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Highly variable upper and abyssal overturning cells in the South Atlantic
No full textThe Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) is a primary mechanism driving oceanic heat redistribution on Earth, thereby affecting Earth's climate and weather. However, the full-depth structure and variability of the MOC are still poorly understood, particularly in the South Atlantic. This study presents unique multiyear records of the oceanic volume transport of both the upper (~3100 meters) overturning cells based on daily moored measurements in the South Atlantic at 34.5°S. The vertical structure of the time-mean flows is consistent with the limited historical observations. Both the upper and abyssal cells exhibit a high degree of variability relative to the temporal means at time scales, ranging from a few days to a few weeks. Observed variations in the abyssal flow appear to be largely independent of the flow in the overlying upper cell. No meaningful trends are detected in either cell
Systems and Methods for Targeted Breast Cancer Therapies
No full textSystems and methods for producing liposomes , including control liposomes and immunoliposomes targeting breast cancer are provided . Systems and methods for treating breast cancer , using targeted immunoliposomes produced according to various methods are also disclosed herein . For example, trastuzumab - conjugated immunoliposomes may be used to deliver chemotherapeutic agents to breast cancer tissues for the treatment of breast cancer . Systems and methods for actuating liposomes using ultrasound are also disclosed , such as systems and methods for actuating trastuzumab - conjugated liposomes accumulated in breast cancer tissues for the treatment of breast cancer
Drug Discovery against Acanthamoeba Infections: Present Knowledge and Unmet Needs
No full textAlthough major strides have been made in developing and testing various anti-acanthamoebic drugs, recurrent infections, inadequate treatment outcomes, health complications, and side effects associated with the use of currently available drugs necessitate the development of more effective and safe therapeutic regimens. For any new anti-acanthamoebic drugs to be more effective, they must have either superior potency and safety or at least comparable potency and an improved safety profile compared to the existing drugs. The development of the so-called ‘next-generation’ anti-acanthamoebic agents to address this challenge is an active area of research. Here, we review the current status of anti-acanthamoebic drugs and discuss recent progress in identifying novel pharmacological targets and new approaches, such as drug repurposing, development of small interfering RNA (siRNA)-based therapies and testing natural products and their derivatives. Some of the discussed approaches have the potential to change the therapeutic landscape of Acanthamoeba infections
Discourse Effects on the Acquisition of the English Causative Forms: Structured Input vs. Structured Output Practice.
No full textA Master of Arts thesis in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) by Najat Alabdullah entitled, “Discourse Effects on The Acquisition of The English Causative Forms: Structured Input Vs. Structured Output Practice”, submitted in May 2020. Thesis advisor is Dr. Alessandro Benati. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Approval Signatures, Completion Certificate, and AUS Archives Consent Form).This research presents the results of a quasi-experimental empirical study investigating the effects of structured input activities and structured output tasks on the acquisition of English causative forms. The study is framed on VanPatten’s (1996) input processing theory. The form chosen for this investigation is affected by a processing strategy called the ‘First Noun Principle’. Participants in this study were school-age learners (aged 1 -13) from a L1 Arabic background who were studying English as a second language. A pre and post-test procedure was adopted. Two instructional groups were created: (i) structured input; (ii) structured output. Discourse-level tasks were used to assess the effectiveness of the two instructional treatments. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA. The main findings from this study support the view that structured input is an effective pedagogical intervention in helping young L2 learners from L1 Arabic background to process, interpret and produce accurate English causative forms at discourse-level. The main findings of this study have theoretical and pedagogical implications for language learning and teaching.College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of EnglishMaster of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL
Hybrid Look-Up-Tables Based Behavioral Model for Dynamic Nonlinear Power Amplifiers
No full textA new look-up table based behavioral model for dynamic nonlinear power amplifiers is proposed. This model labelled as hybrid look-up tables model is based on the combination of a memoryless look-up table sub-model and a nested look-up tables one. It is demonstrated that the proposed model circumvents the computational complexity associated with the parameters identification in analytically defined behavioral models. Moreover, the proposed model reduces the size of the standalone nested look-up tables model by approximately 80% while maintaining its accuracy. Furthermore, a novel slew-rate based trimming and indexing technique to reduce the nested look-up tables model size is developed and corroborated experimentally. Additionally, the two-box structure of the hybrid look-up tables model makes it suitable for bandwidth scalability. Experimental validation using LTE-advanced test signals with up to 120MHz bandwidth demonstrates the ability of the proposed hybrid look-up tables model to be bandwidth scalable with less than 0.5dB degradation in the normalized mean-squared error.American University of SharjahKing Fahd University of Petroleum and Mineral
Serviceability and Flexural Behavior of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Basalt Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) Bars Exposed to Harsh Conditions
No full textThe main objective of this study was to investigate experimentally and numerically the behavior of basalt fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) reinforcement exposed to a combination of ultraviolet rays, humidity, and rain. Specifically, the effects of the previously stated harsh exposure on the serviceability performance and flexural capacity of BFRP reinforced concrete beams was examined. Holding the exposure parameter constant, the study also evaluated the effects of reinforcement ratio and beam detailing on the flexural capacity and the bond-dependent coefficient (kb) of the beams. Seven beams were cast and tested, four of which were reinforced with exposed BFRP bars, two were reinforced with unexposed BFRP bars, and one specimen was cast and reinforced with steel bars to serve as a benchmark specimen. The results indicate that the kb factor was averaged to be 0.61 for all the beams. Test results also indicate that increasing the reinforcement ratio did not result in a directly proportional increase in the moment capacity. The period of exposure did not cause any significant impact on the behavior of the over-reinforced beams. Thus, a finite element model was created to simulate the impact of exposure on the behavior of under-reinforced BFRP reinforced concrete beams.American University of Sharja
Infixed -nn- in Northern Emirati Arabic
No full textAn infixed -nn- between active participles having verbal force and their suffixed pronominal objects has been noted for the Arabic dialects of the southern Arabian Peninsula, including those of eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, and the Yemen. It has also been observed in the UAE, but it has not been investigated fully there. This study reports on ongoing work in documenting features of northern Emirati Arabic, derived from analysis of oral histories related by pre-nineteen-sixty residents of the old town of Sharjah, the recordings and transcriptions of which are housed in the Collection of Oral Heritage and Stories of the Sharjah Museums Authority. These are augmented by observations of spontaneous conversations amongst speakers of northern Emirati Arabic and, for comparative purposes, a television serial set in Abu Dhabi. Through this, a systematic view of the features of infixed -nn- in northern Emirati Arabic emerges: As opposed to the dialects of Abu Dhabi, where an infixed -nn- is optional, in northern Emirati varieties, it is obligatory when the dative pronoun intervenes, -nn- assimilates to -ll-; and -nn- may rarely appear between verbs and their object pronouns. These observations augment existing work on the peninsular and the few datable extra-peninsular dialects that infix -nn- between the participle and its object pronoun. The infixed -nn- is one of a small bundle of phonological and morpho-syntactic features that have been observed only in southern peninsular dialects of Arabic. Its presence in those dialects as well as the operation of infixed -nn- in Arabic dialects separated by wide distances and time periods indicates a prediasporic southern Arabian origin. To this bundle may be added a rare lexical item, hintēn (< itnayn/tintayn ‘two’), it, too, shared only amongst Arabic dialects of the southern Arabian Peninsula, including those of the northern Emirates
Recursive Quad-Tree Block Partitioning for Data Embedding in Images
No full textIn this paper, we propose to embed messages in raw images using a recursive block partitioning technique adopted from HEVC video coding technology. This work introduces a quad-tree partitioning solution in which square blocks of pixels are partitioned recursively according to a homogeneity criterion. As such, large block sizes are allocated for homogenous areas of the image and smaller block sizes are used elsewhere. For this to work, the variable block sizes should cover the whole image without gaps. Additionally, the criterion used for determining the block partitioning should work for both message embedding and message extraction. As such, the extractor process can reproduce the same variable block sizes. Matrix encoding is used for message embedding and extraction, as such, a maximum of one pixel value is changed per block. The proposed solution is assessed in terms of percentage of changed pixels, PSNR, SSIM, histogram changes and blind steganalysis. Comparison with existing work reveals that the proposed solution reduces both the image distortions and pixel change rates. With embedding rates ranging from 2.5% to 38%, the average PSNR of the cover images ranged from 72dB to 60dB, and the average normalized histogram differences ranged from 3 to 12 pixels. It is also shown that the proposed solution is less detectible when tested with blind steganalysis in comparison to existing solutions where the average detection accuracy is 49.8%
A Framework For Risk Assessment Of Last Mile Delivery
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Engineering Systems Management by Hajed Mohammad Mismar entitled, “A Framework For Risk Assessment Of Last Mile Delivery”, submitted in December 2020. Thesis advisor is Dr. Abdulrahim Shamayleh. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).The remarkable explosion of e-commerce has marked the latest years of different industries around the world and put forward a higher requirement for the last mile delivery. The last mile delivery is one of the most complex, costly, and inefficient processes along the entire logistics fulfillment chain in an e-commerce context. Its corresponding risks are major contributors to delivery failure. This study proposes a comprehensive framework on risk identification and analysis in the last mile delivery to support the delivery planning. Risks will be deduced from available literature and others will be induced through semi-structured interviews with experts in the field. This study adopts Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to identify the interdependency among risks and rank them, as the conventional ranking methods fail to take interdependency into account. The results of this study indicate that privacy concerns risk, IT risks, and natural disasters risk were ranked the top three with risk exposures of 0.1055, 0.1009, and 0.1002, respectively. This study will aid logistics service providers to ultimately decide the solutions of last mile delivery that need to be utilized by prioritizing last mile delivery possible risks to increase their competitiveness, increase their market share, and minimize delivery costs.College of EngineeringMultidisciplinary ProgramsMaster of Science in Engineering Systems Management (MSESM