Investigation of optical and electrical properties of Cobalt-doped Ge-Sb-S thin film

Amorphous Germanium Antimony Sulphide (Ge-Sb-S) doped with Cobalt (Co) have been deposited on glass substrates by thermal evaporation technique on a glass substrate. The films deposited onto glass substrates are characterized by Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer, UV–VIS spectrophotometer, Raman spectroscopy, and Capacitance-Voltage Keithley meter. The optical band gap was calculated from the UV–Visible spectrum and found to be 2.05 eV. Raman spectroscopy measurements reveal that a wide band spectrum from 300 to 410 cm−1 centered at 355 cm−1. The Raman shift peaks at 325 cm−1 and 350 cm−1 are as-signed to the bond stretching mode Sb-S and Ge-S, respectively. In addition, from the obtained Raman spectra it is concluded that the presence of Co doped with Ge-Sb-S. The capacitance and conductance versus voltage measurements were performed at different temperatures. The results show a slight increase in the capacitance with temperature and it reaches a maximum value around 150 °C, and eventually it becomes negative. This behavior is interpreted in terms of the nucleation growth process and the thermally activated conduction process with measured activation energy of 0.79 eV.This work is funded by the University Program for Advanced Research - United Arab Emirates University , (project no. 31S313 ).Scopu

Nutritional Status among Children under Five Years in Amman, Jordan

Objectives: There is scarcity of data on malnutrition among children in Jordan. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the nutritional status and estimate the prevalence rates of stunting, underweight, and wasting and their associated factors among children under five. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between January and April 2017 among children under five years in Amman, Jordan. All Jordanian children under five years who visited the selected health centers for vaccination or accompanied their mothers during the study period were included in this study. Mothers or caregivers of children were interviewed face-to face using the study questionnaire. Weight in kilograms and height in centimeters were measured for all children. Anthropometric indices were calculated using reference medians recommended by the World Health Organization. Results: This study included a total of 923 (463 boys and 460 girls) children. The prevalence rates of stunting, underweight, and wasting were 6.2%, 3.8%, and 2.8%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that low birth weight was significantly associated with stunting (OR = 2.9, 95% CI: 1.4,6.0; p-value=0.003) and underweight (OR =5.6, 95% CI: 2.5,12.3, p-value <0.001). Compared to exclusive breastfeeding, mixed feeding was associated with increased odds of stunting (OR =2, 95% CI: 1.1-3.9, p-value =0.029) and underweight (OR = 2.2, 95% CI: 1.002, 5.0; p = 0.049). None of the variables were significantly associated with wasting. Conclusions: The prevalence rates of stunting, wasting and undernutrition among children under five years in Jordan are low. Low birth weight and mixed feeding were associated with higher rates of malnutrition

First report of Q fever in Oman.

Although serologic evidence suggests the presence of Q fever in humans and animals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, acute Q fever has not been reported on the Arabian Peninsula. We report the first two cases of acute Q fever in Oman

Views of Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program Directors Regarding Methods to Increase Female and Under-Represented in Medicine Residents: A Cross-sectional Study

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Diagnostic radiology remains one of the least diverse medical specialties. Recent reports have found that the number of female and under-represented in medicine (URiM) residents have not increased despite efforts to increase representation over the last decade. Given the critical role of residency program directors in selecting diverse applicants, this study was performed to identify which strategies were most preferred to increase the number of female and/or URiM residents by directors of diagnostic radiology residency training programs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was an anonymous, cross-sectional study of diagnostic radiology residency program directors that included a survey about program characteristics, demographics, and strategies to increase the number of female and/or URiM residents. RESULTS: The questionnaire was submitted to 181 potential participants with a 19.9% response rate. The most preferred strategies to increase diversity involved directly recruiting medical students, promoting mentorship, increasing the number of diverse teaching faculty, and unconscious bias training. The least supported strategies included deemphasizing exam scores, accepting more international graduates, accepting a minimum number of female and/or URiM applicants, and de-identifying applications. Female and/or URiM program directors indicated a statistically significant preference for medical student recruitment and providing an opportunity to discuss workplace issues for female and/or URiM trainees (p \u3c 0.05). CONCLUSION: Diagnostic radiology residency program directors endorsed a wide variety of strategies to increase diversity. Recruitment of female and/or URiM medical students and promoting the number of diverse faculty members and mentorship of trainees by these faculty appear to be the most preferred strategies to increase female and/or URiM residents. Female and/or URiM program directors placed a greater importance on recruiting diverse applicants and supporting safe discussion of workplace issues faced by female and/or URiM radiology residents

Evaluation of the Wound Healing Potential of Hypericum triquetrifolium Turra: An Experimental Animal Study and Histopathological Examination

The wound healing potential of the aerial parts of Hypericum triquetrifolium Turra (Hypericaceae) was evaluated using an in vivo excision wound model in rats. Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned into seven groups; blank vehicles (olive oil and petroleum jelly), negative control, treatments [H. triquetrifolium ethanolic extract in petroleum jelly (5% and 10%) and H. triquetrifolium olive oil macerate (100 and 200 g/L)], and positive control (MEBO). Treatments were applied topically once daily until the wounds had completely healed. Wound areas and contraction rates were calculated, and full-thickness samples of the healed skin were collected for histopathological examination. H. triquetrifolium ointment (5%) showed the best wound healing activity with statistically significant differences when compared with the MEBO, petroleum jelly, and the negative control groups. Tissue sections were histopathologically examined in terms of re-epithelialization, granulation tissue development, collagen deposition, inflammatory cell infiltration, angiogenesis, and ulcer formation to support the in vivo excision wound model findings. H. triquetrifolium ointment (5%) showed the best histopathological scores in both re-epithelialization and ulcer formation. For quality control purposes, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was used to quantify key marker compounds in the extract, namely hypericin and rutin which showed a content of 0.64% and 4.46% (w/w), respectively. Based on the experimental results, H. triquetrifolium ointment (5%) exhibits remarkable wound healing properties at various stages of the wound healing process. Further investigations to prove its safety and efficacy in different types of wounds and to uncover its cellular mechanisms are warranted.This work was funded by the Deanship of Research, Jordan University of Science and Technology (Grant number: 122/2017), and Qatar University

Investigation of attentional bias in obsessive compulsive disorder with and without depression in visual search

Copyright: © 2013 Morein-Zamir et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedWhether Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is associated with an increased attentional bias to emotive stimuli remains controversial. Additionally, it is unclear whether comorbid depression modulates abnormal emotional processing in OCD. This study examined attentional bias to OC-relevant scenes using a visual search task. Controls, non-depressed and depressed OCD patients searched for their personally selected positive images amongst their negative distractors, and vice versa. Whilst the OCD groups were slower than healthy individuals in rating the images, there were no group differences in the magnitude of negative bias to concern-related scenes. A second experiment employing a common set of images replicated the results on an additional sample of OCD patients. Although there was a larger bias to negative OC-related images without pre-exposure overall, no group differences in attentional bias were observed. However, OCD patients subsequently rated the images more slowly and more negatively, again suggesting post-attentional processing abnormalities. The results argue against a robust attentional bias in OCD patients, regardless of their depression status and speak to generalized difficulties disengaging from negative valence stimuli. Rather, post-attentional processing abnormalities may account for differences in emotional processing in OCD.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Sodium Stibogluconate (SSG) & Paromomycin Combination Compared to SSG for Visceral Leishmaniasis in East Africa: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a parasitic disease with about 500,000 new cases each year and is fatal if untreated. The current standard therapy involves long courses, has toxicity and there is evidence of increasing resistance. New and better treatment options are urgently needed. Recently, the antibiotic paromomycin (PM) was tested and registered in India to treat this disease, but the same dose of PM monotherapy evaluated and registered in India was not efficacious in Sudan. This article reports the results of a clinical trial to test the effectiveness of injectable PM either alone (in a higher dose) or in combination with sodium stibogluconate (SSG) against the standard SSG monotherapy treatment in four East African countries—Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. The study showed that the combination of SSG &PM was as efficacious and safe as the standard SSG treatment, with the advantages of being cheaper and requiring only 17 days rather than 30 days of treatment. In March 2010, a WHO Expert Committee recommended the use of the SSG & PM combination as a first line treatment for VL in East Africa