Women in the Moroccan academic field : respectability and power

This paper aims at outlining the power and academic respectability that women have in Moroccan academia. The data, which privilege the perceptions that these academics have of themselves, were collected by means of a questionnaire distributed to 49 female professors, associate professors, assistant professors, assistants and researchers from three universities in Morocco. 12 of these women were also interviewed. Due to historical and cultural factors Arab women have entered the academic field only relatively recently, that is between three to four decades ago. There has lately been a very significant increase in the proportion of women in academia, and in some sectors more than 30% of University teaching staff are women. However, due to traditional and social constraints, these academics are not satisfied with their position and status. In this regard, the Moroccan academic field can be still considered to be dominated by men. This domination is crystallised in the way appointments to posts of responsibility are made, in the decision-making process at the administration level which, in most cases, favours men and in the attitude men have towards the academic abilities and achievements of women. In this respect, in spite of their scientific and cultural capital, many Moroccan women academics consider that the status and the recognition accorded to them leave much to be desired.peer-reviewe

The minimum basic dataset for diagnoses of cerebrovascular disease: Methodological issue on reliability

Reliability (precision, repeatability, agreement) and validity (accuracy) are two completely different issues which should be assessed using appropriate tests. It is crucial to know that, reporting concordance rate; the selection error rate and the classification error rate are not the most appropriate estimates to assess reliability. Regarding reliability, for qualitative variables, weighted kappa should be used with caution. However, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), likelihood ratio positive and negative as well as diagnostic accuracy are estimates that are usually used to evaluate the validity of a test compared to a gold standard

New Light on the Discovery of Penicillin

Although penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming at St Marys Hospital, London in the autumn of 1928 it was not widely available for medical use until the late 1940s. Here, emphasis will be placed on the discovery and development of penicillin in England during this period, particularly on the so-called “penicillin-interregnum”, i.e. the period between Fleming’s discovery and its purification by the Oxford group, led by Howard Flory and Ernst Chain. Emphasis will be placed on some lesser-known aspects of the story, including the role played by Cecil George Paine, the first person to achieve documented cures using unpurified penicillin filtrates. Attempts will also be made to correct a number of common misunderstandings about the discovery, including the myth that Fleming stopped working on penicillin soon after its discovery

Theoretical and Numerical Investigation of Liquid-Gas Interface Location of Capillary Driven Flow During the Time Throughout Circular Microchannels

The main aim of this study is to find the best, most rapid, and the most accurate numerical method to find the liquid-gas interface of capillary driven flow during the time in circular Microchannels by using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Capillary driven flow by eliminating micropumps or any physical pressure gradient generators can make the microfluidic devices cheaper and more usable. Hence, by using this two-phase flow, the final costs of lots of microfluidic devices and lab-on-a-chip can significantly be decreased and help them to be commercialized. The first step to employing the capillary flow in these devices is the simulation of this flow inside the microchannels. One of the most common and valid software for this work is COMSOL Multiphysics; this fact reveals the importance of this study. In this research study, simulation results obtained by using two possible numerical methods in this software, for capillary flows of water and ethanol in two different circular microchannels, verified and compared with four other methods, which verified experimentally before. Finally, the most accurate and time-saving numerical method of this software will be specified. This appropriate technique can contribute to simulate microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip devices, which are made of different mechanical and electrical parts, in COMSOL Multiphysics software by choosing the best method.Comment: 7 pages, 13 figures, 7 tables, 2017 5th International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICROM