Discrepancy between PCR based SARS-CoV-2 tests suggests the need to re-evaluate diagnostic assays

Objective: We investigated the discrepancy between clinical and PCR-based diagnosis of COVID-19. We compared results of ten patients with mild to severe COVID-19. Respiratory samples from all cases were tested on the Roche SARS-CoV-2 (Cobas) assay, Filmarray RP2.1 (bioMereiux) and TaqPath™ COVID19 (Thermofisher) PCR assays.Results: Laboratory records of ten patients with mild to severe COVID-19 were examined. Initially, respiratory samples from the patients were tested as negative on the SARS-CoV-2 Roche® assay. Further investigation using the BIOFIRE® Filmarray RP2.1 assay identified SARS-CoV-2 as the pathogen in all ten cases. To investigate possible discrepancies between PCR assays, additional testing was conducted using the TaqPath™ COVID19 PCR. Eight of ten samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 on the TaqPath assay. Further, Spike gene target failures (SGTF) were identified in three of these eight cases. Discrepancy between the three PCR assays could be due to variation in PCR efficiencies of the amplification reactions or, variation at primer binding sites. Strains with SGTF indicate the presence of new SARS-CoV-2 variant strains. Regular modification of gene targets in diagnostic assays may be necessary to maintain robustness and accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic assays to avoid reduced case detection, under-surveillance, and missed opportunities for control

Online Teaching Strategies of Language skills during Pandemic:A Case of Self-Efficacy of Teaching Faculty in Qatar Universities

COVID-19 caused teaching to shifted online which emanated challenges for both teachers and students. To overcome such challenges, self-efficacy plays a vital role. The major objective of this study was to investigate the self-efficacy of teaching staff during the time of COVID-19. The population was a total of over 1100 the university instructors, out of which a sample of 212 (Female=62, Male= 150) participants was administered. The research data was collected through Likert scale after given a training of using various online teaching strategies with language skills for three days. The factors including in this scale were students’ engagement, classroom management, and instructional strategies with 22 statements. Descriptive and Infrential statistics were assessed by using AMOS software. The findings of this research revealed that the respondents showed a high level of self-efficacy towards teaching during pandemic; and that online teaching was challenging for both pre-service teachers and experienced teachers. Further, there was a significant difference found among the demographic variables of the study regarding students’ engagement, classroom management and instructional strategies with language skills. Further, the qualitative results revealed no significant difference about the demographic characteristics of the respondents regarding self-efficacy through online teaching. There was a significant difference found in mean score where female score was greater than male score. This research is expected to make a great contribution for the development of the self-efficacy of the teaching faculty for the successful completion of teaching-learning process through online teaching

Insecticidal Activity of Castanospermum australe against stored Grain Pest Callosobruchus analis

ABSTRACT The butanol fraction of the leaves of Castanospermum australe Cunn. & Fraser., was tested on adult Callosobruchus analis (pulse beetle) for its insecticidal activity by impregnation method at concentration of 3, 9, 48, 240 and 354 µg / cm 2 . The result showed that the extract is toxic to Callosobruchus analis and the LD 50 was found to be 38 g/cm 2

Challenges during Operation and Shutdown of Waxy Crude Pipelines

Transportation of waxy crude oil faces great challenges due to shear and temperature dependency. At high temperatures, waxy crude exhibits low viscous Newtonian behavior where the resistance to flow due to friction is low, and hence low pumping pressure is required to transport it. At low temperatures, however, the crude exhibits shear thinning non-Newtonian behavior where its apparent viscosity becomes shear-dependent. In such cases, the operated pipeline needs to maintain a high pressure to guarantee a continuous flow. Moreover, due to heat transfer between the internal pipeline and surroundings, oil temperature declines along the pipeline. It follows that the crude viscosity and, hence, frictional resistance increase. If the flow is interrupted for any reason, i.e., emergency or planned shutdown, then the restartability of the pipeline becomes a challenge because of the nonexistence of heating generated from friction. In this chapter, the challenges normally facing transportation of waxy crude oil will be discussed. The chapter will introduce the rheological properties of waxy crude oil and explain and describe how these properties can affect the pressure losses inside the pipeline during its operation and shutdown. The measures that need to be considered when designing a waxy crude pipeline will be discussed

Investigation on self energized automated multi levels car parking system

This work proposes a method to enhance the green power demands through providing an energy source which utilizes the kinetic green energy of the vehicles in multi-level car parking building, where vehicles are already climbing when the driver looking for space to park, and then climb down to go out the building with a kinetic energy due to ground gravity. A novel mechanism has been designed to generate electric power in each individual level from the car parking building, this individuality not only would generate more energy but also simplified the system and reduce the installation cost. The simulation result shows a significant energy value which could cover the demand of the parking place from the electricity, such as lighting, ventilation, barrier gate and CCTV

Quran Teaching Methodology on a Field Study in Turkey

يهدف هذا البحث إلى بيان اهتمام المسلمين في تركيا بالقرآن، وإقبالهم على تعلمه وحفظه، وتنافسهم في تعليمه وتحفيظه بمناهج وآليات تنافسية مميزة ومختلفة، ويلقي الضوء على هذه المنهجيات بغية تعميم تجاربها، وتتبع مظاهر تطورها، وتحديثها للإفادة منها. وأما منهجه فقد اعتمد البحث المنهج التاريخي والوصفي والتحليلي، وكذا منهج المقارنة، في تقصي مناهج المدارس القرآنية في تركيا، وتوثيق نتائج استباناتها، وتحليل آثارها، واستقراء أهم مزاياها. وقد توصل البحث إلى وجوب العمل على إحياء دور مراكز التحفيظ في تركيا، وتطوير مناهجها التعليمية، بما يتناسب ومتطلبات العصر؛ لمواكبة العولمة بالشخصية الإسلامية، وحفاظًا على الهُوية الإسلامية. وقد تنوعت آليات مناهج التحفيظ على مستوى المؤسسات الرسمية، والجهود الذاتية الفردية والتطوعية، في إثراء ظاهرة الإقراء والتحفيظ. وتتجلى أصالة البحث في صلته المباشرة بتخصص الباحثين واهتماماتهم البحثية، وهو امتداد لبحوث عديدة في ذات المجال سبق نشرها ضمن أنشطة المنحة البحثية التكاملية لجامعة قطر تحت عنوان: "مناهج التعليم القرآني المعاصرة في العالم الإسلامي مقارنة بمنهج التعليم القرآني في دولة قطر دراسة تأصيلية"هذا البحث ممول من قبل جامعة قطر - منحة دعم الأبحاث الداخلية التكاملية 2020 _ المنح الداخلية بجامعة قطر 2-20/21-CSIS-QUCG .هذا وتعتبر نتائج البحث مسؤولية الباحث الرئيس بشكل أساسي"Bu çalışma, Türkiye Müslümanlarının Kur’ân-ı Kerim öğretimine gösterdikleri önemi, onu öğrenme ve ezberleme konusunda çeşitli yöntemlerle adeta yarışırcasına yönelişlerini ortaya koymayı amaçlamakta ve bu yolda oluşan tecrübelerin yaygınlaştırılması, olumlu yansımalarının geliştirilmesi ve güncellenmesi arzusuyla uygulanan metotlara ışık tutmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın konusu olan Türkiye’deki Kur’an öğretimi yapılan kurumlarda uygulanan program ve yöntemlerin araştırılmasında, yapılan anket sonuçlarının pekiştirilmesi ve önemli özelliklerinin tespit edilmesinde tarihsel, deskriptif ve analitik yöntemin yanı sıra karşılaştırma yöntemi takip edilmiştir. Ulaşılan önemli sonuçlardan biri, Türkiye’deki Kur’an kurslarının rolünün ihya edilmesi, uygulanan öğretim yöntemlerinin, küreselleşmeye karşı koyabilmek ve Müslüman kimliği koruyabilmek için çağın gerekleriyle uyumlu biçimde geliştirilmesi için çaba göstermenin zorunluluğudur. Bu çerçevede gerek resmî kurumlarda gerekse bireysel gönüllü çabalar düzeyinde olsun Kur’an kıraati ve ezberleme olgusunun zenginleştirilmesi yolunda yöntemlerin oldukça çeşitlendiği gözlenmiştir. Çalışmanın özgün tarafı akademik araştırmaya konu olmasıdır ki, bu çalışma Katar Üniversitesi tarafından desteklenen “İslam Dünyasında Çağdaş Kur’an Öğretim Yöntemlerinin Katar’daki Kur’an Öğretim Yöntemleriyle Karşılaştırması” başlıklı entegre proje çalışması çerçevesinde yapılan benzer araştırmaların bir devamı mahiyetindedir.This research aims to show the interest of Muslims in Turkey in the Qur’an, and highlight their interest in learning and preserving it, and how they strived to teach it by competitive approaches and mechanisms, and sheds light on these methodologies in order to disseminate their experiences, track their development and benefit from it. As for its methodology, the research adopted the historical, descriptive and analytical approach, as well as the comparative method, in investigating the curricula of Qur’anic schools in Turkey, documenting the results of their studies, analyzing their effects, and extrapolating their most important advantages. The research concluded that the role of the teaching centers in Turkey need to be revived and their curricula should be developed in order to the face the challenges of the globalization; To preserve the Islamic identity, the methods of memorization, followed by official institutions and individual and voluntary efforts, have varied in enriching the phenomenon of reading and memorization, as well as collecting readings in what is known as individualism, and great plurality. This research is relevant to the specialization of researchers and their research interests and is an extension of many research essays in the same field that have already been published in Qatar university’s integrative research grant activities under the title: “Contemporary Qur’anic Education Methods in the Islamic World compared with the Qur’anic curriculum in Qatar - a fundamental study.

Distributed defense scheme for managing DNS reflection attack in network communication systems

Domain Name System (DNS) is based on client-server architecture and employed User Packet Diagram (UDP) protocol to transport requests and responses. Due to UDP supports unreliable connection, malicious users are able to fabricate spoofed DNS requests very easily. Such DNS problems in turn affect numerous other network services and critical in resource utilization. Delay in deploying secure DNS motivates the need for local networks to protect DNS infrastructure. DNS reflection attack for example takes advantage of the DNS response message and results substantially larger than DNS query messages. In this work, we propose a distributed defense scheme in DNS infrastructure to prevent from reflection attack. Our defense scheme aims to prevent spoofed addresses from getting any responses by applying a classification-based packet filtering strategy. Specifically, our local DNS server regularly checked DNS requests in its database in order to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate requests. We invent validation phase in our filtering strategy by getting confirmation before the request stored in local side server. The key idea behind this is to ensure the local DNS database is merely stored legitimate requests and prevent the fake DNS request transferred to users. Our analysis and the corresponding experimental results show that the proposed scheme offers an effective defense solution while implicitly improving network communication traffic

(المناهج المعاصرة للتعليم القرآني في ماليزيا (دراسة تأصيلية تطبيقية = Contemporary curricula for Quranic education in Malaysia (An applied originals study)

تروم هذه الدراسة إلى استكشاف مناهج التدريس القرآني في دولة ماليزيا، وما لها من أدوار حضارية في الحفاظ على الهوية الإسلامية الملايوية، وغرس المفاهيم والقيم الإسلامية في نفوس النشء، وتمكين الهواة منهم من اكتساب مهارات متميزة على المستوى اللغوي، والديني، والخلقي. وذلك من خلال استقراء شبه كامل لما تقوم به مؤسسات تحفيظ وتعليم القرآن الكريم في مختلف المراحل الابتدائية وحتى الدراسات العليا، حيث أكدت الدراسة على أهمية الدرس القرآني في زمن هيمنت عليه قوى الفنون وعلوم التكنولوجيا. كما تسعى هذه الدراسة الجامعة بين النظرية والتطبيق إلى اكتشاف الهدف التعليمي القرآني وما له من دور في صناعة الشخصية الدينية المتألقة والمتفاعلة في المجتمع الماليزي، وبيان دورها التاريخي في تقديم الحلول الاجتماعية المتراكمة. وكان المنهج الملائم لطبيعة هذا البحث هو المنهج الاستقرائي لجمع الأفكار المبثوثة في ثنايا مناهج التحفيظ، ثم المنهج الوصفي، والمنهج التحليلي الإحصائي الذي يحتاج إلى مكابدة عقلية شاملة لدراسة مناهج قرآنية غير عربية وفهمها، ثم القيام بترتيبها وتصنيفها ومقارنتها بغيرها من أجل استنباط معالم ثابتة لتقويمها، وتصحيح مسارها التربوي. ومن نتائج البحث: مراعاة البرامج التعليمية _ في هذه المؤسسات _ للطالب الماليزي علميًّا وسلوكيًّا، ومنها: مراعاة القائم على عملية التَّعَلّمِ _ الأستاذ _ وذلك بتأهيله علميًّا ومهاريًّا وتربويًّا، من خلال برامج مُعَدَّة لهذا الغرض. كما توجد جملة أهداف أخرى ترعى الوسائل التعليمية المتنوعة، والمناهج المتبعة في العملية التعليمية. ******************************************************************************************* This study aims to explore the world of memorization and the curricula of Quranic teaching in the state of Malaysia, and what the civilized roles it plays in preserving the Malay Islamic identity, instilling Islamic concepts in the hearts of young people, and enabling amateurs to acquire distinguished skills at the linguistic, religious, and moral level. This happens through a study of what the departments of Quranic education are doing in the various primary and even graduate levels, where the study emphasized the importance of the Quranic lesson in a time dominated by the forces of arts and technology sciences. This study, which combines theory and practice, also seeks to discover the Quranic educational goal and its role in making the splendid and interacting religious personality in Malaysian society and clarify its historical role in providing a solution to accumulated social problems. The appropriate approach to the nature of this research is the inductive approach to gather the ideas expressed in the folds of memorization approaches, then use the descriptive and analytical method, which requires a comprehensive mental endeavor to study and understand non-Arab Qur'anic curricula, then arrange, classify and compare them with others in order to derive consistent features for their evaluation and correct their educational path