Issuing Sukuk and the Excessive Liquidity in the Islamic Financial Institutions in Jordan

This paper aims to identify Islamic Sukuk, their issuance basis, the latest developments of this instrument in the global market, and to identify Sukuk’s ability to resolve liquidity problems. In addition to some difficulties that confront the Islamic financial system. Also, this paper shows how Sukuk role in supporting the Islamic banking industry and solving some financial crises by analyzing some indicators. Keywords: Islamic banks, Sukuk, excessive liquidity, and banking system in Jordan

Evaluate the Efficiency of Gamma Irradiation and Chitosan on Shelf-Life of Strawberries Fruits

Chitosan play an important role as an antifungal against Botrytis cinerea and the effect was a concentration dependent. The obtained results of in vitro experiment demonstrated that chitosan (4%) decreased radial growth of B. cinereato 2 %. Invivo the severity of infection reduced from 59.8 and 100.0 to 9.7, 33.8 and 40.1 in first, second and third week's storage periods at 13C, respectively. Also, chitosan coating (4%) significantly caused an increase in fruit firmness whereas TSS was decreased with an increase by increasing in storage time. However,Vitamin C gave fluctuated results by increasing storage time. Gamma irradiation at 2.5 KGy reduced severity (%) of infected fruits from 55.5, 100 and 100 to 31.7, 45.9 and 49.9 and in healthy fruits severity (%) reduced from 48.9, 100 and 100 to 23.3, 25.1 and 29.1 in different storage periods 1, 2 and 3 weeks, respectively. Similarly, chitosan as well as gamma irradiation combination induced a significant increase of peroxidase enzyme (POD) activity. Induced changes in surface morphology and damage of cell structure caused by using chitosan shown by scanning electron microscopy. Also, gamma irradiation causes changes in hyphea structure and in surface morphology but combination of gamma irradiation with chitosan was more effective in altering fungus morphology and cell structure damage and no spore forming. This providing the efficiency of combination on reducing disease severity (%) of strawberry

Important lessons on FGM/C abandonment from four research studies in Egypt

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) continues to be a widespread practice in Egypt. According to the 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey, the prevalence of FGM/C was 92 percent among ever-married women aged 15–49. However, Egypt continues to witness a drastic surge in the medicalization of FGM/C, with 74 percent of women aged 19 years and younger circumcised by medical practitioners, compared to 55 percent in 1995. This policy brief provides key results and recommendations of four studies conducted by the Population Council/ Egypt under the Evidence to End FGM/C project, in coordination with Egypt’s National Population Council. The four studies investigated the process through which families reach a decision on FGM/C; study the impact of FGM/C campaigns on the perspectives surrounding the practice; examine the characteristics of abandoners and challenges they face in maintaining their position; and understand the drivers of the medicalization of the practice. The ultimate goal of the studies, conducted between 2016 and 2019, is to assist the National Taskforce for Ending Female Genital Mutilation/Circumcision in developing evidence-based policies and programs to accelerate the abandonment of FGM/C

A new feature-based wavelet completed local ternary pattern (FEAT-WCLTP) for texture and medical image classification

Nowadays, texture image descriptors are used in many important real-life applications. The use of texture analysis in texture and medical image classification has attracted considerable attention. Local Binary Patterns (LBP) is one of the simplest yet eff ective texture descriptors. But it has some limitations that may affect its accuracy. Hence, different variants of LBP were proposed to overcome LBP’s drawbacks and enhance its classification accuracy. Completed local ternary pattern (CLTP) is one of the significant LBP variants. However, CLTP suffers from two main limitations: the selection of the threshold value is manually based and the high dimensionality which is negatively affected the descriptor performance and leads to high computations. This research aims to improve the classification accuracy of CLTP and overcome the computational limitation by proposing new descriptors inspired by CLTP. Therefore, this research introduces two contributions: The first one is a proposed new descriptor that integrates redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT) with the original CLTP, namely, wavelet completed local ternary pattern (WCLTP). Extracting CLTP in wavelet transform will help increase the classification accuracy due to the shift invariant property of RDWT. Firstly, the image is decomposed into four sub-bands (LL, LH, HL, HH) by using RDWT. Then, CLTP is extracted based on the LL wavelet coefficients. The latter one is the reduction in the dimensionality of WCLTP by reducing its size and a proposed new texture descriptor, namely, feature-based wavelet completed local ternary pattern (FeatWCLTP). The proposed Feat-WCLTP can enhance CLTP’s performance and reduce high dimensionality. The mean and variance of the values of the selected texture pattern are used instead of the normal magnitude texture descriptor of CLTP. The performance of the proposed WCLTP and Feat-WCLTP was evaluated using four textures (i.e. OuTex, CUReT, UIUC and Kylberg) and two medical (i.e. 2D HeLa and Breast Cancer) datasets then compared with several well-known LBP variants. The proposed WCLTP outperformed the previous descriptors and achieved the highest classification accuracy in all experiments. The results for the texture dataset are 99.35% in OuTex, 96.57% in CUReT, 94.80% in UIUC and 99.88% in the Kylberg dataset. The results for the medical dataset are 84.19% in the 2D HeLa dataset and 92.14% in the Breast Cancer dataset. The proposed Feat-WCLTP not only overcomes the dimensionality problem but also considerably improves the classification accuracy. The results for Feat-WCLTP for texture dataset are 99.66% in OuTex, 96.89% in CUReT, 95.23% in UIUC and 99.92% in the Kylberg dataset. The results for the medical dataset are 84.42% in the 2D HeLa dataset and 89.12% in the Breast Cancer dataset. Moreover, the proposed Feat-WCLTP reduces the size of the feature vector for texture pattern (1,8) to 160 bins instead of 400 bins in WCLTP. The proposed WCLTP and Feat-WCLTP have better classification accuracy and dimensionality than the original CLTP

Mycosis Fungoides Diagnosis Using TOX Versus Old Panel Immunohistochemical Markers

Background: For primary cutaneous lymphoma, mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most prevalent form with skin-homing T cells plus clonal proliferation of CD4. In many CTCLs, thymocyte selection associated with the HMG-box (TOX) is an uncontrolled gene, together with MF in comparison with controls. Early mycosis fungoides is difficult to diagnose, and, its distinction from inflammatory diseases is sometimes impossible. Objective: In this study, we compared the TOX vs C7 and CD4 expression as an early mycosis fungoides diagnostic markers & to assess their ability to differentiate Mycosis fungoides from benign cutaneous inflammatory diseases (BCID). Materials and methods: 60 patients who had been previously diagnosed as MF (30 cases) and BCID (30 cases). All were evaluated histopathologically using H & E and immunohistochemically staining for TOX, CD7 & CD 4. Results: There was statistically significant difference between MF and BCID with increased TOX, CD7 & CD4 expression among MF than among BCID and ability of TOX to detect all true positive cases (100.0%) compared to 83.3% for CD4 and 13.3% for CD7. TOX had the highest sensitivity (100.0%) and accuracy (88.3%) followed by CD4 with sensitivity of 88.3% and accuracy of 66.7%, (P < 0.001). Conclusion: TOX had the highest sensitivity (100.0%) & accuracy (88.3%) followed by CD4 with sensitivity of 88.3% and accuracy of 66.7%. Our results suggest that TOX is a useful marker in diagnosis of MF & differentiating it from BCID

Providing new opportunities to adolescent girls in socially conservative settings: The Ishraq program in rural Upper Egypt [Arabic]

In the absence of intervention, poor, rural, unschooled girls in conservative and low-income communities throughout West Asia and North Africa, and indeed elsewhere, are destined to a life of poverty, illiteracy, early marriage, high fertility, and poor health. This report describes Ishraq, a well-designed, multidimensional skill-building program, that has altered this scenario in Upper Egypt by intervening early (around the time of puberty). The challenge for Ishraq is to link these girls, their families, and communities to the widening opportunities and rights structures of their countries through political participation, strong partnerships, and effective links among civil society, local and national governments, and NGOs. This report describes how Ishraq has set the stage for change in the original four communities with an approach that has challenged national-level decisionmakers to move substantially beyond conventional youth-serving initiatives whose beneficiaries were urban, older, and often male

Isolation and screening of some medically important fungi from indoor environment: Studying the effect of some environmental and chemical factors on their growth and spore adhesion

Isolation of some pathogenic fungi from indoor environment that may cause diseases to athletes was the goal of this work. The effect of different cloth materials and some environmental factors on the growth and adhesion of the isolated fungi as Aspergillus sydowii, Cochliobolus hawaiiensis, Cochliobolus lunatus, Epicoccum nigrum, Nigrospora oryzae, Penicillium aurantiogriseum, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Aspergillus niger, Cochliobolus australiensis, Stemphylium botryosum, Alternaria. alternata, Fusarium chlamydosporum, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus versicolor was investigated. By studying the effect of different cloth materials, at temperatures (18, 25 and 35°C) and at pH values (4, 5.6, 8), it was concluded that cloth material, 74% cotton - 25% polyester- 1% elasthan (C.P.E) was the lowest in susceptibility to fungal attack. The fungal pathogens growth was favored at 35°C and pH 8 after two days of incubation while, after five days the growth was favored at 25 and 35°C at pH 5.6 and pH 8. Alter. alternata and A. flavus were selected for studying their spore adhesion on different cloth material samples. Also, their sensitivity for detergents and drugs on different cloth material samples was carried out.Key words: Pathogenic fungi, athletes, fungal adhesion, antimicrobial activity

Various Factors Affecting Students Performances In A Saudi Medical School

Objective: There are various demographic and educational factors that affect the academic performance of undergraduate medical students. The objective of this study is to identify these factors and correlate them to the GPA of the students. Methods: A cross-sectional study design utilizing grade point averages (GPAs) of two cohorts of students in both levels of the pre-clinical phase. In addition, self-administered questionnaire was used to evaluate the effect of these factors on students with poor and good cumulative GPA. Results: Among the various factors studied, gender, marital status, and the transportation used to reach the faculty significantly affected academic performance of students. Students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or greater significantly differed than those with a GPA of less than 3.0 being higher in female students, in married students, and type of transportation used to reach the college. Factors including age, educational factors, and type of transportation used have shown to create a significant difference in GPA between male and females. Conclusion: Factors such as age, gender, marital status, learning resources, study time, and the transportation used have been shown to significantly affect medical student GPA as a whole batch as well as when they are tested for gender

Metal composition and contamination assessment of urban roadway dusts on the Abu Dhabi-Liwa Highway, UAE

The metal composition of road-deposited dust along the Abu Dhabi-Liwa Highway was investigated to provide insight into the contamination profile and levels of road dust. The average concentrations of metals decreased in the order Al (28668 ± 4631 mg/kg)\u3e Fe (21461 ± 2594 mg/kg) \u3e Mn (711.8 ± 76.3 mg/kg) \u3e Zn (210.6 ± 51.6 mg/kg) \u3e Cu (94.9 ± 15.8 mg/kg) \u3e Pb (83.6 ± 5.3 mg/kg) \u3e Cd (75.1 ± 1.6 mg/kg) \u3e Co (62.6 ± 6.4 mg/kg) \u3e As (4.7 ± 2.9 mg/kg) \u3e Ni (0.10 ± 0.19 mg/kg) \u3e Cr (0.08 ± 0.06 mg/kg). The spatial variations of metals suggest different sources and contributing factors for these metals, with most dust metals having mixed traffic and non-traffic origins. The contamination factor (CF) and enrichment factor (EF) showed identically the same order, Cd\u3e Pb\u3e As\u3e Zn\u3e Co\u3e Cu\u3e Mn\u3e Ni\u3e Cr, whereas the geoaccumulation index (Igeo) follows a slightly different ranking, Cd\u3e Pb\u3e Zn\u3e Co\u3e As\u3e Cu\u3e Mn\u3e Ni\u3e Cr. Based on EF and CF levels, roadway dusts are enriched in all metals, except for Ni and Cr. Similarly, the average Igeo values show differing rates of pollution for all metals except for Mn, Ni, and Cr. All pollution indicators suggest extreme pollution with Cd. The pollution loading index values showed sites 1–10 are generally polluted, while sampling sites from 11 to 19 are unpolluted with decreasing pollution loadings. Dusts collected from both sides of highway were higher in metal content than those obtained from the central reservation area. This may be due to the prevailing southeast wind direction, resuspension of road dust, and farmlands, among others. Soils bordering the highway showed high metal contents with potential consequences on the agricultural products