United Arab Emirates University

Machine learning has become a key branch in artificial intelligence by providing unique predictive modeling solutions. Predicting the compressive strength of concrete determined using non-destructive test techniques (NDT) includes high levels of uncertainty. This uncertainty directly depends on the repeatability of the measurement and the variability of concrete properties. This study aims to evaluate the effect of mixture composition and age of concrete on the coefficient of variation (CV) of the rebound hammer index applied to various types of concrete. Several supervised machine learning models, including multivariate multiple regression (MMR), support vector machine (SVM), Gaussian process regression (GPR), and Regression tree (RT) were utilized to predict the compressive strength of concrete. A large dataset of 468 cubic concrete specimens was sorted into four categories and employed for simulation. Regardless of the selected dataset, it was concluded that GPR/SVM and RT yielded the most accurate model prediction metrics of compressive strength when using rebound hammer records over MMR model. The results of the adopted models were remarkably better when mixture proportions and age of concrete features (i.e., age and w/p) were considered in the simulation.

Ventricular arrhythmias are common and can modify the risk profile in patients with advanced heart failure. Guideline-directed medical therapy as well as arrhythmia control are warranted to optimize outcomes and prevent sudden cardiac death. Antiarrhythmic therapy may result in undesired toxicities which can further complicate management. We present a case of an advanced heart failure patient with recurrent ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation that was refractory to guideline-directed medical therapy and resulted in him being considered for advanced heart failure therapies. We describe the clinical course of antiarrhythmic therapy and the resultant complication of clinically significant thyroid dysfunction. We also summarize our review of the literature regarding the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in advanced heart failure and the management of antiarrhythmic therapy-induced thyroid dysfunction.

The quest for effective strategies for rural development continues to be a challenge for policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa and their development partners. Communication development strategies executed using FM stations have emerged as a promising tool as a result of the medium being the most popular source of information among rural dwellers in the region. Thus, this research explores the efficacy of FM radio in rural development by examining the listening patterns of residents and the benefits of such listenership to the lives of inhabitants of the Tamale metropolitan area. This is achieved via a quantitative analysis of surveys of about 400 residents of the Tamale metropolis. The study rejects the perception that FM radio programs in Ghana are mostly entertainment driven and are purveyors of light news. By putting searchlight on the motivations of radio listeners, the study finds that FM radio is the most reliable and trusted source of development information because of the ease, convenience and low cost of listening for listeners, and because programming is mostly in local languages. The study establishes that FM radio is the main source of information on agriculture, education and health in rural communities thereby contributing to rural development. Listeners’ participations in radio phone-in programs were highly rated for fostering audience motivation and agency. However, some challenges emerged. Listenership of FM stations was disproportionately male; there were complaints that radio programs were too “urban”; programming lacked innovation; and the timing of programs was poor. Based on these findings, the study recommends that FM radio stations should employ media professionals to conduct effective audience analysis to gain a grounded understanding of audience radio use if they are to develop the right programming timing to reach a greater audience of rural residents.

Accumulating plastics in the biosphere implicates adverse effects, raising serious concern among scientists worldwide. Plastic waste in nature disintegrates into microplastics. Because of their minute appearance, at a scale of <5 mm, microplastics easily penetrate different pristine water bodies and terrestrial niches, posing detrimental effects on flora and fauna. The potential bioremediative application of microbial enzymes is a sustainable solution for the degradation of microplastics. Studies have reported a plethora of bacterial and fungal species that can degrade synthetic plastics by excreting plastic-degrading enzymes. Identified microbial enzymes, such as Is PETase and Is MHETase from Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 and Thermobifida fusca cutinase (Tfc), are able to depolymerize plastic polymer chains producing ecologically harmless molecules like carbon dioxide and water. However, thermal stability and pH sensitivity are among the biochemical limitations of the plastic-degrading enzymes that affect their overall catalytic activities. The application of biotechnological approaches improves enzyme action and production. Protein-based engineering yields enzyme variants with higher enzymatic activity and temperature-stable properties, while site-directed mutagenesis using the Escherichia coli model system expresses mutant thermostable enzymes. Furthermore, microalgal chassis is a promising model system for “green” microplastic biodegradation. Hence, the bioremediative properties of microbial enzymes are genuinely encouraging for the biodegradation of synthetic microplastic polymers.

Half-Heusler (HH) alloys are a well-known and extensively researched family of thermoelectric (TE), magnetic, and spintronic materials. Doping may significantly increase the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of these materials; nevertheless, practical applications remain far. As a result, the hunt for superior parent TE alloys is critical. Using extensive first-principles density functional calculations, we predicted a novel class of vanadium-based four HH VXTe alloys, where X is one of the four elements: Cr, Mn, Fe, and Co. Their TE properties, as well as their mechanical, magnetic, electrical, and structural stability, have been studied in depth. Their mechanical and thermodynamic stability is confirmed using the predicted elastic constants, formation and cohesive energies, and phonon spectra. A comprehensive analysis of elastic constants and moduli demonstrates that HH VXTe alloys possess elastic anisotropy with reasonably good machinability, higher melting and Debye temperatures, mixed bonding characteristics with ionic and covalent contributions, and brittle nature, except for VCoTe, which is ductile. We find that the ground state of HH VCrTe and VFeTe is ferrimagnetic, while HH VCoTe is ferromagnetic and HH VMnTe is non-magnetic. Three VXTe (X = Cr, Fe, & Co) alloys demonstrated half-metallicity with 100% spin-polarization, whereas HH VMnTe is an 18-electron indirect semiconductor. In the studied HH VXTe alloys, most of the heat flow is caused by the phonon-group velocity of the acoustic phonons. Further studies on the relationship between carrier concentration and temperature dependence of TE properties reveal that the high ZT ∼1.2 at 1000 K of the pristine HH VMnTe alloy is obtained due to its high-power factor of 249.4×1012Wm−1K−2 and this value is greater than the values of some known pristine and doped HH TE materials. Our findings pave the way for further investigation into the HH VXTe alloys in the quest for improved TE and spintronic materials for use in domains that necessitate high thermoelectricity and spintronic performance.

A glacier's mass balance and dynamics are regulated by changes in ice velocity. As a result, estimating glacier flow velocity is a crucial part of temporal glacier monitoring of its health, response to climate change parameters, and its effect on increasing the sea level rise. In this study, we estimated the Gangotri glacier surface velocities from 2014 to 2021. We used remote sensing-based techniques to estimate the Gangotri surface velocity since it provides such measurements regularly for a vast geographical area. Sub-pixel correlation of Landsat 8 imagery was used by using the COSI- Corr (co-registration of optically sensed images and correlation) tool to determine surface velocities over the Gangotri glacier. Our derived velocities values match the ground truth velocities values comparatively well. Gangotri surface velocities vary over the various regions of the glacier, and from year to year. Our study indicated that the middle region of the ablation zone and the accumulation zone had higher velocities across all the years, while the boundary regions of the glacier show lower speeds. The average velocities range varies from ∼13 m/year in the accumulation zone to ∼22m/year. For the ablation zone, the average velocities range from ∼ 11m/year in the ablation zone to ∼18m/year. The average surface velocity showed a high decrement of 26 % from 2014 to 2021. The general surface velocities in Gangotri vary from ∼8 m/y to∼ 61 m/y± 1.9 from 2014 to 2021.

Background: Planar and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) nuclear imaging techniques with bone seeking radiotracers have been increasingly adopted for diagnosis of ATTR cardiac amyloidosis. However, inherent limitations of these techniques due to lack of anatomical landmarks have been recognized, with consequent high numbers of equivocal or false positive cases. SPECT/computed tomography (CT) fusion imaging offers a significant advantage to overcome these limitations by substantially reducing inaccurate interpretations. The authors present the results of a 3-year imaging quality improvement project that focused on reducing the high number of equivocal studies that were noted in the first two years of the amyloidosis program, comparing SPECT only to SPECT/CT fusion technique. Methods: A retrospective, systematic analysis of 176 patient records was performed to test the premise that SPECT/CT fusion imaging has the potential to reduce equivocal and false positive results. Results: Of a total of 176 patients, 35 equivocal (19.8%), 32 (18.18%) strongly suggestive, and 109 (61.93%) not suggestive cases were identified. Recognizing that this was not consistent with the international data, the authors set out on a comprehensive quality assessment project to reduce the number of equivocal and false positive cases. In patients who initially underwent SPECT only (Group A; n = 78), the addition of SPECT/CT fusion resulted in the net reclassification of 73% of cases: 100% of equivocal cases (n = 35) were reclassified to not suggestive (n = 34) or strongly suggestive (n = 1). 73% of strongly suggestive cases (n = 30) were reclassified to not suggestive (n = 22) while 8 strongly suggestive cases were confirmed as true positives. 13 not suggestive cases remained negative after SPECT/CT fusion. In cases where SPECT/CT fusion was utilized from the beginning (Group B; n = 98), there were no reclassification of any of the cases when these cases were reprocessed as a control group. Conclusion: Addition of SPECT/CT imaging reduces the false positive or equivocal studies and increases the diagnostic accuracy of the test. All false positive and equivocal studies were eliminated using the fusion technique. Utilizing the fusion imaging technique increases the spatial resolution, with the ability to localize myocardial uptake and accurately differentiate from blood pool, which is a major source of error.

This manuscript presents results on multifactorial characterization of bioaerosol exposure in Norwegian waste sorting plants and the potential of such airborne dust to induce NF-κB reactions through TLR2 and TLR4 activations in an in vitro reporter cell model system. Our data revealed that increasing fungal spore levels in the dust is associated with increased activation of TLR2 and TLR4, whereas increasing fungal OTU richness is associated with decreasing activation of these receptors.

Maternal obesity is associated with increased risk of prolonged and dysfunctional labor and emergency caesarean section. To elucidate the mechanisms behind the associated uterine dystocia, a translational animal model is required. Our previous work identified that exposure to a high-fat, high-cholesterol (HFHC) diet to induce obesity down-regulates uterine contractile associated protein expression and causes asynchronous contractions ex vivo. This study aims to investigate the impact of maternal obesity on uterine contractile function in vivo using intrauterine telemetry surgery. Virgin female Wistar rats were fed either a control (CON, n = 6) or HFHC (n = 6) diet for 6 weeks prior to conception, and throughout pregnancy. On Day 9 of gestation, a pressure-sensitive catheter was surgically implanted aseptically within the gravid uterus. Following 5 days recovery, intrauterine pressure (IUP) was recorded continuously until delivery of the 5th pup (Day 22). HFHC induced obesity led to a significant 1.5-fold increase in IUP (p = 0.026) and fivefold increase in frequency of contractions (p = 0.013) relative to CON. Determination of the time of labor onset identified that HFHC rats IUP (p = 0.046) increased significantly 8 h prior to 5th pup delivery, which contrasts to CON with no significant increase. Myometrial contractile frequency in HFHC rats significantly increased 12 h prior to delivery of the 5th pup (p = 0.023) compared to only 3 h in CON, providing evidence that labor in HFHC rats was prolonged by 9 h. In conclusion, we have established a translational rat model that will allow us to unravel the mechanism behind uterine dystocia associated with maternal obesity.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need for skilled medical practitioners in public health, and outbreak investigations. The College of Medicine and Health Sciences at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) introduced a clerkship in public health constituting theoretical and practical sessions to 5th year medical students in 2015. The aim of this study is to explore the satisfaction of the students with the public health clerkship which is crucial for the assessment and reformation of the taught curriculum. A cross-sectional, post-evaluation analysis was conducted from the period 2015–2022. The evaluation questionnaire was conducted via an online university system. The survey contained 5 themes: pre-course instructions, structure of the clerkship, academic staff, activities, and learning outcomes. Ethics approval was secured from the Social-IRB of the UAEU. We used SPSS version 26 to analyze the data using independent t-test and ANOVA. One hundred and seventy four students (27.4% response rate) participated in the study. Overall, the students had an average satisfaction score of 2.86 out of 4. The majority of the students reported having a good understanding of public health (93.7%), improving their oral presentation skills (91.2%), and developing new skills (87.2%). Furthermore, more than 9 in 10 students (96.1%) reported that the program expanded their knowledge, skills, and confidence. The mass (90.2%) of students agreed that the clerkship content was covered in sufficient depth, majority of the students agreed that they had received enough information about the clerkship before it started (74.6%), majority of the students agreed that the faculty were interested in their personal development (86.1%) The students who completed the clerkship prior to the COVID-19 pandemic had a statistically significant (P = 0.02) higher average rating (72.8%) than students who completed the clerkship during the pandemic (71.1%). Medical students at the UAEU were satisfied with the activities and delivery of the public health clerkship and found it rewarding. Conducting needs assessment and proposal writing provided them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to conduct research in their career. These findings may be useful in helping and support other institutes to plan and develop a clerkship in the public health.

Background Violence is a global social and human rights issue with serious public health implications across the life-course. Interpersonal violence is transmitted across generations and there is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms of this transmission to identify and inform interventions and policies for prevention and response. We lack an evidence-base for understanding the underlying mechanisms of the intra- and intergenerational transmission of violence as well as potential for intervention, particularly in regions with high rates of interpersonal violence such as sub-Saharan Africa. The study has three aims: 1) to identify mechanisms of violence transmission across generations and by gender through quantitative and qualitative methods; 2) to examine the effect of multiple violence experience on health outcomes, victimisation and perpetration; 3) to investigate the effect of structural risk factors on violence transmission; and 4) to examine protective interventions and policies to reduce violence and improve health outcomes. Methods INTERRUPT_VIOLENCE is a mixed-methods three-generational longitudinal study. It builds on a two-wave existing cohort study of 1665 adolescents in South Africa interviewed in 2010/11 and 2011/12. For wave three and possible future waves, the original participants (now young adults), their oldest child (aged 6+), and their former primary caregiver will be recruited. Quantitative surveys will be carried out followed by qualitative in-depth interviews with a subset of 30 survey families. Adults will provide informed consent, while children will be invited to assent following adult consent for child participation. Stringent distress and referral protocols will be in place for the study. Triangulation will be used to deepen interpretation of findings. Qualitative data will be analysed thematically, quantitative data using advanced longitudinal modelling. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Edinburgh, University of the Witwatersrand, North-West University, and the Provincial Department of Health Mpumalanga. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals, policy briefs, and at scientific meetings. Discussion The proposed study represents a major scientific advance in understanding the transmission and prevention of violence and associated health outcomes and will impact a critically important societal and public health challenge of our time.

Background: Following a European Society for Medical Oncology Women for Oncology (ESMO W4O) survey in 2016 showing severe under-representation of female oncologists in leadership roles, ESMO launched a series of initiatives to address obstacles to gender equity. A follow-up survey in October 2021 investigated progress achieved. Materials and methods: The W4O questionnaire 2021 expanded on the 2016 survey, with additional questions on the impact of ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion on career development. Results were analysed according to respondent gender and age. Results: The survey sample was larger than in 2016 (n = 1473 versus 482), especially among men. Significantly fewer respondents had managerial or leadership roles than in 2016 (31.8% versus 51.7%). Lack of leadership development for women and unconscious bias were considered more important in 2021 than in 2016. In 2021, more people reported harassment in the workplace than in 2016 (50.3% versus 41.0%). In 2021, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion were considered to have little or no impact on professional career opportunities, salary setting or related potential pay gap. However, gender had a significant or major impact on career development (25.5% of respondents), especially in respondents ≤40 years of age and women. As in 2016, highest ranked initiatives to foster workplace equity were promotion of work-life balance, development and leadership training and flexible working. Significantly more 2021 respondents (mainly women) supported the need for culture and gender equity education at work than in 2016. Conclusions: Gender remains a major barrier to career progression in oncology and, although some obstacles may have been reduced since 2016, we are a long way from closing the gender gap. Increased reporting of discrimination and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace is a major, priority concern. The W4O 2021 survey findings provide new evidence and highlight the areas for future ESMO interventions to support equity and diversity in oncology career development.

Background: The literature describing clinical presentation, disease course and outcomes of SARS-COV-2 in infants remains scarce. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study across 2 major pediatric referral centers evaluating the demographics, clinical and laboratory characteristics, management and outcomes of COVID-19 among newborns and infants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Clinical and biochemical markers were evaluated for their accuracy in predicting intensive care unit (ICU) transfer and death. Results: A total of 576 COVID-19-positive infants were evaluated with a mean age of 164 days. The mean duration of symptoms was 1.48 days. Fever was present in 36.5% of the cohort, while 44.3% had nasal congestion. Eight infants (out of 575; 1.39%) required transfer to the ICU for impending respiratory failure and 2 required invasive ventilation. Symptomatic (fever, nasal congestion) infants were not more likely to be transferred to the ICU (chi-squared test, P = 0.77). ICU transfer was associated with a higher chance of receiving antibiotics (70.6% vs 35.4%; chi-squared test, P = 0.003). On multivariate analysis, none of the clinical parameters (age, symptoms, laboratory tests) predicted transfer to the ICU. No deaths were reported during the observation period. Conclusions: Infants with SARS-COV-2 infection have a benign clinical course with favorable outcomes. Less than 2% require ICU transfer. Clinical vigilance is required as none of the admission parameters predicted ICU transfer.

This study examines the continuance intentions of the small number of nationals working in the United Arab Emirates’ ‘private sector’. The analytical framework is informed by job satisfaction measures alongside the Arabian Gulf Social Contract and Social Stigma constructs. A survey of 653 individuals was conducted and found that the nature of the job, pay and benefits and career development opportunities enhanced continuance intentions. However, perceived negative societal sentiment towards such jobs, vis-à-vis classic public sector jobs, reduced these intentions. Recommendations for further research to be conducted on the format of university mandated internship programmes and government-funded workplace training programmes are made, as both were found to help normalise private sector career paths. While this paper is the first to specifically canvas this cohort on their vocational intentions and sectoral preferences, its applied element was limited by being cross-sectional in nature.

Regional mapping and monitoring of land use/land cover (LULC) still remain a challenge that depend on classifier and remote sensing data selected. This study aims to create precise LULC maps and explore the efficiency of an ensemble machine learning approach that integrates random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). Two sets of remote sensing data were multi-temporal Landsat and a single scene from QuickBird covering the coastal area of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were used. By training the classifier using samples collected from QuickBird and knowledge-based and optimal parameterization, the overall accuracy was enhanced from 70% to more than 90%. For the proposed approach, the result showed that the F1-score was 0.99. The results exhibited a rapid increase in all classes, accompanied by a significant change in the shoreline. The proposed approach has the potential to be applied to other regions and to produce accurate LULC maps.

Background The combined analysis of imaging and functional modalities is supposed to improve diagnostics of neurodegenerative diseases with advanced data science techniques. Objective To get an insight into normal and accelerated brain aging by developing the machine learning models that predict individual performance in neuropsychological and cognitive tests from brain MRI. With these models we endeavor to look for patterns of brain structure-function association (SFA) indicative of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's dementia. Materials and methods We explored the age-related variability of cognitive and neuropsychological test scores in normal and accelerated aging and constructed regression models predicting functional performance in cognitive tests from brain radiomics data. The models were trained on the three study cohorts from ADNI dataset—cognitively normal individuals, patients with MCI or dementia—separately. We also looked for significant correlations between cortical parcellation volumes and test scores in the cohorts to investigate neuroanatomical differences in relation to cognitive status. Finally, we worked out an approach for the classification of the examinees according to the pattern of structure-function associations into the cohorts of the cognitively normal elderly and patients with MCI or dementia. Results In the healthy population, the global cognitive functioning slightly changes with age. It also remains stable across the disease course in the majority of cases. In healthy adults and patients with MCI or dementia, the trendlines of performance in digit symbol substitution test and trail making test converge at the approximated point of 100 years of age. According to the SFA pattern, we distinguish three cohorts: the cognitively normal elderly, patients with MCI, and dementia. The highest accuracy is achieved with the model trained to predict the mini-mental state examination score from voxel-based morphometry data. The application of the majority voting technique to models predicting results in cognitive tests improved the classification performance up to 91.95% true positive rate for healthy participants, 86.21%—for MCI and 80.18%—for dementia cases. Conclusion The machine learning model, when trained on the cases of this of that group, describes a disease-specific SFA pattern. The pattern serves as a “stamp” of the disease reflected by the model.

Educational philosophy, in general, is at the heart of the growth of education. It outlines the institution’s goals, subject matters, teaching methods, roles of teachers as well as the role of students, assessment methods, and teaching/learning experiences. The study aimed to identify the educational philosophical implications of idealism in schools in Al Ain city of the United Arab Emirates from the perspectives of mathematics teachers. The researchers used a questionnaire with thirty-two Likert-type items as a quantitative method for data collection. The instrument was administered to a randomly selected sample of 82 (46 male and 36 female) mathematics teachers in Al Ain city. The data were analyzed in IBM SPSS version 28 for one sample t-tests and independent samples t-tests to compare teachers’ perceptions of curriculum, education values, school functions, roles of teachers, and teaching methods with gender and school type. Further analyses included a one-way ANOVA for teaching experiences and teaching cycles, bivariate correlations between the variables, and a generalized linear model to identify the significant predictors of the teaching method. The findings of the study showed that mathematics teachers in Al Ain city embrace an idealistic philosophy of curriculum, educational values, the role of schools and teachers, and teaching methods in general. The teachers’ perceptions of the curriculum and school functions were found to be significant predictors of their teaching methods. These findings have both pedagogical and curricular implications.