An Analysis of the Linguistic Aspects in the Qur’anic Verses’ Translation: A Case of Al Fatihah Surah

This study analyzed the linguistic features in Qur’anic translation in the Al Fatihah Surah. It compares five different translations, namely, Asad Quran Translation, Malik Quran Translation, Yusuf Ali Quran Translation, and Piktal Quran Translation. The analysis uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Newmark's (1988) multidisciplinary method of translation.  Results of the study showed that varied translation versions of Qur’an verses should be analyzed to transfer and reduce original meaning to non-native speakers of the Arabic language since Qur’an includes stylish features in both form and content. In addition, findings revealed that translation of linguistic features postures challenges translators while interpreting meaning. This study concludes that most of the linguistic features under scrutiny have been rendered into English that is often erroneous. However, the conceptualization of linguistic features in Qur’anic translation is often lost. Keywords: Linguistic features. phonic,  Qur’an translation, Al Fatihah DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/87-05 Publication date: April 30th 202

Development of platelet function analysis for use in haematological and clinical investigations

Platelets are highly specialised cells that play a pivotal role in the regulation of haemostasis and thrombosis. Accurate measurement of platelet function is important in identifying patients with platelet abnormalities: for example, platelet hyperfunction, which may result in hyperthrombotic risk, or platelet hypofunction, which may lead to enhanced bleeding. Also, accurate measurement is becoming crucial for assessing the adequacy of treatment with antiplatelet therapy. Platelet function testing to assess the efficacy of antiplatelet drugs is becoming widely used and a range of assays has been developed. However, assays such as Light Transmittance Aggregometry (LTA), VerifyNow and Multiplate Electrode Aggregometry (MEA) are cumbersome for regular clinical use and have many limitations. Only a limited number of assays offer the advantage of assessing multiple platelet activation pathways simultaneously. In this thesis, I describe the development of a 96-well plate-based assay carried out in whole blood, where flow cytometry is used concomitantly to assess platelet aggregation (measured as the decrease in number of single platelets in the blood) together with platelet leucocyte conjugate (PLCs) formation, using lysing and non-lysing conditions (fluorescence triggering) – both measurements performed on the same fixed sample of whole blood. First, this thesis evaluates the effect of blood volume and different fixation approaches, double fixation flow cytometry (DFF) and single fixation Ultra-Flo 100 (SFU), on measuring platelet aggregation in whole blood. The smallest blood volume that was appropriate to study platelet aggregation was 125µl. Both fixation methods were shown to be highly comparable. The preliminary results revealed the suitability of using the 96-well plate format to evaluate the platelet response to a range of different platelet agonists. The second part of this thesis explores the suitability of the 96-well plate format to study platelet aggregation, and to assess inhibition, using aspirin and the P2Y12 antagonist, cangrelor. The 96-well plate format has successfully demonstrated dose-dependent inhibition of adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation with cangrelor and of arachidonic acid (AA)-induced platelet aggregation with aspirin, except when using high concentrations of AA. The apparent failure of aspirin to inhibit AA-induced platelet aggregation at a high concentration could have been due to the fact that endogenous ADP, which may have leaked from red blood cells (RBCs), may have overcome the inhibition. Dual antiplatelet therapy, using aspirin in conjunction with cangrelor, has confirmed this explanation and also demonstrated that more inhibition is obtained when antiplatelet agents are used in pairs. When the glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa antagonist MK-0852 was used to block the final aggregation pathway, it failed to achieve a complete inhibition of platelet aggregation, when measured using the single platelet counting technique. This could be due to the binding of platelets to leucocytes, as demonstrated previously by our group. To investigate whether it was PLCs formation that was responsible for the decrease in the number of single platelets in the presence of MK-852, platelet leucocyte interaction was studied using lysing and non-lysing approaches, based on a 96-well plate format. The findings demonstrated that PLCs formation in the presence of MK-0852 tends to increase, especially platelet-monocyte conjugate formation. As expected, there was inhibition of PLCs formation with KPL-1, an agent that blocks P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) on leucocytes, to which P-selectin binds. In this regard, thrombocytopenia, which sometimes occurs after administration of a GPIIb/IIIa antagonist, and the accompanied increase in mortality, could be thereby explained and also implies a potential limitation to the use of GPIIb/IIIa antagonists. The final part of this thesis focused on the possibility of studying more than one platelet function and the effect of antiplatelet therapy. PLC formation can be measured using fluorescence triggering to capture the leucocyte population, instead of lysing RBCs, to avoid manipulation of the cells. The results have indicated that the use of more than one antiplatelet agent can achieve more inhibition by blocking more activation pathways than a single antiplatelet agent. In conclusion, 96-well plate methods have shown the advantage of assessing multiple platelet activation pathways using a small volume of whole blood. This method has the advantage of using only one sample of fixed whole blood to assess both aggregation and PLCs formation. Moreover, development of this assay can also be useful to testing the effects of new compounds on platelet function

The Role of Translation in Language Change: A Corpus-based Study on English Influence on the Arabic Passive

Studies conducted around the world have shown that the structures of various languages have shifted over time towards that of English. This phenomenon could be attributed to the use of English as a lingua franca or to these languages’ contact with English via translation. This thesis investigates this shift towards English-language structure in translated and original Arabic scientific texts. To this end, I developed a diachronic corpus for scientific articles dating between 1997-2000 and 2016-2018 to generate findings for this genre. The study used both parallel and comparable corpora, allowing an investigation of the influence of English not only on translated texts but also on original scientific texts written within the same time frame. The results reveal that the English language has affected the Arabic passive voice structure in translated scientific texts, and that the English passive voice structure seems also to have affected original modern Arabic scientific texts. As for the agentive passive, English does not seem to have increased its influence between 1997-2000 and 2016-18 in the translated texts as most agentive English passives are translated into active Arabic sentences in both the 1997- 2000 and 2016-18 corpora. There also does not seem to be a significant increase in the agentive passive in original texts between 1997-2000 and 2016-2018

Novel strategies for assessing platelet reactivity

There are many approaches to assessing platelet reactivity and many uses for such measurements. Initially, measurements were based on the ability of platelets separated from other blood cells to aggregate together following activation with an appropriate ‘aggregating agent’. Later, measurements of platelet aggregation in blood itself were performed, and this led to a point-of-care approach to platelet function testing. Measurement of secretory activity through the appearance of the activation marker P-selectin on platelets now provides an alternative approach, which enables remote testing. Measurement of vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein phosphorylation is also moving toward application in situations remote from the testing laboratory. Here we provide an overview of the various approaches that are now available, assess their advantages and disadvantages, and describe some of the clinical situations in which they are being used

New insight into strategies used to develop long-acting G-CSF biologics for neutropenia therapy

Over the last 20 years, granulocyte colony-stimulating factors (G-CSFs) have become the major therapeutic option for the treatment of patients with neutropenia. Most of the current G-CSFs require daily injections, which are inconvenient and expensive for patients. Increased understanding of G-CSFs’ structure, expression, and mechanism of clearance has been very instrumental in the development of new generations of long-acting G-CSFs with improved efficacy. Several approaches to reducing G-CSF clearance via conjugation techniques have been investigated. PEGylation, glycosylation, polysialylation, or conjugation with immunoglobulins or albumins have successfully increased G-CSFs’ half-lives. Pegfilgrastim (Neulasta) has been successfully approved and marketed for the treatment of patients with neutropenia. The rapidly expanding market for G-CSFs has increased demand for G-CSF biosimilars. Therefore, the importance of this review is to highlight the principle, elimination’s route, half-life, clearance, safety, benefits, and limitations of different strategies and techniques used to increase the half-life of biotherapeutic G-CSFs. Understanding these strategies will allow for a new treatment with more competitive manufacturing and lower unit costs compared with that of Neulasta

Multinational Comparative Cross-Sectional Survey of Views of medical students about Acceptable Terminology and Subgroups in Schizophrenia

AIM: The aim of this study was to inform thinking around the terminology for \u27schizophrenia\u27 in different countries. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to investigate: (1) whether medical students view alternative terminology (psychosis subgroups), derived from vulnerability-stress models of schizophrenia, as acceptable and less stigmatising than the term schizophrenia; (2) if there are differences in attitudes to the different terminology across countries with different cultures and (3) whether clinical training has an impact in reducing stigma. DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional survey that examined the attitudes of medical students towards schizophrenia and the alternative subgroups. SETTING: The study was conducted across eight sites: (1) University of Southampton, UK; (2) All India Institute of Medical Science, India; (3) Rowan University, USA; (4) Peshawar Medical College, Pakistan; (5) Capital Medical University, China; (6) College of Medicine and Medical sciences, Bahrain; (7) Queens University, Kingston, Canada and (8) University of Cape Town, South Africa. METHOD: This study extended an initial pilot conducted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists on the term schizophrenia and psychosis subgroups to assess whether the subgroup terminology might have an effect on the attitudes of a convenience sample of medical students from eight different countries and potentially play a role in reducing stigmatisation. RESULTS: 1873 medical students completed a questionnaire recording their attitudes to schizophrenia and the psychosis subgroups. A reduction in negative perceptions were found for the psychosis subgroups, especially for the stress sensitivity psychosis and anxiety psychosis subgroups. Negative perceptions were found for drug-related psychosis. Participants who had undergone clinical training had overall positive attitudes. Differences across different countries were found. CONCLUSION: The attitudes towards psychosis subgroups used in this study have shown mixed results and variation across countries. Further research is warranted to investigate acceptability of terminology. Methods of reducing stigma are discussed in line with the findings. ETHICS: The study received ethical approval from ERGO (Ethics and Research Governance Online; ID: 15972) and subsequently from the ethics committee at each site

The neurology of COVID-19 revisited: A proposal from the environmental neurology specialty group of the world federation of neurology to implement international neurological registries

A comprehensive review of the neurological disorders reported during the current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that infection with SARS-CoV-2 affects the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and the muscle. CNS manifestations include: headache and decreased responsiveness considered initial indicators of potential neurological involvement; anosmia, hyposmia, hypogeusia, and dysgeusia are frequent early symptoms of coronavirus infection. Respiratory failure, the lethal manifestation of COVID-19, responsible for 264,679 deaths worldwide, is probably neurogenic in origin and may result from the viral invasion of cranial nerve I, progressing into rhinencephalon and brainstem respiratory centers. Cerebrovascular disease, in particular large-vessel ischemic strokes, and less frequently cerebral venous thrombosis, intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage, usually occur as part of a thrombotic state induced by viral attachment to ACE2 receptors in endothelium causing widespread endotheliitis, coagulopathy, arterial and venous thromboses. Acute hemorrhagic necrotizing encephalopathy is associated to the cytokine storm. A frontal hypoperfusion syndrome has been identified. There are isolated reports of seizures, encephalopathy, meningitis, encephalitis, and myelitis. The neurological diseases affecting the PNS and muscle in COVID-19 are less frequent and include Guillain-Barré syndrome; Miller Fisher syndrome; polyneuritis cranialis; and rare instances of viral myopathy with rhabdomyolysis. The main conclusion of this review is the pressing need to define the neurology of COVID-19, its frequency, manifestations, neuropathology and pathogenesis. On behalf of the World Federation of Neurology we invite national and regional neurological associations to create local databases to report cases with neurological manifestations observed during the on-going pandemic. International neuroepidemiological collaboration may help define the natural history of this worldwide problem

Development of platelet function analysis for use in haematological and clinical investigations

Platelets are highly specialised cells that play a pivotal role in the regulation of haemostasis and thrombosis. Accurate measurement of platelet function is important in identifying patients with platelet abnormalities: for example, platelet hyperfunction, which may result in hyperthrombotic risk, or platelet hypofunction, which may lead to enhanced bleeding. Also, accurate measurement is becoming crucial for assessing the adequacy of treatment with antiplatelet therapy. Platelet function testing to assess the efficacy of antiplatelet drugs is becoming widely used and a range of assays has been developed. However, assays such as Light Transmittance Aggregometry (LTA), VerifyNow and Multiplate Electrode Aggregometry (MEA) are cumbersome for regular clinical use and have many limitations. Only a limited number of assays offer the advantage of assessing multiple platelet activation pathways simultaneously. In this thesis, I describe the development of a 96-well plate-based assay carried out in whole blood, where flow cytometry is used concomitantly to assess platelet aggregation (measured as the decrease in number of single platelets in the blood) together with platelet leucocyte conjugate (PLCs) formation, using lysing and non-lysing conditions (fluorescence triggering) – both measurements performed on the same fixed sample of whole blood. First, this thesis evaluates the effect of blood volume and different fixation approaches, double fixation flow cytometry (DFF) and single fixation Ultra-Flo 100 (SFU), on measuring platelet aggregation in whole blood. The smallest blood volume that was appropriate to study platelet aggregation was 125µl. Both fixation methods were shown to be highly comparable. The preliminary results revealed the suitability of using the 96-well plate format to evaluate the platelet response to a range of different platelet agonists. The second part of this thesis explores the suitability of the 96-well plate format to study platelet aggregation, and to assess inhibition, using aspirin and the P2Y12 antagonist, cangrelor. The 96-well plate format has successfully demonstrated dose-dependent inhibition of adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation with cangrelor and of arachidonic acid (AA)-induced platelet aggregation with aspirin, except when using high concentrations of AA. The apparent failure of aspirin to inhibit AA-induced platelet aggregation at a high concentration could have been due to the fact that endogenous ADP, which may have leaked from red blood cells (RBCs), may have overcome the inhibition. Dual antiplatelet therapy, using aspirin in conjunction with cangrelor, has confirmed this explanation and also demonstrated that more inhibition is obtained when antiplatelet agents are used in pairs. When the glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa antagonist MK-0852 was used to block the final aggregation pathway, it failed to achieve a complete inhibition of platelet aggregation, when measured using the single platelet counting technique. This could be due to the binding of platelets to leucocytes, as demonstrated previously by our group. To investigate whether it was PLCs formation that was responsible for the decrease in the number of single platelets in the presence of MK-852, platelet leucocyte interaction was studied using lysing and non-lysing approaches, based on a 96-well plate format. The findings demonstrated that PLCs formation in the presence of MK-0852 tends to increase, especially platelet-monocyte conjugate formation. As expected, there was inhibition of PLCs formation with KPL-1, an agent that blocks P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) on leucocytes, to which P-selectin binds. In this regard, thrombocytopenia, which sometimes occurs after administration of a GPIIb/IIIa antagonist, and the accompanied increase in mortality, could be thereby explained and also implies a potential limitation to the use of GPIIb/IIIa antagonists. The final part of this thesis focused on the possibility of studying more than one platelet function and the effect of antiplatelet therapy. PLC formation can be measured using fluorescence triggering to capture the leucocyte population, instead of lysing RBCs, to avoid manipulation of the cells. The results have indicated that the use of more than one antiplatelet agent can achieve more inhibition by blocking more activation pathways than a single antiplatelet agent. In conclusion, 96-well plate methods have shown the advantage of assessing multiple platelet activation pathways using a small volume of whole blood. This method has the advantage of using only one sample of fixed whole blood to assess both aggregation and PLCs formation. Moreover, development of this assay can also be useful to testing the effects of new compounds on platelet function

Investigation of Factors Influencing Formation of Nanoemulsion by Spontaneous Emulsification: Impact on Droplet Size, Polydispersity Index, and Stability

Interest in nanoemulsion technology has increased steadily in recent years for its widespread applications in the delivery of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals. Rational selection of the composition and the preparation method is crucial for developing a stable nanoemulsion system with desired physicochemical characteristics. In the present study, we investigate the influence of intricate factors including composition and preparation conditions that affect characteristic parameters and the stability of the nanoemulsion formation prepared by the spontaneous emulsification method. Octanoic acid, capryol 90, and ethyl oleate were selected to represent oil phases of different carbon–chain lengths. We explored the impact of the addition mode of the oil–Smix phase and aqueous phase, vortexing time, Km (surfactant/cosurfactant) ratio, and the replacement of water by buffers of different pH as an aqueous system. The phase behavior study showed that the Smix phase had a significant impact on the nanoemulsifying ability of the nanoemulsions composed of oil phases of varying carbon-chain lengths. The mode of mixing of the oil–Smix phase to the aqueous phase markedly influenced the mean droplet size and size distribution of the nanoemulsions composed of oil phases as capryol 90. Vortexing time also impacted the mean droplet size and the stability of the generated nanoemulsion system depending on the varying carbon-chain length of the oil phase. The replacement of the water phase by aqueous buffers of pH 1.2, 5.5, 6.8, and 7.4 has altered the mean droplet size and size distribution of the nanoemulsion system. Further, the Km ratio also had a significant influence on the formation of the nanoemulsion system. The findings of this investigation are useful in understanding how the formulation composition and process parameters of the spontaneous emulsification technique are responsible for affecting the physicochemical characteristics and stability of the nanoemulsion system composed of oil of varying carbon-chain (C8-C18) length