Exposure to the majority social space and residential place identity among minorities: evidence from Arabs in Israel

Contemporary urban fabrics are characterized by ethnic diversity in which considerable portions of minority groups reside in ethnic enclaves. These groups are exposed to the majority populations to different extents in various arenas. The current study addresses the association between exposure to the majority and identification with the ethnic residential environment. It examines this question among Arabs in Israel, who live mostly in distinct ethnic localities constituting part of Israel’s metropolitan areas, and are a native minority subjected to social exclusion and political marginalization. The methodology incorporates quantitative (310 questionnaires) and qualitative (25 in-depth interviews) data. Core findings reveal that exposure to the Jewish majority reduces place identity overall, yet has complex effects on place identity formation. These findings indicate that quality-of-life in the locality, including infrastructure upkeep and opportunities to foster community, are more strongly related to place identity than overt political dimensions. These issues are discussed in the context of encounters with difference and segregation

Modeling the Dependence of Barometric Pressure with Altitude Using Caputo and Caputo–Fabrizio Fractional Derivatives

This work is dedicated to the study of the relationship between altitude and barometric atmospheric pressure. There is a consistent literature on this relationship, out of which an ordinary differential equation with initial value problems is often used for modeling. Here, we proposed a new modeling technique of the relationship using Caputo and Caputo–Fabrizio fractional differential equations. First, the proposed model is proven well-defined through existence and uniqueness of its solution. Caputo–Fabrizio fractional derivative is the main tool used throughout the proof. Then, follow experimental study using real world dataset. The experiment has revealed that the Caputo fractional derivative is the most appropriate tool for fitting the model, since it has produced the smallest error rate of 1.74% corresponding to the fractional order of derivative α = 1.005. Caputo–Fabrizio was the second best since it yielded an error rate value of 1.97% for a fractional order of derivative α = 1.042, and finally the classical method produced an error rate of 4.36%

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy prevalence and associated factors in patients presenting with a clinical picture of acute myocardial infarction in Palestine

Abstract Background Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) is a transient cardiac syndrome that manifests with symptoms resembling acute myocardial infarction (MI). It is characterized by temporary wall-motion abnormalities predominantly affecting the apical and mid-portions of the left ventricle, despite the absence of significant obstructive coronary disease. TC poses diagnostic challenges due to its resemblance to ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. Our study aimed to determine the prevalence of TC and identify the factors associated with its occurrence in patients presenting with acute MI in Palestine. Results A retrospective analysis was conducted on a cohort of patients diagnosed with TC at Al-Makassed hospital. Women accounted for 90.7% of TC cases (95% CI 88.2–93.2%). The mean age of affected individuals ranged from 62 to 76 years. The most common presenting symptoms were chest pain (83.4%, 95% CI 80.0–86.7%) and dyspnea (20.4%, 95% CI 16.3–24.5%), often following an emotionally or physically stressful event. Electrocardiography (ECG) on admission indicated ST-segment elevations in 71.1% of cases (95% CI 67.2–75.1%), accompanied by mild elevations of Troponins in 85.0% of cases (95% CI 80.8–89.1%). Despite the initial severity, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) improved from 20–49.9 to 59–76% within a mean time of 7–37 days. The in-hospital mortality rate was 1.7% (95% CI 0.5–2.8%), with complete recovery observed in 95.9% of cases (95% CI 93.8–98.1%) and rare recurrence. The underlying etiology is believed to involve exaggerated sympathetic stimulation. Conclusions TC should be considered as a significant differential diagnosis in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) cases, particularly among postmenopausal women with a preceding stressful event. Our study provides insights into the prevalence and characteristics of TC in the Palestinian population. While stress has been recognized as a potential trigger for TC, further research is needed to explore if there are specific associations between occupation and other unique stressors in the Palestinian context and the prevalence of TC. The study’s results can raise awareness among healthcare professionals in Palestine about the prevalence and characteristics of TC in their patient population

A solution for fissure-less fissure-last both upper and lower video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomies?

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Immune-centric network of cytokines and cells in disease context identified by computational mining of PubMed

Cytokines are signaling molecules secreted and sensed by immune and other cell types, enabling dynamic intercellular communication. Although a vast amount of data on these interactions exists, this information is not compiled, integrated or easily searchable. Here we report immuneXpresso, a text-mining engine that structures and standardizes knowledge of immune intercellular communication. We applied immuneXpresso to PubMed to identify relationships between 340 cell types and 140 cytokines across thousands of diseases. The method is able to distinguish between incoming and outgoing interactions, and it includes the effect of the interaction and the cellular function involved. These factors are assigned a confidence score and linked to the disease. By leveraging the breadth of this network, we predicted and experimentally verified previously unappreciated cell-cytokine interactions. We also built a global immune-centric view of diseases and used it to predict cytokine-disease associations. This standardized knowledgebase (http://www.immunexpresso.org) opens up new directions for interpretation of immune data and model-driven systems immunology