United Arab Emirates University
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EXCLUSION TESTS FOR APPROXIMATING ALL SOLUTIONS OF NONLINEAR EQUATIONS
Get PDFThe exclusion test is a mathematical technique used to isolate and approximate the solutions of nonlinear equations within a specified interval. This thesis aims to construct a new test leveraging the principles of the exclusion test to achieve faster convergence to the zeros of any given interval within a compact domain. By selecting an alternative objective function and employing nonlinear equations, the proposed method significantly reduces the number of subintervals required for accurate approximation. The key finding of this research is the development of a more efficient algorithm that enhances the speed of convergence. The implications of these findings are substantial, offering a novel approach that optimizes the process of solving nonlinear equations, thereby contributing to the field of numerical analysis with a faster and more effective algorithm
TRAUMA-INFORMED TEACHING IN UAE SCHOOLS: INVESTIGATING TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES AND THE EFFECT OF A COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION FOR STUDENTS AFFECTED BY TRAUMA
No full textThis study explores UAE teachers’ experiences and knowledge regarding trauma-informed teaching and assesses the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for two elementary school students with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in a general classroom setting. It also examines parents’ perceptions before and after the intervention. The study addresses two primary concerns: 1) the preparedness of UAE teachers to support trauma-affected students in schools, and 2) the efficacy of a targeted cognitive-behavioral intervention aimed at improving students\u27 emotional regulation and behavioral outcomes. Using an exploratory sequential design, qualitative data from seven semi-structured interviews with UAE teachers revealed a significant gap in training and knowledge about trauma-informed practices, highlighting the need for further teacher development in this area. Subsequently, a 10-week cognitive-behavioral intervention was implemented in the classroom for two students diagnosed with PTSD. Pre- and post-intervention assessments using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Motor Behavior Checklist (MBC) showed notable improvements in emotional regulation and behavioral outcomes, particularly in hyperactivity, attention, and prosocial behavior, although improvements in rule-breaking behaviors were modest. Post-intervention interviews with parents indicated positive feedback, noting observable improvements in their children\u27s emotional and social behaviors, which they attributed to the structured support and individualized attention provided during the intervention. The UAE\u27s educational framework needs to incorporate cognitive-behavioral strategies, especially in moral education, to better support trauma-affected students and create a supportive learning environment. Comprehensive trauma-informed training is also crucial for teachers to effectively support all students
DESIGN, SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ZINC AND GOLD-BASED METAL ORGANIC FRAMEWORKS AND COMPLEXES FOR THE DETECTION AND TREATMENT OF CANCER
No full textThe early detection of cancer plays a pivotal role in improving patient outcomes, emphasizing the urgent need for highly sensitive and selective biosensing platforms. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising candidates in this domain due to their tunable properties, large surface area, and high porosity. Herein, the utilization of zinc-based MOF as a sophisticated biosensing platform tailored for the precise detection of the HER2 cancer biomarker is presented. HER2, a critical protein marker in breast cancer diagnostics and treatment, demands highly selective and accurate detection methods for effective patient management. Simple hydrothermal synthesis methodology has been adopted to synthetize zinc-based MOF while the structural properties of this MOF were thoroughly examined to elucidate its inherent advantages in biosensing applications. Based on the tunability of MOF, functionalization strategies and surface engineering were employed to enhance the specificity of zinc-based MOF towards HER2. Additionally, incorporating advanced fluorescent ligand provided a robust fluorescent-based assay for the sensitive detection of HER2. The Limit of detection was found to be 255 pg/mL. To comprehend the interaction between the protein and zinc-based MOF, a computational molecular docking was operated.
On the other hand, cancer treatment has long been a challenging endeavor, prompting researchers to explore innovative approaches. One promising avenue involves the use of organic-inorganic hybrid structures, which offer unique advantages in targeting cancer cells. Herein, investigating the efficacy of employing such hybrid structures in cancer treatment, particularly focusing on their performance in Fenton reaction and chemodynamic therapy (CDT) was implemented. Utilizing organic-inorganic hybrid nanostructures including MOFs, coordination polymers (CPs) and organic/inorganic complex as anticancer agents have shown high efficacy in combating cancer. The influence of small size on activity has been examined, elucidating how nano-scale dimensions enhance therapeutic outcomes by facilitating cellular uptake and targeted delivery. Furthermore, the selection of biocompatible inorganic elements such as gold and zinc has demonstrated significant efficacy in cancer treatment while ensuring safety towards normal cells.
On the other hand, the choice of organic ligands has been explored, highlighting its fundamental role in modulating the reactivity and selectivity of hybrid structures in cancer treatment. Through a comprehensive analysis of experimental data, valuable insights into optimizing the design of organic-inorganic hybrid structures for enhanced efficacy in cancer therapy have been revealed, thereby contributing to the advancement of precision medicine and personalized treatment approaches. The concentration required to inhibit cancer cells growth by 50% (IC50) was found to be 75, 41 and 48 μg/mL
EVALUATION OF NATIVE PLANT INTEGRATION, SUBSOIL AMENDMENT, AND ‘FOODSCAPING’ AS MEANS OF INCREASING THE ENVIRONMENTAL FEASIBILITY OF PUBLIC URBAN GREENERY IN THE GULF REGION
No full textPublic parks and gardens greatly contribute to the residential and touristic value of cities of the Gulf Region, but their maintenance is associated with high environmental and economic costs. The high potential evapotranspiration and summer temperatures greatly limit the choice of suitable landscaping plants, and light sandy soils with a high weed potential challenge the water management. The United Arab Emirates is characterized by a rapid urban development and population growth, resulting in increasing competition between green amenities and crop farming for irrigation water, cultivable land, and workforce. Various strategies and technologies have been proposed to increase the resource use efficiency of UAE’s urban greenery, such as the replacement of exotic with native xerophytic vegetation, amendment of the soil, water-saving irrigation practices, as well as the integration of crop production with ornamental plantations (‘foodscaping’). However, little is known about how such techniques could be integrated into existing landscape management concepts, and there is a need to comparatively assess resource-saving potential.
For this purpose, two field experiments were conducted in public urban parks in the city of Al Ain, UAE, as part of the present dissertation. The first one tested the hypothesis that eight native and four exotic plant ornamental species for their performance under high (ET0), medium (1/3rd), low (1/2), and very low (1/4th) supplies with mineral fertilizer and irrigation water in the form of treated sewage effluent (TSE) that is generally supplied to public urban greenery in the emirates of Abu Dhabi. One year after establishment, the native plants provided a similar ornamental value with up to 70% reduced irrigation water expenditure compared with standard exotic plant stands. The native plants had a positive impact on the soil physical and chemical properties. The second field experiment tested the hypothesis that subsoil amendment in combination with water supply to the subsoil via deep pipes would increase the water use efficiency of ornamental plant stands. The results revealed that, irrespective of the water supply, the native plant species grew more biomass and tended to outcompete neighboring exotic plants when grown in mixed stands. The soil amendment and deep pipe irrigation had no impact on the plant performance, but deep pipe irrigation reduced the emergence of weeds.
Based on literature research, site observations, and satellite image mapping, the present study also evaluated the potential contribution of foodscaping to Al Ain’s supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. Foodscaping is the introduction of edible crops into the landscapes for the elevation of aesthetics and food production. This study revealed that foodscaping could potentially contribute around 10% to the total fruit and vegetable consumption of urban residents, which is notable, given that the Gulf Region currently imports more than 90% of its food. For a preliminary assessment of risks pertaining to urban crop production, date fruits from palms growing along roads within and outside of Al Ain were sampled and analyzed for their element concentrations. The results revealed that some fruits grown near roads contained elevated levels of certain heavy metals, likely from atmospheric deposition. This study recommends investigating deeper insights into the atmospheric pollution in the edible harvest and taking necessary measures to keep the levels of heavy metals concentration within the standard range.
Based on the results of the present study it is concluded that the water and fertilizer, resource-saving potential of alternative soil amendment or irrigation technologies for public urban greenery is rather low. A far greater potential seems to lie in a modification of the composition of urban landscape plantations. It is recommended that strategies for the integration of native plants and crops into urban gardens and parks are further developed. These would need to take differences in competitive strength between native and exotic plant species into account, as well as the potential contamination of plant material in the proximity of roads
EFFECT OF VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY ON COMPUTER SCIENCE/ENGINEERING BASED LABORATORIES EDUCATION – A CASE STUDY
Get PDFVirtual reality (VR) is becoming increasingly popular and essential in education as institutions strive to incorporate technology in education. In Engineering and Computer Science, students face difficulties in comprehending many abstract complex concepts that are typically studied in Labs. This situation worsens with hardware failure and the lack of pedagogical tools. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the impact of VR environments on learning advanced and complex STEM concepts. We also explore the impact of different human-computer interaction (HCI) techniques including gamification on the learning experience of STEM students. To measure such impact, we developed a VR application that simulates laboratory courses in CS/CE, namely, the digital design & computer organization course. The study employs two types of experiments; We conducted a usability study to ensure an immersive and interactive learning experience. We carried out experiments and surveyed participating students from UAE University to measure the learning experience and the impact on learning improvement. The second experiment is an educational experiment to compare the VR users\u27 results to students who only rely on documents. Our results show that students who are using VR applications perform better than students who use traditional learning. The analysis of the survey indicates that 90.9% of the participants found that the VR gamification experience was fun and encouraged competitive behavior and contributed to a better understanding of the materials. The educational experiment showed that the group that used the VR application improved by 37% compared to the group that didn’t use VR which improved by 24.5%. This study reveals the importance of the VR environment in engineering education. VR environment makes the learning experience more entertaining and less tedious especially when dealing with complex abstract engineering concepts. The VR environment has additional overhead because it requires development, testing, and more importantly usability studies to incorporate gamification
THE ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF A NOVEL 8-HYDROXYQUINOLINE DERIVATIVES AGAINST 5-FLUOROURACIL RESISTANT COLORECTAL CANCER CELLS
Get PDFCancer is a global health crisis for which 20 million new cases were diagnosed in 2022 alone, with 9.3 million cancer-related deaths. Nearly 900,000 deaths were due to colorectal cancer (CRC), which is the third leading cause of cancer related mortality. In the United Arab Emirates, 550 new cases of CRC were reported in 2022. A major clinical challenge with CRC treatment is the development of resistance to 5-fluorouracil (5FU)-based chemotherapy regimens, which are the standard treatment for CRC. In the present study, the anticancer activity of two novel 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) derivatives AS45 and AS47 was examined against 5FU-sensitive (HCT116) and 5FU-resistant (5FU-R-HCT116) human CRC cell lines. Both 8-HQ derivatives were found to inhibit the viability as well as the colony formation ability of HCT116 and 5FU-R-HCT116 cells. Based on the results of both viability and colony formation assay, AS47 was selected as the candidate 8HQ derivative with potent activity. Further analysis revealed AS47 induced senescence in HCT116 cells, as confirmed by positive staining for senescence-associated β-galactosidase and downregulation of cell cycle associated protein cyclin D1 and the upregulation of p21 and p27. In contrast, AS47 induced autophagy in 5FU-R-HCT116 cells, which was confirmed by accumulation of LC3B-II on Western blotting. Lastly, AS47 inhibit the migratory capacity of both cell lines, demonstrated by its ability to prevent wound closure in wound healing assay. Our collective data suggest that the novel 8-HQ derivative AS47 is a promising anticancer agent for both 5FU-sensitive and 5FU-resistant CRC and should be studied further
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF VARIOUS HYDROGEN KNOCK LIMIT EXTENSION STRATEGIES ON A HYDROGEN-GASOLINE DUAL FUEL SPARK IGNITION ENGINE
Get PDFHydrogen is a clean and carbon free substitute with the ability to significantly cut down the harmful emissions while enhancing the energy efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE) typically powered by conventional fossil fuels. Hydrogen is the most abundant elements which can be easily obtained from sources like water and biomass. The wide flammability range and high laminar flame velocity outstands hydrogen from other fuels. However, hydrogen fueled engines are more prone to abnormal combustion like knock and backfire due to its low ignition energy and high adiabatic flame temperature. To avoid backfire, several well developed approaches have been reported. Unlike backfire, combustion knock are more severe and difficult to control. Thus, a study on extending the hydrogen knock limit is of great importance. The main focus of this thesis is to investigate various strategies that helps in extending hydrogen fraction while avoiding the engine knock in spark ignition engine operating under hydrogen–gasoline dual fuel combustion where conventional gasoline is replaced drastically by hydrogen. The first part of the thesis investigates the hydrogen–gasoline combustion in a Ricardo single cylinder SI engine with hydrogen manifold induction and gasoline direct injection. A range of experimental trials were conducted to investigate the original knock limit, performance, combustion and emissions under various engine speed and gasoline injection quantity. Hydrogen exhibited superior results than pure gasoline which are more pronounced at low engine speed with the highest brake thermal efficiency of 27.48% at 1000 rpm. Apart from that, the highest gasoline injection quantity showed the least cyclic variation which is mainly due to the concentration of gasoline near the vicinity of spark plug. The result showed that at default configuration for the best combination (1000 rpm and 6 mg per cycle gasoline quantity) a hydrogen knock limit of 8 LPM was achieved. Next a comparison study between pure gasoline and hydrogen–gasoline mixture knock was conducted. The outcomes exhibited that the hydrogen enrichment results in severe knock. The combustion knock are usually inherited with high cylinder pressure and abnormal heat release rate. The heat release rate at knocking conditions were 151.2 and 128.53 J/deg for the 25% and 12.5% hydrogen flow rate compared to 86.86 J/deg for pure gasoline.Following this, several methods that can be implemented to an existing engine on extending the hydrogen knock limit was investigated. To facilitate this studies, change in spark timing, intake air temperature and pressure, and dilution with CO2 gas and fuels possessing high latent heat of vaporization were adopted. A retardation in spark timing showed an increased hydrogen flow rate. The result showed that a hydrogen flow rate of 14 LPM was achieved from the original limit of 8 LPM when the spark timing retarded from 12° CA to 4° CA BTDC. This is due to the extension of combustion process to the expansion stroke with reduced the cylinder pressure and temperature. Moreover, a change in intake air pressure and temperature also facilitated the extension in hydrogen knock limit. An increase in intake air pressure and decrease in the intake air temperature allowed the extension of hydrogen knock limit. A hydrogen flow rate of 18 LPM was achieved at an intake air pressure of 112 kPa at 4° CA BTDC. Furthermore, hydrogen knock limit was influenced greatly by the addition of ethanol and methanol fuels. The highest hydrogen flow rate of 16 and 18 LPM was obtained for 50% volume proportions of ethanol and methanol, respectively. This increment was due to the high latent heat of vaporization of alcohol which provides a charge cooling effect during combustion. Apart from these strategies, dilution of combustible mixture with CO2 gas also extended the hydrogen knock limit. A maximum hydrogen flow rate of 16 LPM was achieved with 6 LPM CO2 dilution level, which can be attributed to the high heat capacity and inert nature of CO2 gas.Further, the research outcomes can be extended to wide applications in the field of automotive and aerospace. These approaches can be implemented on jet, stationary and gas engines with less dependency on fossil fuel–based products
Practical Guidelines to Legal Writing for Young Researchers and Professionals
Get PDFResearch about the law requires a degree of mastery of both the existing knowledge about the topic of research and the necessary methodological tool-kit to communicate the analysis and the findings to the targeted audience. This paper aims to provide young researchers and professionals in law with a step-by-step guide to write different types of legal writings.
This research starts from the assumption that well situating the topic of the research within an appropriate context and adopting an adapted analysis condition a cogent structure that reflects the degree of consistency between the research gap and the aim of the research, on the one hand, and the findings and the recommendations, on the other.
Keywords: Legal Writing, Context, Baseline, Method, Structur
Restricting the Meanings according to the Hanafi Fundamentalists: Principles and Results
Get PDFThis research aims to review the phenomenon of restricting interpretations among Hanafi fundamentalists, through an investigation of the historical stages and its most prominent symbols, in light of the clarification of the criteria that limit the sections of meanings, and the foundations on which the restriction was based.
To achieve this goal, the study followed the inductive approach that confines the history of Hanafi fundamentalist research on the subject of verbal meanings, while relying on the deductive analytical approach. It is based on tracing the fundamentalist tendencies that appeared among the late Hanafi scholars to clarify the nature of these tendencies in determining the foundations and criteria for the exclusive division according to two Sheikhs namely Shams Al-Imam Al-Sarkhasi and Fakhr Al-Islam Al-Bazdawi, and the fundamentalist consequences resulting from the narrowing of meanings.
It has been shown through the study that Judge Abu Zaid Al-Dabusi is considered the first to present a vision about limiting the divisions of meanings according to the Hanafi school of thought, and he was followed by Shams Al-Imam Al-Sarkhasi and Fakhr Al-Islam al-Bazdawi. The later discussions were extensive about the basis on which the division is based and the criteria that support it. The researcher concluded that the basis is what the division of meanings is based on is how the word denotes it, and the division is based on two main criteria: the criterion of subjectivity, and the criterion of intentionality
Entrepreneurship educator: a vital cog in the wheel of entrepreneurship education and development in universities
No full textEntrepreneurship educators (EEs) are critical in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging economies, as they play a vital part in developing talent, which further contributes to a knowledge-based economy. The value of EEs is in promoting entrepreneurship education and highlighting the significance of developing an entrepreneurial mindset among students. Primary data was collected by conducting indepth, semi-structured interviews involving educators affiliated with public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UAE. Participants were selected by adopting random sampling and snowballing techniques. Our findings not only shed light on the challenges faced by EEs but also underscore the urgent need for better support from institutions. This support is crucial for EEs to make an effective contribution to developing a professional workforce that can significantly impact students and the community. We also advocate strategies for fostering experiential learning, which include giving EEs more autonomy and support by establishing dedicated entrepreneurship centers. This work is a call to action, contributing to the further development of the literature on EE, which has received much lesser academic attention than it deserves. It also lays a foundation for further cross-country studies