THE ROLE OF PROSTAGLANDIN (PGE2) IN ALVEOLAR BONE DESTRUCTION

Inflammation chronic diseases in gingiva and periodontium tissue cause destruction of alveolar bone. Periodontopathy bacteria cause periodontal tissue destruction by host cell activating system, such as prostaglandin. PGE2 induce bone resorption and MMP secretion (Academic report, 1999). Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) is formed as a result of the metabolism of arachidonic acid. It participates in inflammatory response. Prostaglandin cause alveolar bone destruction by osteoclast activating. Beside it, it enhance calcium metabolism

CHARACTERIZATION AND BIOACTIVE PROPERTIES OF YOUNG AND MATURE SOYBEAN AND THEIR PROTEIN HYDROLYSATES

Soybeans are known for their high protein content that could be substituted for animal proteins. The potential bioactive properties of mature soybean (MS) proteins and their hydrolysates have been widely explored. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare various in-vitro bioactive properties (antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-obesity, and anti-inflammatory) of young soybean (YS) and MS flour and their protein hydrolysates when subjected to in-vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion (SGID) and enzymatic hydrolysis, respectively. In the first phase, SGID of YS and MS flour was carried out to mimic the human digestion, while in the second phase, enzymatic hydrolysis of the soybean protein isolate was carried out by alcalde, bromelain, and flavorsome for 2, 4, and 6 h in order to produce different protein hydrolysates. The results showed that upon in-vitro SGID, the total phenolic content (TPC) significantly increased, and was higher in YS compared to MS (P\u3c0.05). YS and MS flour varied in their inhibitory activity against -amylase (AA), dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV), pancreatic lipase (LIP), and cholesterol esterase (CE) enzymes when subjected to simulated gastric digestion (P\u3c0.05) followed by a decrease in the inhibitory activity upon simulated intestinal digestion stage. Furthermore, MS flour exhibited higher antioxidant and anti-inflammatory (AI) activities than YS when subjected to SGID (P\u3c0.05). The results of the enzymatic hydrolysis in the second phase revealed that the YS and MS protein hydrolysates displayed enhanced inhibitory activity against AA, DPP-IV, LIP, and CE enzymes when hydrolyzed by different enzymes for different time periods (P\u3c0.05). Antioxidant and AI activities were also found to be higher in hydrolysates compared to intact proteins for both YS and MS proteins (P\u3c0.05). In conclusion, the bioactive properties of YS and MS flour upon SGID and proteins upon enzymatic hydrolysis were enhanced compared to unhydrolyzed samples. Further research is needed to identify the sequence of bioactive peptides responsible for different bioactive properties of YS and MS proteins

Introducing conventional human resources practices as part of civil service reform in Qatar 2006-2016

Qatar in the Arabian Gulf is one of many states worldwide trying to improve governance. In 2008, Qatar introduced various ‘human resources management (HRM) practices to improve management of employees. However, there is a growing belief that importing undiluted systems based on other cultures may potentially erode local Arab culture significantly and harmfully. The research project aimed to evaluate if Government Ministries in Qatar can use principally Western HRM theory and practice to manage employees successfully while still allowing them to preserve and strengthen Arab and Islamic values and identity. Some months into the project which commenced in 2006, the State initiated further major reforms and introduced new Ministers and top executive teams in each of 13 newly created Ministries. This created much additional noise in the data making it difficult to separate the effects of wider reforms from those caused by new HRM practices. Given the difficulties of using more conventional statistical analysis techniques, research then adopted a Mixed-Methods Exploratory Sequential Research Design the research completed extensive and detailed research into HRM systems in place in each Ministry. It also collected data and information about perceptions of executives about HR reforms, leadership and management style and other salient factors. The research reached eleven important findings. Among these, the findings showed the people management systems bore much closer resemblance to classic personnel management system. This negated any likely benefits of introducing HRM. The findings also found considerable differences between the national culture of Qatar and that of the West, from where the State drew many of its new ideas for reform. Adoption of such culturally dissimilar systems had the potential to offset efforts to preserve the Gulf’s highly distinctive culture. The work also make practical recommendations with which reform efforts could be improved, though not at the expense of local culture. The thesis completes with recommendations for further research

Employing Modern Teaching Strategies and Their Practices in the Light of Teaching Quality Standards of the Faculty Members at College of Science and Arts in Shroura

The present study aimed at knowing the modern teaching strategies used in the College of Science and Arts in Shroura Governorate; and identifying the right practices of selecting and implementing  those strategies. It also aimed at investigating  the extent of the faculty members adherence to those practices.  To achieve that aim, a questionnaire was prepared and administered on 64 faculty members (33 females and 31 males). The sample of the students consisted of 161. (64 males and 97 females). The results showed that many of modern teaching strategies are employed and there is a good amount of quality in using the proper teaching strategies with different degrees. The range of employing modern strategies was high and moderate respectively. The sample stated that the faculty  members use the traditional strategies (Lectures, dialogue and discussion) with high degree. Statistically significant differences were found between faculty  members and students in using modern teaching strategies and in the quality of using modern strategies and practices of teaching. Keywords: teaching strategies, quality standards, teaching practices, faculty members

Analysis of contrast-enhanced medical images.

Early detection of human organ diseases is of great importance for the accurate diagnosis and institution of appropriate therapies. This can potentially prevent progression to end-stage disease by detecting precursors that evaluate organ functionality. In addition, it also assists the clinicians for therapy evaluation, tracking diseases progression, and surgery operations. Advances in functional and contrast-enhanced (CE) medical images enabled accurate noninvasive evaluation of organ functionality due to their ability to provide superior anatomical and functional information about the tissue-of-interest. The main objective of this dissertation is to develop a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) system for analyzing complex data from CE magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The developed CAD system has been tested in three case studies: (i) early detection of acute renal transplant rejection, (ii) evaluation of myocardial perfusion in patients with ischemic heart disease after heart attack; and (iii), early detection of prostate cancer. However, developing a noninvasive CAD system for the analysis of CE medical images is subject to multiple challenges, including, but are not limited to, image noise and inhomogeneity, nonlinear signal intensity changes of the images over the time course of data acquisition, appearances and shape changes (deformations) of the organ-of-interest during data acquisition, determination of the best features (indexes) that describe the perfusion of a contrast agent (CA) into the tissue. To address these challenges, this dissertation focuses on building new mathematical models and learning techniques that facilitate accurate analysis of CAs perfusion in living organs and include: (i) accurate mathematical models for the segmentation of the object-of-interest, which integrate object shape and appearance features in terms of pixel/voxel-wise image intensities and their spatial interactions; (ii) motion correction techniques that combine both global and local models, which exploit geometric features, rather than image intensities to avoid problems associated with nonlinear intensity variations of the CE images; (iii) fusion of multiple features using the genetic algorithm. The proposed techniques have been integrated into CAD systems that have been tested in, but not limited to, three clinical studies. First, a noninvasive CAD system is proposed for the early and accurate diagnosis of acute renal transplant rejection using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). Acute rejection–the immunological response of the human immune system to a foreign kidney–is the most sever cause of renal dysfunction among other diagnostic possibilities, including acute tubular necrosis and immune drug toxicity. In the U.S., approximately 17,736 renal transplants are performed annually, and given the limited number of donors, transplanted kidney salvage is an important medical concern. Thus far, biopsy remains the gold standard for the assessment of renal transplant dysfunction, but only as the last resort because of its invasive nature, high cost, and potential morbidity rates. The diagnostic results of the proposed CAD system, based on the analysis of 50 independent in-vivo cases were 96% with a 95% confidence interval. These results clearly demonstrate the promise of the proposed image-based diagnostic CAD system as a supplement to the current technologies, such as nuclear imaging and ultrasonography, to determine the type of kidney dysfunction. Second, a comprehensive CAD system is developed for the characterization of myocardial perfusion and clinical status in heart failure and novel myoregeneration therapy using cardiac first-pass MRI (FP-MRI). Heart failure is considered the most important cause of morbidity and mortality in cardiovascular disease, which affects approximately 6 million U.S. patients annually. Ischemic heart disease is considered the most common underlying cause of heart failure. Therefore, the detection of the heart failure in its earliest forms is essential to prevent its relentless progression to premature death. While current medical studies focus on detecting pathological tissue and assessing contractile function of the diseased heart, this dissertation address the key issue of the effects of the myoregeneration therapy on the associated blood nutrient supply. Quantitative and qualitative assessment in a cohort of 24 perfusion data sets demonstrated the ability of the proposed framework to reveal regional perfusion improvements with therapy, and transmural perfusion differences across the myocardial wall; thus, it can aid in follow-up on treatment for patients undergoing the myoregeneration therapy. Finally, an image-based CAD system for early detection of prostate cancer using DCE-MRI is introduced. Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy among men and remains the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the USA with more than 238,000 new cases and a mortality rate of about 30,000 in 2013. Therefore, early diagnosis of prostate cancer can improve the effectiveness of treatment and increase the patient’s chance of survival. Currently, needle biopsy is the gold standard for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. However, it is an invasive procedure with high costs and potential morbidity rates. Additionally, it has a higher possibility of producing false positive diagnosis due to relatively small needle biopsy samples. Application of the proposed CAD yield promising results in a cohort of 30 patients that would, in the near future, represent a supplement of the current technologies to determine prostate cancer type. The developed techniques have been compared to the state-of-the-art methods and demonstrated higher accuracy as shown in this dissertation. The proposed models (higher-order spatial interaction models, shape models, motion correction models, and perfusion analysis models) can be used in many of today’s CAD applications for early detection of a variety of diseases and medical conditions, and are expected to notably amplify the accuracy of CAD decisions based on the automated analysis of CE images

Does visual letter similarity modulate masked form priming in young readers of Arabic?

Available online 19 January 2018 Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.We carried out a masked priming lexical decision experiment to study whether visual letter similarity plays a role during the initial phases of word processing in young readers of Arabic (fifth graders). Arabic is ideally suited to test these effects because most Arabic letters share their basic shape with at least one other letter and differ only in the number/position of diacritical points (e.g., ض - ص ;ظ - ط ;غ - ع ;ث - ت - ن ب ;ذ - د ;خ - ح - ج ;ق - ف ;ش - س ;ز - ر). We created two one-letter-different priming conditions for each target word, in which a letter from the consonantal root was substituted by another letter that did or did not keep the same shape (e.g., خدمة - حدمة vs. خدمة - فدمة). Another goal of the current experiment was to test the presence of masked orthographic priming effects, which are thought to be unreliable in Semitic languages. To that end, we included an unrelated priming condition. We found a sizable masked orthographic priming effect relative to the unrelated condition regardless of visual letter similarity, thereby revealing that young readers are able to quickly process the diacritical points of Arabic letters. Furthermore, the presence of masked orthographic priming effects in Arabic suggests that the word identification stream in Indo-European and Semitic languages is more similar than previously thought.This article was made possible by a National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) award (Grant No. 6-378-5-035z) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation)

Does visual letter similarity modulate masked form priming in young readers of Arabic?

Available online 19 January 2018 Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.We carried out a masked priming lexical decision experiment to study whether visual letter similarity plays a role during the initial phases of word processing in young readers of Arabic (fifth graders). Arabic is ideally suited to test these effects because most Arabic letters share their basic shape with at least one other letter and differ only in the number/position of diacritical points (e.g., ض - ص ;ظ - ط ;غ - ع ;ث - ت - ن ب ;ذ - د ;خ - ح - ج ;ق - ف ;ش - س ;ز - ر). We created two one-letter-different priming conditions for each target word, in which a letter from the consonantal root was substituted by another letter that did or did not keep the same shape (e.g., خدمة - حدمة vs. خدمة - فدمة). Another goal of the current experiment was to test the presence of masked orthographic priming effects, which are thought to be unreliable in Semitic languages. To that end, we included an unrelated priming condition. We found a sizable masked orthographic priming effect relative to the unrelated condition regardless of visual letter similarity, thereby revealing that young readers are able to quickly process the diacritical points of Arabic letters. Furthermore, the presence of masked orthographic priming effects in Arabic suggests that the word identification stream in Indo-European and Semitic languages is more similar than previously thought.This article was made possible by a National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) award (Grant No. 6-378-5-035z) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation)

Evaluation of the Downtime of Radiological Equipment in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria

Radiology equipment should have minimal downtime and provide outputs of high reliability to ensure prompt and accurate diagnosis. Prolonged downtime affects the moral, productivity of radiographers, radiologists and patients are unduly delayed in accessing radiological services. The study was aimed at evaluating the downtime of the radiological equipment in Kano metropolis, Nigeria. The study design was retrospective conducted in some selected hospitals and a private center in the Kano metropolis from April 2019 to November 2019. An ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Human Research and Ethics Committee of the Kano State Ministry of Health. Purposive sampling method was used in selecting the hospitals and the private center. The model, year of installation and the downtime obtained from the records of all the selected equipment was recorded on the data capture sheet. Center I had the highest frequency of equipment breakdown (5times) while center IV and VI had the lowest frequency of breakdown (once). The equipment with the most prolonged and second most prolonged was found in Center IV (10years, 6months and 7years, 3 months). The equipment with the shortest downtime was found in Center II (1day) and the second shortest was found in Center III and VI (1week) each. X-ray machines had the most prolonged downtime followed by CT. MRI had the shortest downtime. Radiological equipment in Kano metropolis is associated with frequent breakdown and prolonged downtime. Keywords: Downtime, Radiological Equipment, Kano metropoli