368 research outputs found
Breaking Dichotomies: Counter-Narratives in the Spoken Word Poetry of Suheir Hammad
No full textThis article analyzes the spoken word poetry of the Palestinian-American author, Suheir Hammad, who attempts to deconstruct dichotomies between Arabs and Americans and to create a concept of transnational humanness. Through cultural criticism, Hammad reverses the process of Othering when she humanizes Palestinians and detaches suffering from national belonging. Her creative resistance represents a renegotiation of Americaness and its relation to Islam and Arabs, and opens up de-nationalized spaces of comparison
Where are the mothers? Interrogating maternal mortality as a violation of the rights to life and health : a Nigerian and Ethiopian perspective
No full textA Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Salah Hammad, Faculty of Law, Addis Ababa University, AddisThesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2009.The author argues that maternal mortality can easily be avoided and that the right to health and life is as much a developmental issue as it is one of human rights. Focuses on the maternal mortality ratio and relevant laws protecting women’s right to life and health in Nigeria and Ethiopia.http://www.chr.up.ac.za/Centre for Human RightsLL
“Challenging the Authority of Religious Interpretation in Saudi Arabia::The Transformation of Suhaila Zain al-Abedin Hammad
No full textTaking as its starting point that a male monopoly is a problem in the recognition of Islamic religious authority, especially in matters related to women, this chapter discusses the possibilities for challenging this monopoly. The author argues that it is necessary to create alternative sources of authority from within the realm of religious scholarship through women scholars laying direct claim to the interpretation of sacred texts. Al Fassi uses the works and experiences of the Saudi scholar, Suhaila Zain al-Abedin Hammad, as a specific example for this approach. Hammad, an accomplished religious scholar, has worked tirelessly through her writing, both in books and her weekly newspaper column, to address difficult issues in Islamic law, to rethink the use of weak hadiths, and to critique Saudi legal rulings. The chapter also considers the intense backlash against her work and her impact on Saudi public opinion. © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Dina El Omari, Juliane Hammer and Mouhanad Khorchide; individual chapters, the contributors
Is it Social Influence on Beliefs Under Ambiguity? A Possible Explanation for Volatility Clustering
No full textInfluencing and being influenced by others is the very essence of human behaviour. We put forward an exploratory asset-pricing model allowing for social influence on investor judgments under ambiguity. The time series of returns generated by our model displays volatility clustering, a puzzling stylised fact observed in financial markets. This suggests that social influence on investor judgments may be playing a role in generating volatility clustering.Social Influence, Knightian Uncertainty, Ambiguity, Volatility Clustering
Drift Reduction for Monocular Visual Odometry of Intelligent Vehicles Using Feedforward Neural Networks
No full textIn this paper, an approach for reducing the drift in monocular visual odometry algorithms is proposed based on a feedforward neural network. A visual odometry algorithm computes the incremental motion of the vehicle between the successive camera frames, then integrates these increments to determine the pose of the vehicle. The proposed neural network reduces the errors in the pose estimation of the vehicle which results from the inaccuracies in features detection and matching, camera intrinsic parameters, and so on. These inaccuracies are propagated to the motion estimation of the vehicle causing larger amounts of estimation errors. The drift reducing neural network identifies such errors based on the motion of features in the successive camera frames leading to more accurate incremental motion estimates. The proposed drift reducing neural network is trained and validated using the KITTI dataset and the results show the efficacy of the proposed approach in reducing the errors in the incremental orientation estimation, thus reducing the overall error in the pose estimation.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Team Manon Ko
Design, Synthesis and Activity of DNA Minor Groove Alkylators and 2-Methylaristeromycins
No full textAbstract of part I
The DNA structural differences between normal and tumor cells are almost negligible and accordingly, DNA targeting drugs are reserved for serious and life threatening diseases such as cancer. The majority of DNA targeting antineoplastic drugs are alkylators that are covalently attached to DNA to inhibit its replication causing immense adverse effects such as general weakness, hair loss, bone marrow depression and many other severe side effects owing to the lack of targetability and selectivity for the DNA of cancer cells. Since the discovery and disclosure of the structures of the cyclopropylpyrroloindole (CPI) class of compounds that comprises (+)-CC-1065 and duocarmycin SA in the late seventies of the last century, a vast amount of research has been directed towards the synthesis of these compounds and many other structural analogs due to the increased interest in their exceeding potency and unique mechanism of action as DNA minor groove alkylators within AT rich regions. In addition, Anthramycin and its analogs of the pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) class of compounds represent CG selective minor groove binders. Moreover, the hybrid drug assembly strategy offers a great opportunity in designing such dual inhibitors that are capable of eliciting more than one mode of action at a specific target as a means of circumventing the multidrug resistance problem associated with many chemotherapeutic drugs. Recently, many research groups are devoting their efforts in designing and synthesizing such hybrid agents in the hope of improving cancer therapeutics, however, scant attention has been drawn to combining the structural features of both the CPI and PBD classes in one structure as possible DNA sequence specific cross linkers.
This study deals mainly with the rational drug design and synthesis of compounds that possess not only a blending of CPI and PBD structural scaffolds, but also of possible attachments with some DNA sequence specific targeting moieties such as lexitropsins and Dervan polypeptides. The initial target compounds were identified as ethyl 2-(4-methoxybenzyl)-3,5-dioxo-1,2,3,5,10,10a- hexahydrobenzo[f]cyclopropa[d]isoquinoline-1-carb- oxylate 38 and ethyl 2-(2,4-dimethoxybenzyl)-3,5-dioxo-1,2,3,5,10,10a- hexahydrobenzo [f]cyclopropa[d]isoquinoline-1-carboxylate 39 that were synthesized through an imine-anhydride cycloaddition reaction as a key step to contruct the benzoisoquinoline scaffold followed by reduction of the carboxylic functionality, debenzylation and intralmoecular Mitsunobu reaction to accomplish the final Winstein spirocyclization.
An additional compound that was identified as ethyl 9-methyl-5,7-dioxo-5,7,11,11a,11b,12-hexahydrobenzo[f]cyclopropa[d]pyrrolo[1,2-b]isoquinoline-10-carboxylate 40, and two synthetic pathways were designed. The first includes coupling the bromonaphthoic acid derivative 71 with the pyrroline analog 72. An alternative route involves three different approaches for utilizing the imine–anhydride cycloadditions using the tricyclic anhydride 43.
Abstract of part II
Tuberculosis (TB) is infecting more than one third of the global population and it accounts for 2 to 3 million deaths every year. For a number of years, especially between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s of last century, there was a remarkable decline in the incidence of TB infection due to effective treatments. The re-emergence of TB took place after the widespread of HIV in 1983. TB-HIV co-infections rendered the treatment more difficult owing to the multidrug resistance (MDR).
Many nucleosides have been proven to be very effective and relatively safe medications particularly in antiviral and anticancer chemotherapy. Among the interesting Mycobacterium enzymes that can be targeted for therapy by nucleosides is the purine salvage enzyme adenosine kinase (Ado Kinase), which is responsible for catalyzing the phosphorylation of adenosine to adenosine monophosphate (AMP). 2-Methyladenosine has been shown to elicit powerful inhibitory actions on the mycobaterial Adokinase, making this compound an important lead compound for designing 2-methylated nucleoside analogs as AdoKinase inhibitors.
S-adenosylhomocystein hydrolase (AdoHcy hydrolase) is another interesting enzyme that can be targeted by nucleosides. AdoHcy hydrolase plays an essential role in the methyl transfer reactions during DNA replication and Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (Mtb) is the only bacterium that has a solved crystal structure, which facilitates drug design. The naturally occuring carbocyclic nucleosides; aristeromycin (Ari) and neplanocin NpcA, are two of the exceedingly potent inhibitors of AdoHcy hydrolase, and as a consequence, they exhibit significant antiviral activity.
The promising exceptional potency of 2-methyladenosine as an Ado kinase inhibitor and Ari and NpcA as AdoHcy hydrolase inhibitors led to the design and synthesis of 2-methyl NpcA (27) and 2-methyl Ari (28). This combines the structural features of both classes with the intent of achieving dual functioning inhibitors of both enzymes in an attempt to circumvent the MDR problem associated with TB infections. Another NpcA analog, 2-methyl-4′-nor NpcA (29) has been designed and synthesized in such a way that retains the structural features of 27 while avoiding the toxicity associated with NpcA. Finally, to investigate the activity and correlate this with syn-anti conformations, 2,8-dimethyl-4′-nor NpcA (30) has been prepared.
Compounds 27 and 29 were assessed for their anti-tuberculosis activity and they showed no significant activity compared to Rifampicin. Anti-tuberculosis testing of compounds 28 and 30 and antiviral evaluation of all compounds are forthcoming
Multimodal Learning Experience for Deliberate Practice
No full textWhile digital education technologies have improved to make educational resources more available, the modes of interaction they implement remain largely unnatural for the learner. Modern sensor-enabled computer systems allow extending human-computer interfaces for multimodal communication. Advances in Artificial Intelligence allow interpreting the data collected from multimodal and multi-sensor devices. These insights can be used to support deliberate practice with personalised feedback and adaptation through Multimodal Learning Experiences (MLX). This chapter elaborates on the approaches, architectures, and methodologies in five different use cases that use multimodal learning analytics applications for deliberate practice.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Web Information System
More than 40 years’ follow-up of an unconstrained metal lunate replacement for the treatment of Kienböck’s disease
No full textMicroRNA targeting by quercetin in cancer treatment and chemoprotection
No full textA growing number of evidences from clinical and preclinical studies have shown that dysregulation of microRNA (miRNA) function contributes to the progression of cancer and thus miRNA can be an effective target in therapy. Dietary phytochemicals, such as quercetin, are natural products that have potential anti-cancer properties due to their proven antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-proliferative effects. Available experimental studies indicate that quercetin could modulate multiple cancer-relevant miRNAs including let-7, miR-21, miR-146a and miR-155, thereby inhibiting cancer initiation and development. This paper reviews the data supporting the use of quercetin for miRNA-mediated chemopreventive and therapeutic strategies in various cancers, with the aim to comprehensively understand its health‐promoting benefits and pharmacological potential. Integration of technology platforms for miRNAs biomarker and drug discovery is also presented
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