Practices and Attitudes to Prevention of Travel-related Infectious Diseases in United Arab Emirates

Introduction: Among the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population more and more people now consider travelling abroad. This is potentially problematic because travelling enhances exposure between hosts and pathogens and so people that travel are putting their health at risk. This concern makes it necessary that public education is provided to inform people of the risks of travelling abroad so that such risks can be minimized. Guidelines and advice on travelling abroad are available and easily accessible but several studies have shown that travellers do not always follow such advice. In this study, the aim was to look into the practices and attitudes of UAE residents in relation to prevention of travel-related infectious diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to April 2015, in different emirates of the UAE. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was developed based on material acquired from similar studies. The methodology applied quota sampling whereby adults above the age of 18 who’d travelled abroad in the past year were chosen from the seven emirates. The number of participants selected from each emirate was proportionate to the population size of each state. Results: A total of 385 questionnaires were completed. A remarkable 70% of respondents indicated that they had not taken on any precautionary measures prior to travel. Of greater interest was that only 21% of participants had taken advice on health prior to travel, while the outstanding majority 79% reported that they had not taken advice. The most common source of advice had been taken from family and friends among those who had taken advice at 41%, while only 15.4% had acquired it from specialized travel medicine clinics. High risk perception, spending more preparation time and travelling for longer durations were important factors that encouraged pretrial health consultation and undertook preventive measures. Conclusion: This study revealed that UAE residents had not taken adequate measures to prevent travel related infectious diseases. Despite the limitations of this study, it still provides sufficient data to improve public health intervention directed at encouraging travellers to acquire pre travel health consultation

Copper-based therapeutics : creating a formulation platform to facilitate development of an emerging drug class

Copper-based therapeutics (CBTs) are a promising class of drug candidates that have been shown to have anti-cancer activity. One of the major challenges associated with developing this emerging class of medicines, however, is their poor aqueous solubility (< 1 mg/mL). This has impeded the transition of these agents from preclinical candidate drugs to lead candidates suitable for use in humans. This thesis describes a novel method for preparing copper-based therapeutics suitable for parenteral administration. The method involves synthesis of the copper complexes in the core of liposomes nanoscaled spherical structures with an aqueous core surrounded by a lipid bilayer). The method provides a simple, transformative solution enabling the development of CBTs as viable candidate anticancer drugs—a brand new class of therapeutics for cancer patients. The potential of this technology was exemplified with several compounds. Diethyldithiocarbamate (DDC) is the primary metabolite of disulfiram, an approved drug for alcoholism that is being repurposed for cancer. The anti-cancer activity of DDC is dependent on complexation with copper (Cu(DDC)₂), which is a highly insoluble complex. An injectable Cu(DDC)₂ formulation was prepared through synthesis of Cu(DDC)₂ inside the aqueous core of liposomes, and the resultant formulation exhibited significant therapeutic activity in two different rodent models of cancer. Clioquinol (CQ) is an approved anti-microbial agent that has potential anti-cancer activity. The activity of CQ is enhanced in some cancer cell lines when complexed to copper. The copper-CQ complex (Cu(CQ)₂) is sparingly soluble in aqueous solution but it is demonstrated that Cu(CQ)₂ can be synthesized inside liposomes. The therapeutic activity of the resultant formulations was, however, not significant. In an effort to identify cancer indications that may benefit most from treatment with CBTs, the therapeutic potential of DDC, pyrithione (Pyr), plumbagin (Plum), 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) and CQ copper complexes was determined in a panel of cancer cell lines that differed in their sensitivity to cisplatin. Cu(DDC)₂, Cu(Pyr)₂, Cu(Plum)₂ and Cu(8-HQ)₂ showed IC₅₀ values less than that of cisplatin in all tested cell lines. This work suggests that future studies with CBTs for cancer should focus on platinum refractory cancers.Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty ofGraduat

K-NN Classification under Homomorphic Encryption: Application on a Labeled Eigen Faces Dataset

The wide deployment of public cloud computing infrastructures has become an appealing solution for the advantages of flexibility and cost saving, but the risk of being exposed to privacy and security issues refrains a lot of customers from risking their sensitive data to the cloud. The data owners do not want to move to the cloud unless the data confidentiality and the privacy of their queries are guaranteed. How can we structure information sharing in the cloud between different parties and fully realize the benefits of cloud computing, and at the same time sensitive attributes/values are kept confidential except for the parties to whom they belong? In this context, we contribute a privacy preserving scheme for face recognition and classification in which a party willing to classify a face instance against a protected face database at the cloud would have this capability without revealing the instance to the cloud or revealing the database to the party

Concomitant Chemoradiation Therapy with Gold Nanoparticles and Platinum Drugs Co-Encapsulated in Liposomes

A liposomal formulation of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and carboplatin, named LipoGold, was produced with the staggered herringbone microfluidic method. The radiosensitizing potential of LipoGold and similar concentrations of non-liposomal GNPs, carboplatin and oxaliplatin was evaluated in vitro with the human colorectal cancer cell line HCT116 in a clonogenic assay. Progression of HCT116 tumor implanted subcutaneously in NU/NU mice was monitored after an irradiation of 10 Gy combined with either LipoGold, GNPs or carboplatin injected directly into the tumor by convection-enhanced delivery. Radiosensitization by GNPs alone or carboplatin alone was observed only at high concentrations of these compounds. Furthermore, low doses of carboplatin alone or a combination of carboplatin and GNPs did not engender radiosensitization. However, the same low doses of carboplatin and GNPs administered simultaneously by encapsulation in liposomal nanocarriers (LipoGold) led to radiosensitization and efficient control of cell proliferation. Our study shows that the radiosensitizing effect of a combination of carboplatin and GNPs is remarkably more efficient when both compounds are simultaneously delivered to the tumor cells using a liposomal carrier

Nanoscale Reaction Vessels Designed for Synthesis of Copper-Drug Complexes Suitable for Preclinical Development

The development of copper-drug complexes (CDCs) is hindered due to their very poor aqueous solubility. Diethyldithiocarbamate (DDC) is the primary metabolite of disulfiram, an approved drug for alcoholism that is being repurposed for cancer. The anticancer activity of DDC is dependent on complexation with copper to form copper bis-diethyldithiocarbamate (Cu(DDC)(2)), a highly insoluble complex that has not been possible to develop for indications requiring parenteral administration. We have resolved this issue by synthesizing Cu(DDC)(2) inside liposomes. DDC crosses the liposomal lipid bilayer, reacting with the entrapped copper; a reaction that can be observed through a colour change as the solution goes from a light blue to dark brown. This method is successfully applied to other CDCs including the anti-parasitic drug clioquinol, the natural product quercetin and the novel targeted agent CX-5461. Our method provides a simple, transformative solution enabling, for the first time, the development of CDCs as viable candidate anticancer drugs; drugs that would represent a brand new class of therapeutics for cancer patients

Sensitivity of Summertime Convection to Aerosol Loading and Properties in the United Arab Emirates

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to investigate convection–aerosol interactions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a summertime convective event. Both an idealized and climatological aerosol distributions are considered. The convection on 14 August 2013 was triggered by the low-level convergence of the cyclonic circulation associated with the Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the daytime sea-breeze circulation. Numerical experiments reveal a high sensitivity to aerosol properties. In particular, replacing 20% of the rural aerosols by carbonaceous particles has a comparable impact on the surface radiative fluxes to increasing the aerosol loading by a factor of 10. In both cases, the UAE-averaged net shortwave flux is reduced by ~90 W m−2 while the net longwave flux increases by ~51 W m−2. However, when the aerosol composition is changed, WRF generates 20% more precipitation than when the aerosol loading is increased, due to a broader and weaker AHL. The surface downward and upward shortwave and upward longwave radiation fluxes are found to scale linearly with the aerosol loading. An increase in the amount of aerosols also leads to drier conditions and a delay in the onset of convection due to changes in the AHL

Sensitivity of Summertime Convection to Aerosol Loading and Properties in the United Arab Emirates

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to investigate convection&ndash;aerosol interactions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a summertime convective event. Both an idealized and climatological aerosol distributions are considered. The convection on 14 August 2013 was triggered by the low-level convergence of the cyclonic circulation associated with the Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the daytime sea-breeze circulation. Numerical experiments reveal a high sensitivity to aerosol properties. In particular, replacing 20% of the rural aerosols by carbonaceous particles has a comparable impact on the surface radiative fluxes to increasing the aerosol loading by a factor of 10. In both cases, the UAE-averaged net shortwave flux is reduced by ~90 W m&minus;2 while the net longwave flux increases by ~51 W m&minus;2. However, when the aerosol composition is changed, WRF generates 20% more precipitation than when the aerosol loading is increased, due to a broader and weaker AHL. The surface downward and upward shortwave and upward longwave radiation fluxes are found to scale linearly with the aerosol loading. An increase in the amount of aerosols also leads to drier conditions and a delay in the onset of convection due to changes in the AHL

Oxidant-Dependent Thermoelectric Properties of Undoped ZnO Films by Atomic Layer Deposition

Extraordinary oxidant-dependent changes in the thermoelectric properties of undoped ZnO thin films deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) have been observed. Specifically, deionized water and ozone oxidants are used in the growth of ZnO by ALD using diethylzinc as a zinc precursor. No substitutional atoms have been added to the ZnO films. By using ozone as an oxidant instead of water, a thermoelectric power factor (σS²) of 5.76 × 10^–4 W m^–1 K^–2 is obtained at 705 K for undoped ZnO films. In contrast, the maximum power factor for the water-based ZnO film is only 2.89 × 10^–4 W m^–1 K^–2 at 746 K. Materials analysis results indicate that the oxygen vacancy levels in the water- and ozone-grown ZnO films are essentially the same, but the difference comes from Zn-related defects present in the ZnO films. The data suggest that the strong oxidant effect on thermoelectric performance can be explained by a mechanism involving point defect-induced differences in carrier concentration between these two oxides and a self-compensation effect in water-based ZnO due to the competitive formations of both oxygen and zinc vacancies. This strong oxidant effect on the thermoelectric properties of undoped ZnO films provides a pathway to improve the thermoelectric performance of this important material