Abstract
Cities are the bedrock of growth and sustainable development. At the same time, they are centers of environmental degradation that affect many of the problems, including urban expansion ...towards green areas, which are natural areas within urban communities, in sites dominated by vegetation, where they are of great importance at the city and individual levels, because of their multiple functions. Therefore, the research sought to diagnose the most important problems that the city of Ramadi suffers from through sustainable environmental indicators. One of the most prominent findings of the research is that green areas are often the weakest in the field of competition among other activities, it is often devoured by residential, commercial, and industrial sprawl. As the population increases, the demand for recreational services, including green areas, increases. These services decline and their scope decreases, which creates great pressure on what is available from them, and their performance decreases.
This investigation reports application of a mesoporous nanomaterial based on dicationic ionic liquid bonded to amorphous silica, namely nano-
N
,
N
,
N
′,
N
′-tetramethyl-
N
-(silica
n
-propyl)-
N
...′-sulfo-ethane-1,2-diaminium chloride (nano-TSPSEDCl
2
), as an extremely effectual and recoverable catalyst for the generation of bis(pyrazolyl)methanes and pyrazolopyranopyrimidines in solvent-free conditions. In both synthetic protocols, the performance of this catalyst was very useful and general and presented attractive features including short reaction times with high yields, reasonable turnover frequency and turnover number values, easy workup, high performance under mild conditions, recoverability and reusability in 5 consecutive runs without losing activity. In addition, the antioxidant, antibacterial, and antifungal activity of some synthesized derivatives was studied for the first time. Our investigations showed that most of the studied compounds (2a, 5a, 8a, 11a, 2b and 5b–9b) have the mentioned biological properties.
Graphical abstract
The pressure effects on the mechanical, optoelectronic and thermoelectric behaviors of BaSiO3 are studied using DFT based Wien2K code. The mechanical stability is confirmed through the computed ...Poisson and Pugh ratios, and thermo-dynamical stability is illustrated in terms of calculated negative enthalpy of formation. The band gap is found shifting from indirect to direct nature at the moderate pressure 15 GPa, due to which, phonon heating effects during the optical transitions can be avoided. Optical parameters such as dielectric constants, refraction etc., are discussed for the impinging energy range 0–30 eV. The external pressure dependent electrical and thermal conductivities, power factor, specific heat capacitance, Hall-coefficient etc. are also investigated for 0–800 K. The optoelectronic and thermoelectric natures demonstrate BaSiO3 suitability for the renewable energy device applications.
•The impact of pressure is observed on the optical behaviors of BaSiO3.•The use of most advanced computational techniques show technical worth of the study.•Mechanical and thermodynamically stabilities are shown supporting optical applications.•Pressure induced band gap transition and verification of Penn's law are shown.•The optoelectronic and thermoelectric properties show renewable energy applications.
MR imaging is often used for detecting intracranial complications of acute mastoiditis, whereas the intratemporal appearance of mastoiditis has been overlooked. The aim of this study was to assess ...the imaging features caused by acute mastoiditis in MR imaging and their clinical relevance.
Medical records and MR imaging findings of 31 patients with acute mastoiditis (21 adults, 10 children) were analyzed retrospectively. The degree of opacification in the temporal bone, signal and enhancement characteristics, bone destruction, and the presence of complications were correlated with clinical history and outcome data, with pediatric and adult patients compared.
Most patients had ≥50% of the tympanic cavity and 100% of the mastoid antrum and air cells opacified. Compared with CSF, they also showed intramastoid signal changes in T1 spin-echo, T2 TSE, CISS, and DWI sequences; and intramastoid, outer periosteal, and perimastoid dural enhancement. The most common complications in MR imaging were intratemporal abscess (23%), subperiosteal abscess (19%), and labyrinth involvement (16%). Children had a significantly higher prevalence of total opacification of the tympanic cavity (80% versus 19%) and mastoid air cells (90% versus 21%), intense intramastoid enhancement (90% versus 33%), outer cortical bone destruction (70% versus 10%), subperiosteal abscess (50% versus 5%), and perimastoid meningeal enhancement (80% versus 33%).
Acute mastoiditis causes several intra- and extratemporal changes on MR imaging. Total opacification of the tympanic cavity and the mastoid, intense intramastoid enhancement, perimastoid dural enhancement, bone erosion, and extracranial complications are more frequent in children.
There have been several studies into medical student career decision making in occidental countries (eg US, UK), but medical career selection in a Middle Eastern context has not been as well studied. ...This study aims to explore determinants underpinning medical students' residency choice in Qatar.
During the Fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year, all (n=358) medical students from the College of Medicine at Qatar University were invited to participate in an online explorative questionnaire about students' career choices and the factors determining their selection.
Of the 358 students, 184 responded (51%). Respondents had a mean age of 20 years; the majority were female (73.9%), Qatari (54.3%), unmarried (97.3%), and enrolled in a pre-clerkship year (55.0%). The most important career determinant was specialty-specific factors. The relative importance of other determinants differed by gender and stage of training. Among our respondents, male students were more likely to rate role models and influencers as being important to their choice, while female students and Qatari students overall were more likely to cite societal obligation. Medical students in Qatar seemed to have career preferences in mind upon entry into medical education. Later-year students were more likely to identify the importance of work-life balance and place of practice, but were less likely to rank prestige and income as an important determinant.
The results of this baseline study suggest that socioeconomic and cultural context influence medical student career decisions.
Abstract Peripheral nerve injury in animals can cause neuropathic pain often expressed in the form of hyperalgesia and allodynia. Spinal nerve ligation, in which the fifth and sixth lumbar (L5 and ...L6) or only the L5 spinal nerve is ligated and cut, is a model commonly used to produce neuropathic pain. The purpose of the present study was to test whether there is any anatomical evidence to support the suggestion that terminating unmyelinated (C) fibres of injured and adjacent uninjured nerves interact at the level of the spinal dorsal horn. Thus, in the first series of experiments, rats received injections of anterograde tracers, either wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) conjugated to horseradish peroxidase or Bandeiraea simplicifolia isolectin B4 (IB4), into the L4 or L5 spinal nerves. Results with both tracers showed that the central terminals of nerve L4 were concentrated in both L4 and L3 segments of the dorsal horn with clear although reduced levels of labelling in L2 and L5. Similarly, the central terminals of nerve L5 were found in both L5 and L4 again with less labelling in L3 and L6. These results suggest an intermingling of primary afferents of adjacent nerves at the level of the spinal dorsal horn. A second series of experiments was therefore conducted to test whether primary afferent terminals from adjacent nerves target the same neuronal elements in the regions of overlap. Consequently, additional rats were injected with WGA into the L5 spinal nerve and IB4 into the adjacent L4 spinal nerve. Double immunofluorescent staining and confocal microscopy revealed that IB4-labelled and WGA-labelled boutons, belonging to L4 and L5 spinal nerves, terminated in the same region within the L4 spinal segment. This suggests that neurons located in regions of overlap receive input from both L4 (intact) and L5 (injured) afferents. Consequently, spinal neurons located in regions of terminal overlap may show augmented responses to activation of the intact L4 nerve due to neuronal sensitisation resulting from injury to the adjacent L5 nerve. This may in part provide an anatomical basis for hyperalgesic reaction to injury.
Many methods have been proposed for tissue segmentation in brain MRI scans. The multitude of methods proposed complicates the choice of one method above others. We have therefore established the ...MRBrainS online evaluation framework for evaluating (semi)automatic algorithms that segment gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on 3T brain MRI scans of elderly subjects (65–80 y). Participants apply their algorithms to the provided data, after which their results are evaluated and ranked. Full manual segmentations of GM, WM, and CSF are available for all scans and used as the reference standard. Five datasets are provided for training and fifteen for testing. The evaluated methods are ranked based on their overall performance to segment GM, WM, and CSF and evaluated using three evaluation metrics (Dice, H95, and AVD) and the results are published on the MRBrainS13 website. We present the results of eleven segmentation algorithms that participated in the MRBrainS13 challenge workshop at MICCAI, where the framework was launched, and three commonly used freeware packages: FreeSurfer, FSL, and SPM. The MRBrainS evaluation framework provides an objective and direct comparison of all evaluated algorithms and can aid in selecting the best performing method for the segmentation goal at hand.
This study aims to investigate the effect of low concentrations of sulfuric antioxidants on sperm of rams. This study was conducted in the field of sheep and goats of the Department of Livestock in ...the collage of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad. The semen was collected using the artificial vagina at weekly rate (Pooled semen) and was subjected to different tests and then was divided into seven treatments but different concentrations of cysteine (0.5, 1mM) and glutathione (0.5, 1mM) and taurine (0.5, 1mM).The sample of the semen was diluted with Tris dilution (10: 1). The results showed that the low concentrations of glutathione, cysteine and taurine resulted in an improvement in the motility and integrity of the plasma membrane, dead sperm, DNA damage and survival sperm during the conservation period (0, 24, 48 hours).
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