistant gram-negative strains in Egypt. Mortality rates were higher in cancer patients with nosocomial <it>Pseudomonas </it>infections than any other bacterial infections. Policies restricting antibiotic consumption should be implemented to avoid the evolution of newer generations of antibiotic resistant-pathogens.</p

Towards Developing a Study about the Inimitability in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah

The study aims at investigating a detailed outline for studying inimitability practically. The study consists of an introduction in order to define the project, conclusion and five sections. The first section deals with vision, message and the core values of the project. The second includes an introduction that identifies the aims and conditions of the study. The third, however, clarifies the suggested administrative structure for the supervisory academic board. The fourth section is the core of the study; it introduces the suggested courses, their descriptions and their study plan. The final section mentions the main facilities that the academy must have. The researcher concluded the study and introduced some recommendations. Keywords: Inimitability, Holy Qur'an, Sunnah, practical study

Dysregulation of micro-RNA contributes to the risk of unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss

Although there are plenty of evidence that dysregulation of microRNA (miRNA) level is involved in many human diseases, it is still unknown whether abnormal levels of specific miRNAs are associated with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). We believe that such an association do exist as this study confirmed significant differences in the level of specific miRNAs between RPL cases and healthy controls. The study was conducted on 100 Palestinian women: 60 patients with at least two unexplained consecutive pregnancy losses half of them were pregnant at the first trimester and the rest were non-pregnant and 40 healthy controls with at least two live births and no history of pregnancy loss; half of them were at their first trimester of pregnancy and the rest were non-pregnant. We investigated the relative expression of miR-21, miR-126, miR-155, miR-182, miR-222 and miR-517* using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Ct method experiments. Differential expression was evaluated using Student t-test and fold change analyses. The expression difference of miR-21, miR-126 and miR-182 between patients and controls in the pregnant subjects showed statistically significant difference (p-value ≤ 0.05) with fold decrease of 1.5, 1.6 and 5.6, respectively. In the non-pregnant group miR-21, miR-126, miR-222 and miR-517* expressions were significantly different with fold decrease of 2.4, 2.9, 2.7 and 11.8, respectively. In conclusion, at least miR-21 and miR-126 could serve as potential markers for idiopathic RPL as their levels were significantly lower in patients before being pregnant and during pregnancy. Moreover, restoration of the normal level of those miRNAs might be a novel intervention strategy in unexplained RPL