43 research outputs found
Eco-conscious upcycling of sugarcane bagasse into flexible polyurethane foam for mechanical & acoustic relevance
No full textThis study explores the use of sugarcane bagasse (SCB), a byproduct of sugarcane processing, as a bio-filler in the production of flexible polyurethane foam (FPU), focusing on its benefits for both the environment and the economy. By varying the inclusion of SCB waste from 1 to 6 wt%, the research aims to enhance the FPU's mechanical and acoustic characteristics. Techniques such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) were utilized to analyze the chemical structure and surface characteristics of both SCB and the FPU/SCB composites. Additionally, tests on gel fraction, density, and mechanical properties were conducted. The results indicate that adding 4 wt% SCB to FPU considerably improved the foam's properties. This modification resulted in a 148.63% increase in apparent density, a 228.47% rise in compressive strength, and a 116.24% boost in tensile strength. Furthermore, sound absorption across various frequency ranges was enhanced compared to the control foam. Additionally, the findings show that SCB effectively shifts sound absorption characteristics to lower frequencies. Specifically, at a low frequency of 500 Hz, the sound absorption coefficient increased to 0.4 with a foam thickness of 20 mm. This demonstrates that SCB can significantly improve FPU's performance, making it an attractive option for applications requiring noise mitigation, such as in the automotive and construction industries, thereby offering a sustainable solution to waste management and materials innovation.This article is published as El-Metwaly, Esraa A., Hadeel E. Mohamed, Tarek M. El-Basheer, Manal TH Moselhy, Sonia Zulfiqar, Eric W. Cochran, and Ahmed Abdelhamid Maamoun. "Eco-conscious upcycling of sugarcane bagasse into flexible polyurethane foam for mechanical & acoustic relevance." RSC advances 14, no. 33 (2024): 23683-23692.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4RA04025B. © 2024 The Author(s). This Open Access Article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported Licence
A study of the translation of sentiment in user-generated text
No full textA thesis submitted in partial ful filment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Emotions are biological states of feeling that humans may verbally express to
communicate their negative or positive mood, influence others, or even afflict
harm. Although emotions such as anger, happiness, affection, or fear are
supposedly universal experiences, the lingual realisation of the emotional
experience may vary in subtle ways across different languages. For this reason,
preserving the original sentiment of the source text has always been a challenging
task that draws in a translator's competence and fi nesse. In the professional
translation industry, an incorrect translation of the sentiment-carrying lexicon is
considered a critical error as it can be either misleading or in some cases harmful
since it misses the fundamental aspect of the source text, i.e. the author's
sentiment.
Since the advent of Neural Machine Translation (NMT), there has been a
tremendous improvement in the quality of automatic translation. This has lead to
an extensive use of NMT online tools to translate User-Generated Text (UGT)
such as reviews, tweets, and social media posts, where the main message is often
the author's positive or negative attitude towards an entity. In such scenarios, the
process of translating the user's sentiment is entirely automatic with no human
intervention, neither for post-editing nor for accuracy checking. However, NMT
output still lacks accuracy in some low-resource languages and sometimes makes
critical translation errors that may not only distort the sentiment but at times flips
the polarity of the source text to its exact opposite.
In this thesis, we tackle the translation of sentiment in UGT by NMT systems from two perspectives: analytical and experimental. First, the analytical approach
introduces a list of linguistic features that can lead to a mistranslation of
ne-grained emotions between different language pairs in the UGT domain. It also
presents an error-typology specifi c to Arabic UGT illustrating the main linguistic
phenomena that can cause mistranslation of sentiment polarity when translating
Arabic UGT into English by NMT systems. Second, the experimental approach
attempts to improve the translation of sentiment by addressing some of the
linguistic challenges identifi ed in the analysis as causing mistranslation of
sentiment both on the word-level and on the sentence-level. On the word-level, we
propose a Transformer NMT model trained on a sentiment-oriented vector space
model (VSM) of UGT data that is capable of translating the correct sentiment
polarity of challenging contronyms. On the sentence-level, we propose a
semi-supervised approach to overcome the problem of translating sentiment
expressed by dialectical language in UGT data. We take the translation of
dialectical Arabic UGT into English as a case study. Our semi-supervised AR-EN
NMT model shows improved performance over the online MT Twitter tool in
translating dialectical Arabic UGT not only in terms of translation quality but
also in the preservation of the sentiment polarity of the source text. The
experimental section also presents an empirical method to quantify the notion of
sentiment transfer by an MT system and, more concretely, to modify automatic
metrics such that its MT ranking comes closer to a human judgement of a poor or
good translation of sentiment
Towards a Better Understanding of Tarajem: Creating Topological Networks for Arabic biographical Dictionaries
No full textBiographical writing is one of the earliest and most extensive forms of Arabic literature. Some scholars tend to assume that classical Arabic biographies, widely known as Tarāǧim, arose in conjunction with the study of the reliability of the Hadith transmitters (the reciters of the Prophet Mohammad's sayings) which lead to a proliferation of biographical material collected and used to assess the transmitter's trustworthiness . However, a scrutiny of the well-known classical Arabic biographical dictionaries such as Siyaru 'A`lāmi an-Nubalā' `The Lives of the Noble Figures' for Adh-Dhahabī shows that they extend their entries to other classes of persons important to the development of particular fields such as Islamic jurisprudents, rulers, poets, philosophers or physicians. The main contribution of Arabic biographical dictionaries is the cumulative value of the thousands of life histories which construct a picture of the Islamic society in different eras. An Arabic biographical dictionary, therefore, is predominantly used by scholars to look up an eminent person's achievements and historical background. In this project, however, we explore Arabic biographies as a prosopography, rather than a biography in the strict sense. We introduce a novel method for a better understanding of Arabic biographical dictionaries by creating a network of relations among different persons. We utilise Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to create a topological network from the unstructured data of 45,500 biographical entries collected from different dictionaries. We aim to illustrate how network analysis leveraged by NLP tools can provide scholars with innovative methods for discovering complex constellation of relations between prominent and non-prominent figures spanning over several eras and from different fields of knowledge. We also use graph visualisation as a means to effectively communicate and explore such complex constellations. Each network visualisation is purposefully designed to be as simple and robust as possible to offer scholars a way to move relatively fluidly between the large scale of biographical entries and to easily interpret the minute ties between persons of different walks of life. We make both our data and code publicly available for researchers to replicate the experiment. It can be found at:https://github.com/sadanyh/Relational-Network-for-Arabic-Taraje
Factors Associated with Poor Asthma Control among Sudanese Patients Attending Atbara Teaching Hospital in Sudan
No full textObjective: To identify factors associated with poor bronchial asthma control in patients attending Atbara Teaching Hospital, Sudan, in 2020. Methods: This was an analytical, descriptive, cross-sectional hospital-based study conducted at the Atbara Teaching Hospital in River Nile State, Sudan, between February and June 2020. All patients diagnosed with bronchial asthma who were attending any hospital department were included. Results: In total, 292 patients were enrolled, 51.4% were aged 18–45 years and 51.4% were female. The most frequent complaints were an audible wheeze and shortness of breath (approximately 93%), and 49% had been diagnosed with asthma >10 years previously. Of the patients, 42% were admitted 1 to 3 times and 47.3% were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Hospital admission was associated with improper inhaler use (P = 0.003), the presence of triggers at home or work (P = 0.003), and passive smoking (P = 0.016). ICU admission was associated with female sex (P = 0.039) and the presence of triggers at home or work (P = 0.026). Conclusion: Asthma is a major problem in Atbara City. Improper inhaler use, the presence of triggers at home or work, and passive smoking were significantly associated with hospital admission. Female sex and the presence of triggers at home or work were significantly associated with ICU admission
Knowledge of mpox and its determinants among the healthcare personnel in Arabic regions: A multi-country cross-sectional study
No full textBackground & aim: The monkeypox virus (MPXV), an Orthopoxvirus family member, is the zoonotic agent that causes mpox (formerly known as monkeypox). The ongoing mpox pandemic has caused cases across continents involving 110 countries. This study aimed to assess mpox knowledge and its determinants among healthcare personnel. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from June 6 to June 25, 2022, among 17 Arab countries. The self-administered questionnaire consists of 53 questions assessing the knowledge about the monkeypox virus. Results: In total, 5874 medical students and clinical doctors from 17 Arab countries participated in this study. Only 13.8% (n = 812) of respondents have ever received information about mpox during their studies in medicine. The mean knowledge score was 13.84, and the median score was 15 (range 1–34). More than half (51.3%, n = 3012) have heard about mpox before. A low proportion of the participants had a good level of knowledge on mpox. Only 11.7% of respondents had correctly identified the natural host and the incubation period of mpox. More than half (58.9%) were aware of the signs and symptoms of mpox. Few respondents (28%) believed that mpox and smallpox have similar signs and symptoms. Specialist doctors had higher knowledge of mpox (AOR = 2.96, 95% CI = 2.24–3.92, p < 0.001) than other cadres. Conclusion: Mpox awareness among Arabic medical students and practitioners is low; hence immediate action in creating awareness among arab healthcare professionals is the need of the hour. This is crucial in the mpox early detection and prevention of its spread.Data collection group. 1- AHMAD ALSALEH: Damascus, Damascus University, Faculty of medicine, Damascus, Syria (mailto: [email protected]). 2- Safwan Al-Rassas: Thamar University, Dhamar, Yemen. (mailto: [email protected]), 3- Rais mohammed Amir: faculty of Medicine of Algiers, University of Algiers, Algeria. (mailto: [email protected]), 4- Ola Kayali: Aleppo University, Faculty of medicine. Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 5- LEENA SAEED: National ribat university, Al Khurtum, Sudan. ( [email protected]), 6- Fouad Hasib Makhoul: Faculty of Medicine, Al Baath University Homs, Syria.( [email protected]), 7- Zeinab Ahmed Mohamed Bakheit: University of Khartoum, Faculty of medicine, Khartoum, Sudan Email. ( [email protected]), 8- Ismail Atef Ismail Ahmed Ibrahim: Fenerbahçe Üniversitesi – Turkey. ( [email protected]), 9- Walaa Magdy Mowad AbdAlhalim: Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Egypt. ( [email protected]), 10- Mark Hasib Makhoul: laboratory diagnosis resident doctor at Al Basel University Hospital, Homs, Syria. ( [email protected]), 11- Nawal Mohammad Alhazaimeh: Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid-Jordan. ( [email protected]), 12- Zinelabedin Mohamed: Tobruk University, Faculty of Medicine, Tobruk, Libya. ( [email protected]), 13- Temaa Alklani: faculty of medicine, Damascus university, Damascus, Syria. ( [email protected]), 14- LANA SHEET: Aleppo university, faculty of medicine, Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 15- GHAZAL MOHAMAD JAMIL KABAND: Aleppo university faculty of medicine, Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 16- ELBOKHARI MOHAMED elbashir Hassan: OM durman Islamic university, Sudan. ( [email protected]), 17- GHADA MOHAMAD KHALED ALSAEED: Aleppo university faculty of medicine, Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 18- Zainab Jabbar Challoob: University of Baghdad, faculty of Medicine, Baghdad, Iraq. ( [email protected]), 19- Samah Khalid Musa Mohamed: University of Khartoum, Faculty of medicine Khartoum, Sudan. ( [email protected]), 20- Ahmed Zaher Radwan Radwan: Faculty of medicine, Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 21- Ebrahim Shaddad: Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine, Sana'a, Yemen. ( [email protected]), 22- Asma'a Munasar Ali Alsubari: Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine, Sana'a, Yemen. ( [email protected]), 23- Omar Adil Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Madani: University of Al-Gezira, Faculty of Medicine, Wad-Madani, Sudan. ( [email protected]), 24- Bushra Alshaikh: Ebrahim Shaddad: Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine, Sana'a, Yemen.( [email protected]), 25- Lazaward Kazan: Altınbaş university, İstanbul/Turkey. ( [email protected]), 26- Hadeel Shayef Ahmed Aljalal: Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine, Sana'a, Yemen. ( [email protected]), 27- Raghad Sameer Hussein Qazzaz: Faculty of Medicine, Mu'tah University, Amman, Jordan ( [email protected]). 28- Haya Bassam Mohammed Al-Kubati: Faculty of medicine, 21 September University, Sana'a, Yemen. ( [email protected]), 29- Gewel Abdulla: Al Baath University Faculty of Medicine, Homs, Syria. ( [email protected]), 30- Ahmad Jamil Kharrat: Aleppo University, faculty of Medicine Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 31- Amany Al Ali: Faculty of Medicine, Hama University, Hama, Syria. ( [email protected]), 32- Hilal Manzalji: Al Baath University Faculty of Medicine, Homs, Syria. ( [email protected]), 33- Zahraa Jabas: Aleppo university, faculty of medicine, Aleppo, Syria. ( [email protected]), 34- MAI ALSALIBE: Al Baath University Faculty of Medicine, Homs, Syria. ( [email protected]), 35- MAAB MAHMOUD MOHAMED ATTAELMNAN: University of Gezira, Sudan. ( [email protected]), 36- EMAD ADDIN ALI AHMAD ZAWANEH: JORDAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY, IRBID, JORDAN. ( [email protected]), 37- Noor haider (moh'd sharif) Hussain: Al_Balqaa applied University, Amman Jordan. ( [email protected]), 38- Albaraa Rustom (Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar. [email protected]). 39- Albaraa Rustom (Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar. [email protected]). 40- Mohammed Amine Hanine(Casablanca University Hospital Ibn Roched, Morocco. [email protected])
Developing and Validating Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Rheumatology Fellowship Training Programs in Saudi Arabia: A Delphi Study
No full textLaila A Alharbi,1 Mohamed Cheikh,2 Manal E Alotaibi,1 Amal A Alkhotani,1 Hussam M Alim,1 Fahd Almalki,1 Mohammed S Samannodi,1 Hadeel A Khadawardi,1 Ahmad A Imam,1 Yosra A Turkistani,1 Fozya B Bashal,1 Abdullah Tawakul,1 Adeeb A Bulkhi,1 Mohammad S Dairi,1 Rania Zaini,3 Hani M Almoallim1 1Department of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Makkah, Saudi Arabia; 2Department of Medicine, Al Salama Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; 3Department of Community Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Makkah, Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Hani M Almoallim, Department of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia, Email [email protected]: Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) define the core tasks that a graduating rheumatologist needs to perform independently in practice. The objective of this study was to develop and validate EPAs for rheumatology fellowship training programs in Saudi Arabia.Methods: Experts met to develop an initial set of potential end-of-training EPAs by conducting a comprehensive literature review of EPAs and studying the Saudi rheumatology fellowship curriculum. Then, to validate the EPAs, we conducted two rounds of the modified Delphi technique among rheumatology experts in Saudi Arabia. A response rate of 80% was considered and the minimum number of experts needed to be 25 to 30. Descriptive statistics were utilized to describe participants’ demographic characteristics and group responses to each statement in all rounds. The experts were asked to rate the relevancy of each EPA using a 5-point Likert scale in both Delphi rounds.Results: In the preliminary phase, four rheumatologists developed an initial set of 36 core EPAs for rheumatology training program in Saudi Arabia. For the two-rounds Delphi techniques, 32 experts were invited to complete the study. The response rate of the first and second round were, 78.12% (25) and 93.75% (30), respectively. The first-round Delphi resulted in a robust consensus on 31 EPAs for rheumatology training. Five EPAs were excluded, and one new EPA was proposed. In the subsequent round, all 32 EPAs achieved strong consensus. The eliminated EPAs likely fell short in one or more of the following areas: relevance to rheumatology practice in Saudi Arabia, overlapping with other EPAs, or practical challenges in the implementation.Conclusion: We have developed and validated a core set of EPAs for rheumatology fellowship training programs in Saudi Arabia. Mapping and identifying milestones for these EPAs are essential steps to follow to enhance workplace curriculum development.Keywords: entrustable professional activities, EPAs, rheumatology, training programs, fellowship, Saudi Arabia, curriculum, workplac
Prevalence, Risk Factors and Antibiotic Resistance of Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli in Children Hospitalized with Urinary Tract Infection at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
No full textBackground/Objectives: We aimed to assess the prevalence and risk factors for acquisition of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli (E. coli) in children admitted with urinary tract infection (UTI) at a tertiary university hospital in Saudi Arabia, as well as to investigate antibiotic resistance patterns. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study involved hospitalized children aged 0–14 years from January 2018 to December 2022 with urine cultures that grew E. coli or ESBL-producing E. coli. Data of the antimicrobial susceptibility for isolated bacteria were collected. Results: This study analyzed 242 urine samples obtained from 119 children with E. coli UTIs. Of these, 20.7% (n = 50) were ESBL producers. Previous antibiotic use (last 3 months), prophylactic antibiotic use, prior UTI (last 3 months), recurrent UTIs, and underlying co-morbidities (p = 0.011, <0.001, 0.025, <0.001, and 0.013, respectively) had a significant relationship with increased risk of ESBL E. coli UTIs. Generally, the highest resistance rates in the ESBL-producing isolates were for ampicillin and third-generation cephalosporin. Conversely, all ESBL-positive isolates were sensitive to meropenem, with variable resistance rates to other antibiotics as amikacin, nitrofurantoin, quinolones and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (2%, 8%, 56% and 64%, respectively). Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of ESBL production among children hospitalized with E. coli UTIs. Addressing ESBL UTI risk factors helps to recognize high-risk cases and enhance proper antibiotic use
Treatment of Bronchiolitis Using Nebulized Hypertonic Saline in Asthma-Prone and Non-Asthma-Prone Patients
No full textBackground: In bronchiolitis, children under the age of two experience cough, dyspnea and wheezing, following a viral upper respiratory infection. Frequently recurrent bronchiolitis in infants with atopic background is the best example of asthma-prone viral-induced wheeze. In bronchiolitis management, inhaled hypertonic saline is the subject of debate among pediatricians and researchers. Nebulized hypertonic saline acts by increasing fluidity of airway surface liquid. Bronchospasm is a theoretical risk for inhaled hypertonic saline when used without adjunctive bronchodilators.
Objective: To compare the response to nebulized hypertonic saline plus B 2 agonists, with nebulized isotonic saline plus B 2 agonists, in asthma-prone and non-asthma-prone bronchiolitis patients.
Patients and methods: This study was a randomized double blind controlled trial, which was carried out at Pulmonology Unit, Pediatric Department, Zagazig University Children Hospital. The study was conducted on 104 infants with acute viral bronchiolitis of mild to moderate severity. They were divided into two groups 52 in each group. Group 1: Asthma-prone patients and group 2, which included non-asthma-prone patients. Patients were randomly assigned to receive inhalation of 0.3 mg/kg salbutamol added to 5 ml of either normal saline 0.9% or hypertonic saline 3%. Within each group the number of patients receiving hypertonic or isotonic saline inhalation was equal to 26.
Results: Nebulized hypertonic saline salbutamol mixture resulted in better improvement of the studied asthmaprone and non-asthma prone bronchiolitis patients. Hypertonic saline decreased case severity and days of hospital stay.
Conclusion: Nebulized hypertonic saline shortened the days of hospital admission and improved the respiratory distress in mild to moderate bronchiolitis. Nebulized hypertonic saline is equally effective in asthmaprone and non-asthma-prone patients and its beneficial effect outweighs its theoretical broncho-constrictive effect
Energy Efficient Transmission Design for NOMA Backscatter-Aided UAV Networks with Imperfect CSI
No full textThe recent combination of ambient backscatter communication (ABC) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has shown great potential for connecting large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) in future unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks. The basic idea of ABC is to provide battery-free transmission by harvesting the energy of existing RF signals of WiFi, TV towers, and cellular base stations/UAV. ABC uses smart sensor tags to modulate and reflect data among wireless devices. On the other side, NOMA makes possible the communication of more than one IoT on the same frequency. In this work, we provide an energy efficient transmission design ABC-aided UAV network using NOMA. This work aims to optimize the power consumption of a UAV system while ensuring the minimum data rate of IoT. Specifically, the transmit power of UAVs and the reflection coefficient of the ABC system are simultaneously optimized under the assumption of imperfect channel state information (CSI). Due to co-channel interference among UAVs, imperfect CSI, and NOMA interference, the joint optimization problem is formulated as non-convex, which involves high complexity and makes it hard to obtain the optimal solution. Thus, it is first transformed and then solved by a sub-gradient method with low complexity. In addition, a conventional NOMA UAV framework is also studied for comparison without involving ABC. Numerical results demonstrate the benefits of using ABC in a NOMA UAV network compared to the conventional UAV framework
