Effects of Fresh, Unprocessed Green Tea Camelia Sinensis Extract on Liver Function, Lipid Profile (Cholesterol and Triglycerides), Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and Cortisol in Normal Healthy Subjects

Fresh, unprocessed Green teaCamelia sinensisis commonly consumed in several regions of Saudi Arabia. Green tea has been used for centuries as a medical drink. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of fresh, unprocessedgreen tea on liver function,cholestrol,triglyceride,thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH),and cortisol and in humans. Atotal of 25 healthy adult subjects age range (20-30) years old participated in this study as volunteers.Fresh, unprocessed green tea containing approximately 25 whole stem and leaves (approximately 15g)were given to each volunteer to be used for two weeks with daily consumption between 3-5 cups/day. Pre-drinking fasting blood samples were collected from each volunteerand another fasting blood samples werecollcted again after finshing the period of drinking. The serum collected were assayed for; lipid profile (cholesterol and triglycerides), liver function (total protein,albumin,Alkaline phospatase(ALP), Aspartate aminotransferase(AST),Alanine aminotransferase(ALT), Gamma-glutamyl transferase(GGT) and total bilirubin),thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and cortisol.The results showed that unprocessed green tea causes significant increase in albumin,Abumin/ Gloulin ratioand TSH, while it caused significant decrease inglobulins,Triglyceride,Cholestroland ALP.We concluded that fresh unprocessed green tea has powerful specific metabolic activities of intestine, liver, and lipids comparable to green processed tea to improve their functions

The stigma of pigmentary disorders

One of the major barriers to individuals with pigmentary disorders in achieving their life goals is the stigma of their disorder. This paper provides a review of the existing research regarding stigma reduction, focusing on public stigma, and looking at approaches used within the mental health and other stigmatized communities. A main focus of pigmentary disorder advocates is to eliminate this stigma to remove the barrier it has on success and self-efficacy. Approaching this task from a perspective well-informed by previous research is important to both ensure that stigma reduction resources are spent wisely, and that anti-stigma approaches are effective

Phenotypic and nuclear DNA variation in Tunisian cultivars of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.)

The aim of this study was to assess the morphological diversity of the five most important and widely consumed Tunisian date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivars and the possible relationship between phenotypic variation and genome size and ploidy, since polyploidy can occur in this species. Five Tunisian palm date cultivars were evaluated, based on morphological traits and nuclear DNA content. The analysis of variance revealed statistically highly-significant differences among cultivars (Alig, Bsser, Deglet Nour, Kinticha and Hamra) for average palm length (LP) (m), perianth diameter (PD) (mm), pulp thickness (ThP) (cm), 30 fresh fruit weight (30 FrW) (g), 30 fresh seed weight (30 SW) (g), 30 SW/30 FrW ratio (%), fresh seed length (SL) (cm), fresh seed width (SWi) (cm) and water content (WaC) (%). The relationship among these characters was analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA), resulting in the separation of these cultivars into three groups. The first group included Alig and Deglet Nour, characterized by high values for perianth diameter, pulp thickness, 30 fresh fruit weight and water content. The cultivar Hamra (H) formed a separate group, characterized by high values for seed width, 30 seed weight, 30 seed weight /30fruit weight ratio and seed length. This study shows that certain Tunisian cultivars, apart from Deglet Nour (Alig and Hamra), are particularly recommended for future selection and breeding programs. The morphological variation was not due to differences in ploidy, since the tested cultivars had 2C nuclear DNA contents of 1.729 to 1.80 pg and were all diploids (2n = 2x = 36). The data suggested that the Tunisian cultivars have limited geographical distribution and that P. dactylifera is an ancestral species.Key words: Date palm, fruit, genome size, morphological traits, seed

Time series forecasting for dynamic environments: The DyFor Genetic Program model

Copyright © 2007 IEEESeveral studies have applied genetic programming (GP) to the task of forecasting with favorable results. However, these studies, like those applying other techniques, have assumed a static environment, making them unsuitable for many real-world time series which are generated by varying processes. This study investigates the development of a new ldquodynamicrdquo GP model that is specifically tailored for forecasting in nonstatic environments. This dynamic forecasting genetic program (DyFor GP) model incorporates features that allow it to adapt to changing environments automatically as well as retain knowledge learned from previously encountered environments. The DyFor GP model is tested for forecasting efficacy on both simulated and actual time series including the U.S. Gross Domestic Product and Consumer Price Index Inflation. Results show that the performance of the DyFor GP model improves upon that of benchmark models for all experiments. These findings highlight the DyFor GP's potential as an adaptive, nonlinear model for real-world forecasting applications and suggest further investigations.Neal Wagner, Zbigniew Michalewicz, Moutaz Khouja, and Rob Roy McGrego

Security and privacy recommendation of mobile app for Arabic speaking

There is an enormous number of mobile apps, leading users to be concerned about the security and privacy of their data. But few users are aware of what is meant by app permissions, which sometimes do not illustrate what kind of data is gathered. Therefore, users are still concerned about security risks and privacy, with little knowledge and experience of what security and privacy awareness. Users depend on ratings, which may be fake, or keep track of their sense to install an app, and an enormous number of users do not like to read reviews. To solve this issue, we propose a recommender system that reads users' reviews, and which exposes flaws, violations and third-party policies or the quality of a user's experience. In order to design and implement our recommender, we conduct a survey which supports two significant points: to detect the level of security and privacy awareness between users, and to gather new words into a dictionary of a recommender system, which assists to classify each review on the correct level, which can indeed reveal the scale of security and privacy in an app

Newton-Type Methods For Simultaneous Matrix Diagonalization

This paper proposes a Newton-type method to solve numerically the eigenproblem of several diagonalizable matrices, which pairwise commute. A classical result states that these matrices are simultaneously diagonalizable. From a suitable system of equations associated to this problem, we construct a sequence that converges quadratically towards the solution. This construction is not based on the resolution of a linear system as is the case in the classical Newton method. Moreover, we provide a theoretical analysis of this construction and exhibit a condition to get a quadratic convergence. We also propose numerical experiments, which illustrate the theoretical results.Comment: Calcolo, Springer Verlag, 202

Reform of financing healthcare services in the GCC: focus on establishing health insurance system in KSA

This paper reviews healthcare systems and their financing in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and how they provide healthcare to the growing number of expatriates in the region. The paper focuses on the health system reform in Saudi Arabia as it is establishing a National Health Insurance system. The goal of this policy change is to increase the participation of the private sector in the health care market and decrease the cost of providing healthcare services on the government. It is also expected to have a positive effect on access to healthcare, effectiveness, efficiency, cost, quality of care, adaptation of new technology and utilization of healthcare services. We review the existing literature that covers health system problems and the new health system reform in Saudi Arabia. We also give a description of healthcare provided for expatriates in the GCC and Saudi Arabia as they form a significant percentage of the population. In addition, we conduct interviews with health professionals and managers in Saudi Arabia to get their insight on the new health system reform and how it will effect healthcare provision for the Saudi population. The public health relevance of this topic: health system reforms are intended to bring out better health outcomes for the populations. As Saudi Arabia is embarking on this change it will be insightful to see if it will bring out the desired effects. Also, providing healthcare for expatriates is a challenge in many countries, if Saudi Arabia succeeds in providing quality healthcare to this segment of the population, other countries could follow the Saudi model

A TQM-Based Systems Development Process

Similar to manufacturing, a critical requirement to achieving high quality in the production of information systems (IS) is the ability to deploy the customers\u27 desires throughout the systems development process(SDP). The MIS literature has long recognized the importance of user involvement in the SDP (Davis, 1989; Davis, Bagozi, and Warshaw, 1989). The major objective of user involvement is to develop high quality systems with which users are comfortable and satisfied. Thespecification of requirements and the subsequent conversion of these requirements into a useful system is often a complex process. It is imperative to be able to capture user requirements accurately and in a fashion that is conducive to their transfer to a development methodology. This can result in detailed design specifications that reflect the user quality concerns and can lead to efficient and effective implementation. It is often assumed that the existing systems analysis, design, and implementation methodologies allow developers to document and keep track of the user requirements thus enabling development of an end product with which users are satisfied. Situations where users are dissatisfied with a system are nevertheless not uncommon. This dissatisfaction is the result of the users\u27 perceptions of quality not being met. Careful attention to details and user involvement in the development process increase the potential for, but do not guarantee, a high-quality system. It is important to realize thatthe traditional systems development methodologies do not explicitly document user quality attributes. They also make no provisions for ensuring that those quality characteristics are properly and systematically considered throughout the various stages of the development process. It is possible that some user requirements such as ease of use, maintenance, and security are not captured in data and process modeling. It may also be the case that quality features related to hardware or support services and other user requirements are either not explicitly considered or they vanish in the stepwise refinement process, which typically emphasizes software. This paper highlights limitations of the traditional systems analysis and design methods as they relate to user perceptions and measures of quality, and proposes a method of integrating quality function deployment into the SD