Developing Counselor Education Identity in UAE: Evaluation of an Undergraduate Program

Counseling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) involves challenges that need to be addressed to promote awareness about the usefulness and application of counseling among scholars, practitioners, and the public. Unlike in many other countries, counselor education in UAE has a short history, dating from 2005. In this investigation, a program evaluation was conducted using SWOT analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the UAE University counselor education program as well as the opportunities and external threats to it. Results yielded several findings with regard to the program’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Findings are discussed within the context of UAE culture

Hardware-Algorithm Co-design Enabling Processing-in-Pixel-in-Memory (P2M) for Neuromorphic Vision Sensors

The high volume of data transmission between the edge sensor and the cloud processor leads to energy and throughput bottlenecks for resource-constrained edge devices focused on computer vision. Hence, researchers are investigating different approaches (e.g., near-sensor processing, in-sensor processing, in-pixel processing) by executing computations closer to the sensor to reduce the transmission bandwidth. Specifically, in-pixel processing for neuromorphic vision sensors (e.g., dynamic vision sensors (DVS)) involves incorporating asynchronous multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations within the pixel array, resulting in improved energy efficiency. In a CMOS implementation, low overhead energy-efficient analog MAC accumulates charges on a passive capacitor; however, the capacitor's limited charge retention time affects the algorithmic integration time choices, impacting the algorithmic accuracy, bandwidth, energy, and training efficiency. Consequently, this results in a design trade-off on the hardware aspect-creating a need for a low-leakage compute unit while maintaining the area and energy benefits. In this work, we present a holistic analysis of the hardware-algorithm co-design trade-off based on the limited integration time posed by the hardware and techniques to improve the leakage performance of the in-pixel analog MAC operations.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Performance of reactivated carbon nanotubes in adsorbing cadmium from aqueous solution

cadmium loaded carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for re-adsorption of the same metal cadmium (Cd). The desorption of cadmium ions (Cd2+) by batch mode laboratory experiments was investigated for hydrochloric and nitric acids, where the former gave better desorption compared to the other acid. Initial experiments revealed that hydrochloric acid (HCl) was better than nitric acid (HNO3)for the desorption of Cd2+ from the CNTs. Optimization study was conducted by design expert software using various molarities of HCl, which resulted in pH of 1.39 (0.1 M), pH 2.43 (0.01 M) and pH 3.53 (0.005 M). Contact time of 20, 50, 80, 110 and 140 minutes were used with fixed agitation of 200 rpm to study the effect of time on the desorption process. Statistical model was developed for the optimum desorption process, which provided a regression model with R2 value of 0.987. The desorbed CNTs were washed with deionized water to remove residual acids and then dried for re-adsorption process. The re-adsorption capacity of cadmium was also determined by batch mode experiments. This study revealed that pH and contact time influenced the desorption and re-adsorption capacity of the CNTs. The optimum condition for desorption was pH 1.39 (0.1 M) hydrochloric acid for 50 minutes agitation. This study also revealed that with this optimum condition, three (3) cycles of desorption process was necessary to remove all cadmium ion from the used CNTs. Re-adsorption capacity of the CNTs, after 3 cycles, was reduced from 8.28 mg/g to 4.23 mg/g. This indicated that about 50% of the adsorption capacity of the CNTs were destroyed or reduced due to the desorption process. Such reduction can also be linked to the destruction of the active sites of the CNT adsorbents

A comparison of multiple testing adjustment methods with block-correlation positively-dependent tests

In high dimensional data analysis (such as gene expression, spatial epidemiology, or brain imaging studies), we often test thousands or more hypotheses simultaneously. As the number of tests increases, the chance of observing some statistically significant tests is very high even when all null hypotheses are true. Consequently, we could reach incorrect conclusions regarding the hypotheses. Researchers frequently use multiplicity adjustment methods to control type I error rates—primarily the family-wise error rate (FWER) or the false discovery rate (FDR)—while still desiring high statistical power. In practice, such studies may have dependent test statistics (or p-values) as tests can be dependent on each other. However, some commonly-used multiplicity adjustment methods assume independent tests. We perform a simulation study comparing several of the most common adjustment methods involved in multiple hypothesis testing, under varying degrees of block-correlation positive dependence among tests

Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Oman: An analysis of 284 cases

Objectives: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of primary liver tumour worldwide and is increasing in incidence. This study aimed to describe the clinical characteristics of HCC among Omani patients, along with its major risk factors, outcomes and the role of surveillance. Methods: This retrospective case-series study was conducted between January 2008 and December 2015 at the three main tertiary care hospitals in Oman. All adult Omani patients diagnosed with HCC and visited these hospitals during the study period were included. Relevant data were collected from the patients’ electronic medical records. Results: A total of 284 HCC patients were included in the analysis. The mean age was 61.02 ± 11.41 years and 67.6% were male. The majority had liver cirrhosis (79.9%), with the most common aetiologies being chronic hepatitis C (46.5%) and B (43.2%). Only 13.7% of cases were detected by the HCC surveillance programme. Approximately half of the patients (48.5%) had a single liver lesion and 31.9% had a liver tumour of >5 cm in size. Approximately half (49.2%) had alpha-fetoprotein levels of ≥200 ng/mL. The majority (72.5%) were diagnosed using multiphase computed tomography alone. Less than half of the patients (48.9%) were offered one or more HCC treatment modalities. Conclusion: The majority of Omani HCC patients were male and had cirrhosis due to viral hepatitis. In addition, few patients were identified by the national surveillance programme and presented with advanced disease precluding therapeutic or even palliative treatment.Keywords: Hepatocellular Carcinoma; Liver Cirrhosis; Human Viral Hepatitis; Public Health Surveillance; Early Detection of Cancer; Alpha-Fetoprotein; Oman

Multi-state analysis of process status using multilevel flow modelling and Bayesian network

Multilevel Flow Modeling (MFM) model maps functionality of components in a system through logical interconnections and is effective in predicting success rates of tasks undertaken. However, the output of this model is binary, which is taken at its extrema, i.e., success and failure, while in reality, the operational status of plant components often spans between these end. In this paper, a multi-state model is proposed by adding probabilistic information to the modelling framework. Using a heat exchanger pilot plant as a case study, the MFM model is transformed into its fault tree [1] equivalent to incorporate failure probability information. To facilitate computations, the FT model is transformed into Bayesian Network model, and applied for fault detection and diagnosis problems. The results obtained illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method

Eating Epilepsy in Oman : A case series and report on the efficacy of temporal lobectomy

Eating epilepsy (EE), where seizures are triggered by eating, is rare and has not been reported in the Gulf region. In EE, the ictal semiology includes partial or generalised seizures. Focal brain changes on imaging, if present, are often confined to the temporal lobe or perisylvian region. Therapeutic options, especially in those patients who are refractory to pharmacotherapy, have not been well-established. We report a series of five patients with EE from Oman, a country located in the eastern part of the Arabian Gulf region, and highlight the usefulness of temporal lobectomy in one patient who had medically-intractable EE. Surgical intervention could be considered as a potential therapeutic option in carefully selected patients with medically-intractable seizures