Ambient Catalytic Spinning of Polyethylene Nanofibers.

A novel single-atom Ni(II) catalyst (Ni-OH) is covalently immobilized onto the nano-channels of mesoporous Santa Barbara Amorphous (SBA)-15 particles and isotropic Anodized Aluminum Oxide (AAO) membrane for confined-space ethylene extrusion polymerization. The presence of surface-tethered Ni complexes (Ni@SBA-15 and Ni@AAO) is confirmed by the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In the catalytic spinning process, the produced PE materials exhibit very homogeneous fibrous morphology at nanoscale (diameter: ~50 nm). The synthesized PE nanofibers extrude in a highly oriented manner from the nano-reactors at ambient temperature. Remarkably high Mw (1.62×106  g mol-1 ), melting point (124 °C), and crystallinity (41.8 %) are observed among PE samples thanks to the confined-space polymerization. The chain-walking behavior of surface tethered Ni catalysts is greatly limited by the confinement inside the nano-channels, leading to the formation of very low-branched PE materials (13.6/1000 C). Due to fixed supported catalytic topology and room temperature, the filaments are expected to be free of entanglement. This work signifies an important step towards the realization of a continuous mild catalytic-spinning (CATSPIN) process, where the polymer is directly synthesized into fiber shape at negligible chain branching and elegantly avoiding common limitations like thermal degradation or molecular entanglement.

Synthesis, Anticancer, Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, Antimicrobial Activities, Molecular Docking, and DFT Studies of Sultams Derived from Saccharin.

A series of N-substituted saccharins namely 2-(1,1-dioxido-3-oxobenzo[d]isothiazol-2(3H)-yl) acetonitrile (2) and (alkyl 1,1-dioxido-3-oxobenzo[d]isothiazol-2(3H)-yl) acetate (3a-g) were synthesized, in moderate to excellent yields, from commercially available starting materials by two different approaches and their chemical structures were characterized by spectroscopic techniques (1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, IR, and MS). All the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory toward IL-6 and TNF-α, antioxidant, as well as their anticancer activities against hepatic cancer cells. In addition, their anti-fungal and antibacterial activities against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria were tested. All the tested compounds have exhibited excellent (3a, d, e) to moderate anti-inflammatory activity. Additionally, esters (3b, f) and nitrile (2) showed excellent antioxidant activity. Furthermore, ester 3f, with isopropyl ester, exhibited the highest cytotoxic activity compared to the other esters. Moreover, all compounds were evaluated as selective inhibitors of the human COX-1 enzyme using molecular docking by calculating the free energy of binding, inhibition constant, and other parameters to find out the binding affinity. The molecular study showed that esters (3d, f) and nitrile (2) revealed the highest binding affinities, hence enhancing the inhibition activity with the active site of the COX-1 enzyme. All the tested compounds have more negative Gibbs free, electrostatic, and total intermolecular energies than the standard inhibitor ASA. These results indicate that, all the tested sultams are potent anti-inflammatory drugs as compared to standard inhibitors. Finally, the chemical properties and the quantum factors of synthesized sultams were calculated based on density functional theory (DFT) to predict reactivity, and then correlated with the experimental data. Ester 3f showed the lowest ionization potential and lowest energy gap (Egap = 7.5691 eV), which was correlated with its cytotoxic activity. Furthermore, the spatial electron distribution of HOMO, LUMO were computed and it clearly indicates the electron donation ability of all the tested compounds.

Adrenal medulla of AS/AGU rats: a histological and immunohistochemical study.

BACKGROUND: The outcome of the autograft therapy for Parkinson's disease including autologous cells from adrenal medulla was disappointing. This could be attributed to the pathological process in Parkinson's disease affecting cells of the adrenal medulla. This study was performed to investigate the histopathological changes in the adrenal medulla of AS/AGU rat, a model of Parkinson's disease, in comparison with Albino Swiss (AS) rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 24 male AS rats were divided into four groups, each of 6 animals: AS W1 - AS rats aged 1 week; AS adult - AS adult rats; AS/ /AGU W1 - AS/AGU rats aged 1 week; and AS/AGU adult - AS/AGU adult rats. The rats were sacrificed and the adrenal glands were dissected and processed for histological staining with haematoxylin and eosin and periodic acid Schiff and for immunohistochemical staining for S100 protein, ubiquitin and tyrosine hydroxylase. RESULTS: The histological investigation of the adrenal medulla of AS/AGU rats showed vascular congestion, inflammatory cellular infiltration, pyknotic nuclei, necrotic chromaffin cells and medullary inclusion bodies. The immunohistochemical investigation of AS/AGU rats showed a statistically significant decrease in the expression of S100 protein, ubiquitin and tyrosine hydroxylase compared to AS rats. CONCLUSIONS: The histological and immunohistological changes in the adrenal medulla could explain the failure of outcome of adrenal autograft therapy in Parkinson's disease.

Physical activity, sedentary behaviours and dietary habits among Kuwaiti adolescents: gender differences.

OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to assess physical activity, sedentary behaviours and dietary habits among adolescents in Kuwait and to compare the differences between genders. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted among secondary-school children who participated in the Arab Teens Lifestyle Study (ATLS), a multi-centre collaborative project. SETTING: Secondary schools in Kuwait. SUBJECTS: Adolescents (463 boys and 443 girls), aged 14-19 years. RESULTS: Nearly half (44·6 %) of the boys and three-quarters (76·0 %) of the girls did not meet the recommended daily physical activity levels (≥2520 MET-min/week, moderate to vigorous intensity). Nearly all (96·3 % of boys and 96·7 % of girls) adolescents reported spending >2 h/d on screen time, with girls found to spend more time per day watching television (P = 0·02) and using a computer (P < 0·001). The large majority of the adolescents reported skipping breakfast and not having milk and milk products, vegetables and fruit daily, while nearly two-thirds of the boys and girls had sugar-sweetened drinks on more than 3 d/week. Compared with girls, boys reported consuming more fruit (3·4 v. 2·8 times/week, P = 0·001), dairy products (4·5 v. 3·6 times/week, P = 0·001) and energy drinks (1·3 v. 1·1 times/week, P = 0·003). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the Kuwaiti adolescents, especially girls, do not perform adequate physical activity, spend more time on sedentary activities and have unhealthy dietary practices. The findings emphasize an urgent need for implementing an appropriate intervention for promoting physical activity, healthy eating and reducing sedentary behaviours among these children.

Relative contribution of physical activity, sedentary behaviors, and dietary habits to the prevalence of obesity among Kuwaiti adolescents.

BACKGROUND: The increasing rate of obesity among Kuwaiti adolescents is associated with immediate and long term-risks to their health and well-being. OBJECTIVE: To update data on the prevalence of overweight and obesity among Kuwaiti adolescents and to examine the relative contribution of selected lifestyle factors to overweight and obesity in this population. METHODS: The present study is part of the Arab Teens Lifestyle Study (ATLS). A total of 906 adolescents (463 boys and 443 girls) aged between 14 and 19 years were selected from Kuwaiti schools by a multistage stratified randomization process. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data on physical activity, sedentary lifestyle, and eating habits. The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cutoff values for adolescents under 18 years of age were used to define overweight and obesity. Total energy expenditure was calculated using metabolic equivalent-minutes per week. A general linear model was used to establish the proportion of the variance (expressed in partial eta squared) in excess weight attributable to differences in eating habits and physical activity. RESULTS: The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 50.5% in boys and 46.5% in girls. Among boys, moderate and vigorous activities were found to be significantly negatively associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05), whereas in girls, only those with not less than moderate activities were negatively associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05). Sedentary behaviors, time spent watching television, and time spent working on the computer were not significantly associated with obesity in either sex. Consumption of breakfast, vegetables, and fast foods (boys and girls) and potatoes, cakes and doughnuts, and sweets (girls only) was significantly associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05). In general, the partial eta square explained by physical activity was less than 3.6% in boys compared with less than 1.0% in girls, and eating habits explained less than 1.8% in boys compared with 2.5% in girls. CONCLUSIONS: Physical activity explains a greater proportion of variation in body mass index than do eating habits, particularly in boys. Eating habits explain a greater proportion of variation in body mass index than does physical activity in girls. Prospective studies are needed to clarify the relative effects of sedentary behaviors on overweight in adolescents.

Prevalence of rhinitis symptoms among 16 to 18 years old adolescents in Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to estimate the prevalence of rhinitis symptoms among secondary school students in Saudi Arabia METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among children from secondary schools in the city of Riyadh. The study utilised the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Children (ISAAC) questionnaire. RESULTS: Among the 3073 students (1504 boys and 1569 girls), the prevalence of life-time rhinitis, rhinitis in the past 12 months, and hay fever were 43.8%, 38.6% and 21.3%, respectively. There was a significant difference between boys and girls in the prevalence of life-time rhinitis (41% versus 46.5%, p = 0.02) and the prevalence of rhinitis in the past 12 months (35.1% versus 41.9%, p = 0.001). There was no significant difference between boys and girls in the prevalence of hay fever (22.5% versus 20.2%, p = 0.144). The prevalence of asthma symptoms among students with life-time rhinitis and hay fever were 35.4% and 39.9%, respectively. Asthma symptoms were strongly linked with life-time rhinitis (Odds Ratio [OR] = 2.5, p < 0.001) and hay fever (OR = 2.4, p value < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of rhinitis symptoms is high among 16 to 18 years old adolescents in Saudi Arabia, and symptoms are more common in girls compared to boys. Rhinitis symptoms are also associated with a high frequency of asthma symptoms.

Architecture and enhanced-algorithms to manage servers-processes into network: a management system.

This work investigates minimizing the makespan of multiple servers in the case of identical parallel processors. In the case of executing multiple tasks through several servers and each server has a fixed number of processors. The processors are generally composed of two processors (core duo) or four processors (quad). The meaningful format of the number of processors is 2k, and k ≥ 0. The problem is to find a schedule that minimizes the makespan on 2k processors. This problem is identified as NP-hard one. A new network architecture is proposed based on the addition of server management. In addition, two novel algorithms are proposed to solve the addressed scheduling problems. The proposed algorithms are based on the decomposition of the main problem in several sub-problems that are applied to develop new heuristics. In each level of the generated tree, some results are saved and used to decompose the set of processes into subsets for the next level. The proposed methods are experimentally examined showing that the running time of the proposed heuristics is remarkably better than its best rival from the literature. The application of this method is devoted to the network case when there are several servers to be exploited. The experimental results show that in 87.9% of total instances, the most loaded and least loaded subset-sum heuristic (MLS) reaches the best solution. The best-proposed heuristic reaches in 87.4% of cases the optimal solution in an average time of 0.002 s compared with the best of the literature which reaches a solution in an average time of 1.307 s.

IoT-blockchain empowered Trinet: optimized fall detection system for elderly safety.

Numerous elderly folks reside alone in their homes. Seniors may find it difficult to ask for assistance if they fall. As the elderly population keeps growing, elderly fall incidents are becoming a critical public health concern. Creating a fall detection system for the elderly using IoT and blockchain is the aim of this study. Data collection, pre-processing, feature extraction, feature selection, fall detection, and emergency response and assistance are the six fundamental aspects of the proposed model. The sensor data is collected from wearable devices using elderly such as accelerometers and gyroscopes. The collected data is pre-processed using missing value removal, null value handling. The features are extracted after pre-processed data using statistical features, autocorrelation, and Principal Component Analysis The proposed approach utilizes a novel hybrid HSSTL combines Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization and Spring Search Algorithm to select the optimal features. The proposed approach employs TriNet, including Long Short-Term Memory, optimized Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and Recurrent Neural Network for accurate fall detection. To enhance fall detection accuracy, use the optimized Convolutional Neural Network obtained through the hybrid optimization model HSSTL. Securely store fall detection information in the Blockchain network when a fall occurs. Alert neighbours, family members, or those providing immediate assistance about the fall occurrence using Blockchain network. The proposed model is implemented in Python. The effectiveness of the suggested model is evaluated using metrics for accuracy, precision, recall, sensitivity, specificity, f-measure, NPV, FPR, FNR, and MCC. The proposed model outperformed with the maximum accuracy of 0.974015 at an 80% learning rate, whereas the suggested model had the best accuracy score of 0.955679 at a 70% learning rate.

Cigarette smoking and prostate cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.

INTRODUCTION: Cigarette smoking is a well-known cancer-causing behavior and a leading cause of death from cancer. However, according to previously published research and meta-analyses, cigarette smoking has a significant inverse association with prostate cancer incidence. Therefore, this study aims to investigate this association based on updated evidence by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: A search for relevant articles was performed in PubMed and Scopus databases to obtain the pooled relative risk (RR) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the risk of prostate cancer incidence among smokers compared to non-smokers. Our search was limited to prospective cohort studies. RESULTS: A total of 17 cohort studies were included in the systematic review. Fifteen studies were included in the meta-analysis and showed that cigarette smoking has an inverse association with prostate cancer incidence with a relative risk of 0.84 (95% CI: 0.78-0.91). From all cohorts included in this systematic review, five studies examined the association between current smokers and the risk of death from prostate cancer. Therefore, a meta-analysis of these cohort studies was performed and showed that current smokers had a 42% higher risk of death from prostate cancer when compared to non-smokers with a relative risk of 1.42 (95% CI: 1.20-1.68). CONCLUSIONS: Data from observational studies suggest that cigarette smoking has an inverse association with prostate cancer incidence. However, smokers have an increased risk of death from prostate cancer. Important to realize that this lower risk for smokers might be attributed to low prostate cancer screening uptake among smokers, misclassification bias, or selection bias from the included original studies. In summary, our results indicate that the incidence of prostate cancer is lower among smokers. Nevertheless, smokers who develop the disease have a significantly worse prognosis.

International differences in the speed of cognitive development: A systematic examination of the existence of the Simber Effect.

The Simber Effect refers to the phenomenon whereby, in Arabic countries, young children have an IQ that is little different from that of Western children but that these differences increase throughout childhood culminating in a difference of around 20 points by adulthood. The true nature of this phenomenon is revealed by an examination of 125 samples from all around the globe measured with Raven's Progressive Matrices. We show that in many cases different speeds of cognitive development increase the IQ score differences between countries mostly between 4 and 9 years of age, and that these increases can in part be explained by poor environmental conditions. However, the patterns are not completely clear, either in terms of regularity or strengths. Methodological problems, in particular the cross-sectional designs of the included samples, as well as the significance of the Simber Effect for country comparisons in intelligence are discussed.

Prevalence of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse among a nationwide sample of Arab high school students: association with family characteristics, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and quality of life.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives were first, to assess the lifetime and 12-month prevalence of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse among a stratified random sample of Kuwaiti high school students and second, to explore the association of child abuse with parental characteristics, subjective quality of life (QOL), self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. METHOD: We assessed the students for experience of abuse by their mothers, fathers, and others, using standard scales on psychological, physical and sexual abuse. They also completed the short version of the World Health Organization's QOL Instrument; the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and a scale for anxiety and depression. RESULTS: We obtained responses from 4,467 students (49% boys), mean age 16.9 years. About 18, 15, and 18%, indicated that for at least six times in the past 12 months, they experienced psychological abuse by their mothers, fathers and others, respectively. The corresponding figures for lifetime experience were similar. The respective figures for experience of physical abuse during the past 12 months were 4.3, 5.8, and 6.4%. For lifetime experience, the corresponding figures were 3.4, 5.3, and 5.8%. The girls had significantly higher physical/psychological abuse scores. There were no significant gender differences in the prevalence of sexual attacks (8.6%) and someone threatening the subjects with sex (5.9%). The prevalence of someone sexually exposing themselves to the students (15.3%) and unwanted touching of sexual parts (17.4%) was significantly higher among the boys. Over one-third of those abused had experienced multiple abuses. Child abuse was significantly associated with parental divorce, diminished QOL and self-esteem, high scores on anxiety/depression, and difficulty with studies, and social relationships. In the regression analysis involving only the abuse indices, psychological abuse by mothers was the most important predictor of depression, anxiety, and self-esteem (11.5-19.7% of variance). Good quality of parental relationship seemed protective. CONCLUSION: The findings support the impression that, despite the conservative culture, child abuse is being experienced by a significant number of children in the Arab world. Preventive education in this culture should include limits on child disciplinary measures, the vulnerable groups identified, the impact on psychosocial functioning, and the protective effect of parental harmony.

Evaluation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Powder in High Speed Sintering.

Laser Sintering (LS) was the first Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) method for polymers and it is now quite an established process for rapid prototyping and even for the production of functional parts. High Speed Sintering (HSS) is a variant of PBF which was later developed and it has the potential to be more scalable than LS. Most of the work for HSS and LS has been conducted with polyamide-12 (PA 12). This work reports the first effort to use polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in HSS. Well defined, simple and complex parts could be printed without any build failures. However, limitations were induced by current HSS machines which led to some curvature (warpage) in tensile bars after manufacturing. The reason for this was that all currently available machines for HSS are built for polymers such as polyamide 12, which means their maximum bed temperature is limited to 190 °C. This corresponds to the lower limit of processability of PET in PBF processes. The slightly curved tensile bars were straightened by heating them to 230 °C with a weight on top, and afterwards the mechanical properties were measured. The tensile modulus was similar to what was obtained with PET via LS but the strength and elongation-at-break (EAB) was lower. Microscopy showed that the reason for the lower strength and EAB was the incomplete melting of particles. This arose from the temperature limitation of the current generation of HSS machines. The porosity was established as 2.23% by helium pycnometry which is the same as for LS. The results of the thermal analysis indicated that the PET parts manufactured with HSS were semi-crystalline like the PET parts manufactured via LS.

Amorphous Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Composites with High-Aspect Ratio Aluminium Nano Platelets.

Previously, we reported that amorphous poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) filled with irregular nodular aluminium (Al) particles gave simultaneous increases in tensile modulus, tensile strength, and impact resistance, which is unusual for materials. Here, we investigated the effect of the particle shape and size by using nano-platelet Al. The Al nano-platelets had a thickness higher than graphenes and clays, but lower than mica and talc, and due to their large widths, they had high aspect ratios. Due to the ductility of Al, the platelets maintained the high aspect ratio and did not snap during injection moulding. In addition to avoiding the usual drop in tensile strength and impact, the composites with nano Al platelets gave an unusually high flexural modulus (8 GPa), which was almost double that attained practically with talc, mica, and graphene. This was because of the high tendency of the Al nano platelets to become oriented during moulding. The Al-PET composite would be a more cost-and-performance effective combination for making conductive composites. The Al is a cheaper material than graphene, surface treatment for adhesion (to PET) is unnecessary, and dispersion issues, such as exfoliation and de-aggregation, are not a problem.

Preventive effects of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell transplantation in a D-galactose-induced brain aging in rats.

BACKGROUND: Aging is a complex process accompanied by numerous morphological, functional, and metabolic impairments in the brain, and a critical risk factor involved in the increasing incidence of neurodegenerative diseases. Few studies have evaluated the efficacy of different sources of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in ameliorating the early morphological and functional alterations in the aging brain. This study, for the first time, evaluated the potential efficacy of intravenous injection of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) in a D-galactose-induced rat model of brain aging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: BMMSCs (1 × 106) were intravenously injected into brain aging model rats once every 2 weeks for 8 weeks. RESULTS: The transplanted cells survived and migrated to the brain, and differentiated into astrocytes and neurons, including choline acetyltransferase neurons. BMMSC transplantation improved locomotor activity and cognitive functions, restored cholinergic system function, protected atrophic cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain, induced antioxidative effects and restored neurotrophic factors, and modulated hippocampal synaptic plasticity by upregulating PSD95 and Egr1 expression. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrated the efficacy of BMMSC injection in an aging rat model and suggest that these cells may be developed into an effective cell therapy for the aging brain.

Use of social media for the improvement of radiation safety knowledge among Saudi Arabian radiographers.

BACKGROUND: Radiographers have used social media networks for education, research, professional development and other purposes. However, in Saudi Arabia, there are no studies on the use of social media by radiographers. Therefore, the objective of this research was to evaluate the use of social media for the improvement of radiation safety knowledge among Saudi Arabian radiographers. METHODS: A questionnaire was designed to collect the data from Saudi Arabian radiographers. The questionnaire was created using Google Forms and was sent to 530 radiographers using WhatsApp. In total, 159 participants completed and returned the questionnaire through WhatsApp. The response rate was 30%. Basic descriptive statistics were employed to analyse the data. RESULTS: Most of the participants (79.9%) thought that social media could be used as a tool for the improvement of radiation safety knowledge. Also, almost half of participants (49.7%) employed social media when they needed to obtain information about radiation protection. Similarly, a majority of respondents (69.2%) used social media when they required information related to radiation safety. In addition, 81.7% of participants observed on video the existing information on radiation safety. Also, 71.7% of them were disposed to expand the use of social media to obtain information for radiation protection in their professional activities. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that social media can help to improve radiation safety knowledge among Saudi Arabian radiographers. Consequently, participants were willing to increase the use of these tools in their professional work.

Profile of subjective quality of life and its correlates in a nation-wide sample of high school students in an Arab setting using the WHOQOL-Bref.

BACKGROUND: The upsurge of interest in the quality of life (QOL) of children is in line with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stressed the child's right to adequate circumstances for physical, mental, and social development. The study's objectives were to: (i) highlight how satisfied Kuwaiti high school students were with life circumstances as in the WHOQOL-Bref; (ii) assess the prevalence of at risk status for impaired QOL and establish the QOL domain normative values; and (iii) examine the relationship of QOL with personal, parental, and socio-environmental factors. METHOD: A nation-wide sample of students in senior classes in government high schools (N = 4467, 48.6% boys; aged 14-23 years) completed questionnaires that included the WHOQOL-Bref. RESULTS: Using Cummins' norm of 70% - 80%, we found that, as a group, they barely achieved the well-being threshold score for physical health (70%), social relations (72.8%), environment (70.8%) and general facet (70.2%), but not for psychological health (61.9%). These scores were lower than those reported from other countries. Using the recommended cut-off of <1SD of population mean, the prevalence of at risk status for impaired QOL was 12.9% - 18.8% (population age-adjusted: 15.9% - 21.1%). In all domains, boys had significantly higher QOL than girls, mediated by anxiety/depression; while the younger ones had significantly higher QOL (p < 0.001), mediated by difficulty with studies and social relations. Although poorer QOL was significantly associated with parental divorce and father's low socio-economic status, the most important predictors of poorer QOL were perception of poor emotional relationship between the parents, poor self-esteem and difficulty with studies. CONCLUSION: Poorer QOL seemed to reflect a circumstance of social disadvantage and poor psychosocial well-being in which girls fared worse than boys. The findings indicate that programs that address parental harmony and school programs that promote study-friendly atmospheres could help to improve psychosocial well-being. The application of QOL as a school population health measure may facilitate risk assessment and the tracking of health status.

Usage and Acceptability of the Wateen Application Among the Population of Saudi Arabia.

PURPOSE: The main objective of this research was to investigate the opinion of the population of Saudi Arabia on the use and acceptability of the Wateen application. METHODS: This research was a quantitative cross-sectional study in which an online questionnaire was distributed among the target population who were healthy people over 18 years of age that had used or known about the Wateen application. A total of 352 participants responded to the questionnaire. The data collection was carried out between November and December 2020. A basic descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The participants had used the Wateen app to follow the donation record, as a reminder of donation dates, to find lists and blood bank locations, to request blood donation, and to find donation requests on social media. After receiving the blood donation request from the Wateen app, majority of the respondents felt encouraged, motivated, and educated to donate blood, and about blood donation, respectively. Participants also indicated that the application helped them to find donors. Besides, majority of the respondents stated that the Wateen app had reduced the gap between blood donors and the need for blood. However, few participants expressed that they had not received or observed a post about the Wateen application on social media networks. CONCLUSION: The results of this research indicated that there is a general acceptance of the use of the Wateen app among the participants of this study. However, the importance of the Wateen app needs to be further advertised so that it can be used in the blood donation process in all regions of Saudi Arabia. In this way, the people of Saudi Arabia will be more aware of the importance of the Wateen app in the blood donation process, and the goal of the Ministry of Health of bridging the gap between donation centers and blood donors could be achieved.

Aluminum-Filled Amorphous-PET, a Composite Showing Simultaneous Increase in Modulus and Impact Resistance.

Metal-plastic composites have the potential to combine enhanced electrical and thermal conductivity with a lower density than a pure metal. The drawback has often been brittleness and low impact resistance caused by weak adhesion between the metal filler and the plastic. Based on our observation that aluminum foil sticks very strongly to poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) if it is used as a backing during compression moulding, this work set out to explore PET filled with a micro and a nano aluminum (Al) powder. In line with other composites using filler particles with low aspect-ratio, the tensile modulus increased somewhat with loading. However, unlike most particle composites, the strength did not decrease and most surprisingly, the Izod impact resistance increased, and in fact more than doubled with certain compositions. Thus, the Al particles acted as a toughening agent without decreasing the modulus and strength. This would be the first case where addition of a metal powder to a plastic increased the modulus and impact resistance simultaneously. The Al particles also acted as nucleating agents but it was not sufficient to make PET crystallize as fast as the injection moulding polyester, poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT).

The use of muscle extracellular matrix (MEM) and SCPC bioceramic for bone augmentation.

BACKGROUND: Bone augmentation is a challenging problem in the field of maxillofacial surgery. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we prepared and evaluated muscle extracellular matrix (MEM) after adding silica calcium phosphate composite (SCPC) seeded with human bone marrow mesenchymal cells (hBMSCs). We then investigated bone augmentation in vivo using the prepared MEM-SCPC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: hBMSCs were seeded on MEM-SCPC, and MEM was characterized. Calvarial bone grafts were prepared using nude mice (n = 12) and grafted separately in two experimental groups: grafts with MEM (control, n = 4) and grafts with MEM-SCPC-hBMSCs (experimental group, n = 8) for 8 weeks. Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) and histological analysis were then performed. RESULTS: Micro-CT analysis demonstrated a thinner trabeculae in grafted defects than normal native bone, with a high degree of anisotropy. Quantitative histomorphometric assessment showed a higher median bone percentage surface area of 80.2% ± 6.0% in the experimental group. CONCLUSION: The enhanced bone formation and maturation of bone grafted with MEM-SCPC-hBMSCs suggested the potential use of this material for bone augmentation.

Body elimination attitude family resemblance in Kuwait.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the family resemblance of attitude toward body elimination in Kuwaiti participants. This study was conceptualized in the context of the theories of moral development, importance of cleanliness in the Muslim religion, cross-cultural differences in personal hygiene practices, previous research reporting an association between family attitudes and body elimination attitude, and health implications. The 24-item Likert-type format Body Elimination Attitude Scale-Revised was administered to 277 Kuwaiti high school students and 437 of their parents. Females scored higher, indicating greater disgust, than the males. Moreover, sons' body elimination attitude correlated more strongly with fathers' attitude (r = .85) than with that of the mothers (r = .64). Daughters' attitude was similarly associated with the fathers' (r = .89) and the mothers' attitude (r = .86). The high correlations were discussed within the context of Kuwait having a collectivistic culture with authoritarian parenting style. The higher adolescent correlations, and in particular the boys' correlation with fathers than with mothers, was explained in terms of the more dominant role of the Muslim father in the family. Public health and future research implications were suggested. A theoretical formulation was advanced in which "ideal" body elimination attitude is relative rather than absolute, and is a function of one's life circumstances, one's occupation, one's culture and subculture, and the society that one lives in.