Predicting the Breach Hydrograph Resulting Due to Hypothetical Failure of Haditha Dam

A hydrologic model is developed to compute the reservoir outflow hydrograph resulting from a hypothetical failure of Haditha dam located across the Euphrates river in Iraq due to enemy attack. In this program, the reservoir routing is analyzed by the level pool method in which storage is a nonlinear function of discharge. The results indicate that the maximum reservoir outflow is (202547 m3/s) which occurred about three and half hours after dam failure, and the reservoir will be depleted after about 65 hours. The results of the hydrologic model are compared with available results reported by Macdonald and Monopolis (1984), and it is found that the hydrologic results situate within the limits of their study

Estimating Seroprevalence of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 among Different Middle East and North African Male Populations Residing in Qatar

HSV-1 epidemiology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains poorly understood. Our study aimed to measure HSV-1 antibody prevalence (seroprevalence) and its age-distribution among select MENA populations residing in Qatar. Sera were collected from male blood donors attending Hamad Medical Corporation 2013-2015. A total of 2,077 sera were tested for anti-HSV-1 antibodies using HerpeSelect® 1 ELISA IgG kits (Focus Diagnostics, USA). Robust Poisson regression was conducted to estimate adjusted infection prevalence ratios. Country-specific HSV-1 seroprevalence was estimated for 10 national populations: 97.5% among Egyptians, 92.6% among Yemenis, 90.7% among Sudanese, 88.5% among Syrians, 86.5% among Jordanians, 82.3% among Qataris, 81.4% among Iranians, 81.4% among Lebanese, 80.5% among Palestinians, and 77.0% among Pakistanis. Age-specific HSV-1 seroprevalence was estimated for Egypt, the Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria), and Qatar. Seroprevalence increased with age among Fertile Crescent and Qatari nationals. Seroprevalence increased from 70.0% among those aged ≤24 years up to 98.0% among those aged ≥55 years among Fertile Crescent nationals. Seroprevalence was consistently above 90% for all ages among Egyptians. HSV-1 seroprevalence is high in MENA, though with some variation across countries. The seroprevalence appears to have declined among current young age cohorts compared to its levels a few decades ago

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Seroprevalence among Different National Populations of Middle East and North African Men

© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association. Background There are limited data on herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) seroprevalence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We examined country- and age-specific HSV-2 seroprevalence among select MENA populations residing in Qatar. Methods Sera were collected from male blood donors attending Hamad Medical Corporation between June 2013 and June 2016. Specimens were screened for anti-HSV-2 IgG antibodies following a 2-test algorithm: HerpeSelect 2 ELISA was used to identify HSV-2-positive specimens, and Euroline-WB was used to confirm positive and equivocal specimens for final HSV-2 status. Trends and associations with HSV-2 seropositivity were assessed. Results Of the 2077 tested sera, 61 were found and confirmed positive. The proportion of those confirmed positive increased steadily with HerpeSelect 2 ELISA index value, ranging from 16.3% for index values of 1.101 to 1.999 to 92.9% for index values of 4 or greater. Nationality-specific seroprevalence was 6.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.1%-8.8%) in Qataris, 5.3% (95% CI, 2.5%-11.1%) in Iranians, 4.2% (95% CI, 1.8%-9.5%) in Lebanese, 3.1% (95% CI, 1.2%-7.7%) in Sudanese, 3.0% (95% CI, 1.4%-6.4%) in Palestinians, 2.2% (95% CI, 1.1%-4.3%) in Egyptians, 2.0% (95% CI, 1.0%-5.0%) in Syrians, 1.0% (95% CI, 0.3%-3.6%) in Jordanians, 0.7% (95% CI, 0.1%-3.7%) in Yemenis, and 0.5% (95% CI, 0.1%-2.8%) in Pakistanis. There was evidence for higher seroprevalence in older age groups. Conclusions The seroprevalence of HSV-2 was in the range of few percentage points. There were no major differences in seroprevalence by nationality. These findings add to our understanding of HSV-2 epidemiology in MENA and indicate unmet needs for sexual health and control of sexually transmitted infections.Funding text #1 From the *Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group, Weill Cornell Medicine—Qatar, Cornell University, Qatar Foundation—Education City; †Department of Biomedical Science, College of Health Sciences, and ‡BioMedical Research Center, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar; and §Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, Weill Cornell Medi-cine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge the administrative support of Ms Adona Canlas. They are also grateful to Dr Asmaa Al-Marwani, Ms Maria Samatti, and Ms Sana Abohasera for their work on blood specimen collection. The authors are further grateful for sup-port provided by the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Biomathematics Research Core at Weill Cornell Medicine—Qatar. Funding text #2 Funding: Testing kits were provided through pilot funding by the Biomedical Research Program at Weill Cornell Medicine—Qatar. Funding text #3 G.K.N. acknowledges support by Qatar University internal grant No. QUST-CHS-SPR-15/16-7. L.J.A. and S.R.D. acknowledge study conception and design support through NPRP grant number 9-040-3-008 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation), and G.K.N. acknowledges support from the Qatar National Research Fund UREP grant number UREP18-001-3-001. The findings achieved herein are solely the responsibility of the authors

Performance evaluation of four type-specific commercial assays for detection of herpes simplex virus type 1 antibodies in a Middle East and North Africa population.

The number of diagnostic assays for the detection of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) antibodies has increased over the years. However, their performance characteristics could vary among global populations. To investigate performance of two commercial ELISA kits, HerpeSelect1 ELISA and Euroimmun Anti-HSV-1 (gC1) ELISA (IgG); and two commercial immunoblot (IB)/Western blot (WB) assays, HerpeSelect1 and 2 Immunoblot IgG, and Euroimmun Anti-HSV-1/HSV-2 gG2 Euroline-WB (IgG/IgM); in detecting HSV-1 antibodies in a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) population. Blood specimens were collected from blood donors in Doha, Qatar, June 2013-2016. Twenty specimens were randomly selected from 10 MENA nationalities (Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen; total = 200), and tested for HSV-1 antibodies. Across all six comparisons between assays, positive percent agreement ranged between 95.7% (95% CI: 91.4-98.3%) and 100.0% (95% CI: 97.8-100.0%). Negative percent agreement ranged between 86.2% (95% CI: 68.3-96.1%) and 96.2% (95% CI: 80.4-99.9%). Overall percent agreement ranged between 95.7% (95% CI: 91.7-97.8%) and 99.4% (95% CI: 96.7-99.9%). Cohen's kappa statistic ranged between 0.84 (95% CI: 0.73-0.95) and 0.98 (95% CI: 0.93-1.00). Compared against IB/WB, HerpeSelectand Euroimmun had sensitivities and specificities >96% and >86%, respectively. Positive and negative predictive values were >97% and >83%, respectively. The assays showed excellent concordance with one another, and with a high kappa statistic. The ELISA kits demonstrated robust diagnostic performance compared to the IB/WB assays. These findings support the assays' utility in clinical diagnosis and research in MENA populations

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Exploring the role of oral microbiome dysbiosis in cardiometabolic syndrome and smoking

Oral microbiome research has gained significant interest in recent years due to its potential impact on overall health. Smoking has been identified as a significant modulator of the oral microbiome composition, leading to dysbiosis and possible health consequences. Research has primarily focused on the association between smoking and oral microbiome, as well as smoking's association with cardiometabolic syndrome (CMS). This narrative review presents an overview of the recent findings and current knowledge on the oral microbiome and its role in CMS, including the effects of smoking and ethnicity. We discussed the development and composition of the oral microbiome and the association of periodontitis with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, we highlighted the correlations between oral microbiome and CMS factors, such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity. There is a need for further research in this area to better understand the mechanisms underlying the impact of smoking on oral microbiome dysbiosis and the development of CMS. Interestingly, geographic location and ethnicity have been shown to impact the oral microbiome profiles across populations. This knowledge will help develop personalized disease prevention and treatment approaches considering individual differences in oral microbiome composition. Understanding the complex interplay between oral microbiome, smoking, and CMS is essential for developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for a wide range of diseases.The authors are funded by Qatar University grant number IRCC-2021-013 and QUCG-BRC-23/24-183.Scopu

The determination of causality of drug induced liver injury in patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome

Background Drug induced liver injury (DILI) is a rising morbidity amongst patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome. The updated RUCAM causality assessment scale is validated for use in the general population, but its utility for causality determination in cohorts of patients with COVID-19 and DILI remains uncertain. Methods This retrospective study was comprised of COVID-19 patients presenting with suspected DILI to the emergency department of Weill Cornell medicine-affiliated Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar. All cases that met the inclusion criteria were comparatively adjudicated by two independent rating pairs (2 clinical pharmacist and 2 physicians) utilizing the updated RUCAM scale to assess the likelihood of DILI. Results A total of 72 patients (mean age 48.96 (SD ± 10.21) years) were examined for the determination of DILI causality. The majority had probability likelihood of “possible” or “probable” by the updated RUCAM scale. Azithromycin was the most commonly reported drug as a cause of DILI. The median R-ratio was 4.74 which correspond to a mixed liver injury phenotype. The overall Krippendorf's kappa was 0.52; with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.79 (IQR 0.72-0.85). The proportion of exact pairwise agreement and disagreement between the rating pairs were 64.4%, kappa 0.269 (ICC 0.28 [0.18, 0.40]) and kappa 0.45 (ICC 0.43 [0.29-0.57]), respectively. Conclusion In a cohort of patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome, we found the updated RUCAM scale to be useful in establishing “possible” or “probable” DILI likelihood as evident by the respective kappa values; this results if validated by larger sample sized studies will extend the clinical application of this universal tool for adjudication of DILI