bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effects Of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus On Hematopoietic Stem cell quality and IL6 Amount
Authors: Elhusseini Tamer
Published: June 2019

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as any degree of glucose intolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy (1), Maternal glucose and lipid metabolism changes substantially during normal pregnancy, In women with GDM, fasting insulin and fasting glucose concentrations are elevated. Also, women with GDM have a lower insulin sensitivity compared to controls and the difference is most evident before and during early pregnancy (2). Gestational diabetes mellitus has proven it»s effects on many variables of pregnancy and so it»s effect on umbilical cord blood (UCB), which is increasingly used as an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) for bone marrow transplantation and other therapeutic uses, And for successful outcomes of cord blood transplantation certain criteria are used in UCB banks include the TNC count, percentage of CD34, CFU and the volume of blood (3) As many variables that may affect the quality of hematopoietic stem cells are still under study and research, And gestational diabetes mellitus is a disease expected to increase by 20 fold, AS regard it»s effect on hematopoietic stem cell and IL6 it»s found that «The proportion of CD34+ CD45 HSPCs among the nucleated cells was significantly higher in the cord blood samples of neonates born to mothers with GDM compared to neonates born to non-diabetic mothers.»(4) Also, it»s found that IL-6 concentrations are increased in women with current GDM (2). Another study reported that: the CD16+CD56 −  NK cells was increased, while IL-2 was lower in maternal blood with GDM. The placental extravillous layer of the gestational diabetic mothers showed high levels of IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, and IFN- and low levels of IL-1 and IL8, whereas the placental villous layer contained high levels of IL-17 and IFN(5). In this study we provide atrial for knowing whether the cord blood unit of gestational diabetic mother fulfilling the appropiate criteria for banking, As in previous studies all what had discovered is minimal non concolusive data about whether GDM unit fulfilling the normal criteria for banking or not.
The Effect of Protein Supplementation on Body Muscle Mass and Fat Mass in Qataris PostBariatric Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial RCT
Authors: Hanna Fahad , Al-Shamari Sahar Dahawi , ElSherif MOHAMED Aly , Wahid Wahiba
Published: June 2019

Background and objectives: Obesity is a chronic medical condition characterized by an accumulation of excess fat in the body that may lead to negative health consequences. Bariatric surgery has been shown to be the most effective type of interventions to achieve and sustain significant weight loss in morbidly obese people. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of protein supplementation in reducing the risk of developing protein malnutrition and low muscle mass, in post-bariatric patients in Qatar. Methodology: This study is a double-blinded randomized control trial. Recruitment of participants began in early 2017 following the ethical approval of the trial (HMC IRB approval no. 16433/16). The intervention group received protein supplement that contain 20 g of protein while the placebo group received zero protein supplement. All participants were followed up for 1 month post-surgery. Randomization was done on a weekly basis within blocks of 8 or 10 patients. Independent Sample-T Test and Paired Sample-T Test were performed to assess the effect of the intervention. Results: The mean weight loss in the control group was 9.6 kg, while the intervention group mean weight loss was 10.7 kg (p = 0.03). Change in muscle mass percentage was +0.50% in the placebo group, and +2.3% in the intervention group (P = 0.149). Fat percentage change in the placebo group was − 1.6% and − 2.6% in the intervention group (P = 0.153). The percentage change in Albumin in the placebo group was 2.76% and 9.71% in the intervention group (P = 0.031). Conclusion: Our study has confirmed findings from multiple studies that protein supplementation in post-bariatric surgery patients is a successful intervention for healthy and balanced weight loss. This is yet another endorsement that surgery alone cannot put an end to obesity and must be combined with well-structured nutritional education so patients do not go back to their old habits and put the weight back on.
Evaluation of Antidiabetic and Antihypertensive Potential of Some Traditional Desert Food Plants of Qatar Using in Vitro Assays
Authors: Elobeid Tahra
Published: June 2019

Numerous studies have shown that food plants, the source of basic nutritional components may also possess an additional bioactive therapeutic properties associated with the prevention of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and its related complication, hypertension. The incidence of type 2 diabetes in Qatar is one of the highest in the world. In the present study, four edible plants from Qatar were selected to analyze the phenolic bioactives and their potential health benefits with relevance to managing type 2 diabetes and hypertension using in vitro enzyme assays. High antioxidant activity along with high total soluble phenolics associated with high in vitro enzyme inhibitory α-glucosidase, moderate α-amylase and ACE inhibitory effects was shown by aqueous extracts of Cynmorium coccineum. Malva parviflora and Glossonema edule had moderate antioxidant potential, total soluble phenolics and ACE inhibitory potential. Edible plants like Cynmorium coccineum that is also suggested to possess other medicinal properties has a high potential for diet-based solutions in combating, preventing and managing early stage of type 2 diabetes coupled to overall healthy life style and pharmacological management strategies. This study provides the biochemical rationale for further animal and clinical studies to understand the health benefits of edible plants of Qatar as dietary strategies for chronic disease management.
The efficacy of Dapagliozin as a novel oral antihyperglycemic drug in the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus
Authors: Al Adawi Rana Moustafa
Published: June 2019

Background and Aims: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a prevalent disease affecting millions of patients worldwide. The search for new antidiabetic drugs with innovative mechanisms continues. Dapagliflozin is a second agent in a new class of oral antihyperglycemic drugs; the sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors. Materials and Method: Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of new oral antihyperglycemic drug Dapagliflozin in the treatment of type 2 DM as monotherapy or combination with other hypoglycemic agents. All patients treated with Dapagliflozin in HGH since its introduction as nonformulary medication on 1st April 2013 until 30th April 2015 were included. Data regarding prescribed drugs were obtained from the pharmacy computerized system. Demographic information and laboratory results of patients were obtained from the patient»s electronic system (CERNER). Results: 81 patients were identified to receive Dapagliflazone during the study period, 71 % of them were males, 100 % were Qataries with mean age 57 ± 9 and mean A1c baseline 9 ± 1.4Dapagliflozin as add-on therapy was found to decrease A1c significantly after 6 months by − 0.8 (P = 0.006) and after 12 months by − 1.5 (P = 0.062) The fasting blood was significantly reduced at 6 months and 9 months (P = 0.001, P = 0.03 respectively) There was no significant association between different coadministered antidiabetic medication and reduction in A1c or FBG Conclusion: Dapagliflozin significantly reduced HbA1c level of type 2 diabetic patients in combination of other OHA or insulin within 6 to 12 months of treatment References: 1. Komoroski B, Vachharajani N, Feng Y, Li L, Kornhauser D, Pfister M. Dapagliflozin, a novel, selective SGLT2 inhibitor, improved glycemic control over 2 weeks in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther. 85(5), 513–519 (2009) 2. Rosenstock J, Vico M, Wei L, Salsali A, List JF. Effects of dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor, on HbA1c, body weight, and hypoglycemia risk in patients with type2 diabetes inadequately controlled on pioglitazone monotherapy. Diabetes Care 35, 1473–1478 (2012).
Screening for Novel Inhibitors of Beta Amyloid Aggregation and Toxicity as a Potential Drug for Alzheimer's Disease
Authors: Sharari Sanaa Ali , Narayanan Nishant , Taskou Magdalini , Vekrellis Kostas , El-Agnaf Omar
Published: June 2019

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders in which the disruption of brain cells causes impairment of cognition. The pathology of AD is still unclear, with different etiologies leading to formation of extracellular senile plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) and ultimately neuronal death. However, several investigations showed that the amyloid hypothesis in which the accumulation of the toxic amyloid beta (Aβ) protein in the central nervous system (CNS) is the main pathology of the AD. Currently, there is no proven medication to cure or prevent the disease, however, therapeutic approaches of AD show only relief of symptoms and mostly work on cognitive recovery. Moreover, herbal phenolic compounds grant more effective therapy due to its multifacted action. Based on the previous work targeted the amyloid hypothesis in disease other than AD by using Chinese medicinal compounds, our project is aimed to investigate the activity of Ginsenoside Rb1, Dihydromyricetin and Salvianolic acid on the process of aggregation of Aβ40 and Aβ42. The effect of these compounds on the Aβ aggregation was investigated using different biochemical assays. Our results showed that Salvianolic acid and dihydromyricetin inhibit Aβ40 and Aβ42 fibrilizations. Whereas, Ginsenoside Rbi1 showed no effect on the aggregation process of both amyloids. Overall, these compounds may be considered as starting point for designing new compounds that could be used as drugs for the treatment of AD and related disorders.
Utilization of Date Pits in the Production of Functional Chocolates
Authors: Zamzam Syed , Nafiea Eisha Rajab , Al-hadhromi Huda Ahmed , Ali Fida Anamangadan
Published: June 2019

Background: World production of dates was almost 9 million tons by 2010, with almost 960 thousand tons of date pits being discarded. This huge amount of waste has shown to be a rich source of carbohydrate, fiber, protein, fat, antioxidant, phenolic, and minerals like potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium. Not only is it an excellent source of nutrients, but has also shown to have health benefits such as reducing the side effects of certain therapeutic drugs, and otherfunctional uses, like used as a coffee substitute for a caffeine free drink. Like date pits, chocolate is a natural functional food which has shown to have a favorable effect on human health especially on the cardiovascular disease and it is one of the most consumed food among all age groups.Objectives: The main objective of this study is utilize date pits as an additive to chocolate and produce improved functional food product and evaluate its sensory features.Method: Commercial date pit powder, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate was purchased from local Qatari markets. The commercial powder was further grinded using a regular household blender and sieved into 300 and 150 μm using electronic sieve. The developed products had varying percentage of date pit powder: chocolate ratio (1:9, 3:7, 5:5 and 7:3). The chocolate products cross-section was observed under microscope, sensory analysis for 8 attributes and thenutrient content for each product was done using USDA food composition tables and food label of the commercial date pits purchased from Deyma.Results: Dark and milk chocolate with 150 μm date pits, (1:9) ratio had the highest homogeneity under the microscope. The quality test for functional chocolates of 1:9 and 3:7 ratio made with 150 μm rated as very good but 5:5 and 7:3 required lots of improvement. Sensory evaluation and hedonic test showed that dark chocolates made with 150 μm date pits was the most liked products. Finally, the calories and the fat content decreased as the date pits concentration increased.
Reducing Heart Failure Admissions through Improved Care Systems and Processes
Authors: Al-Meer Mariam
Published: June 2019

Heart failure (HF) is a complex chronic condition that can result from any cardiac disorder that impairs the ventricle's ability to fill with or eject blood. The American Heart Association predicts that there will be about 10 million HF patients in the US by 2037, with total hospitalization costs exceeding $70 billion. This represents a considerable burden to hospitals nationwide, including the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) – a leading medical center that has long grappled with patient overcrowding and capacity constraints. This research project covers an extensive mapping of the HF care pathway at MGH, followed by the results of a detailed retrospective analysis of the general behavior of HF patients admitted to MGH. We notice that the majority of HF admissions originate as self-referrals via the Emergency Department (ED) and take place on weekdays, between the hours of 9am and 6pm. Moreover, we find that about 57% of hospitalized HF patients often have no scheduled follow-up appointments with their providers in the two weeks leading up to their admissions and, similarly, about 43% have no scheduled appointments in the eight weeks post hospital discharge. These represent two critical time periods in the events of acute heart failure decompensation. In an effort to prioritize targeted outpatient care, we propose a predictive model which aims to identify patients at greatest risk of a first hospital admission following encounters with their primary care providers and/or cardiologists in any given year. We perform logit-linear regressions on multiple prior first admissions and use predictors that, among others, include clinical risk factors, socioeconomic features and histories of prior medications. Some of the model's most significant predictors, as identified by the Akaike information criterion (AIC), include patient's age, marital status, ability to speak English, estimated average income, previous administration of loop diuretics, and the total number of medications prescribed or administered. To assess the quality of our predictions, we turn to the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and its resulting average area under the curve (AUC) of 0.712. As the team continues to focus on developing interventions that offer better care to HF patients, the value of our model lies in its ability to prioritize patient needs for outpatient care and monitoring, and to guide the allocation of limited care resources.
Qatar Steps up to Global Health Security: A Reflection on the Joint External Evaluation 2016
Authors: Bala Mohamed Osman , Chehab Mohamad , Selim Nagah Abdel Aziz
Published: June 2019

Since the commencement of the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005) in 2007, global public health security has been faced with numerous emerging and ongoing events. Moreover, the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) is a voluntary tool developed in compliance with the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) that represents a reaction by the international health community towards the increased incidence of emerging and re-emerging diseases. Against this background, between 29th May and 2nd June 2016, a team of WHO consultants arrived to the State of Qatar to assess, in collaboration with national experts, the country's capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to threats of public health aspect. They identified areas of strength, weakness, and recommendations for improving national health security of Qatar in anticipation of the 2022 World Cup event. Qatar has demonstrated a leading role in the region through its commitment to International Health Regulations (2005) and community. Similarly, the Qatar was the first Arab state and seventh volunteering country globally to undergo the JEE process. In this review, we highlighted Qatar's achievements and shortcomings of IHR core capacities to inform healthcare professionals and the scientific community about the country's contribution toward global health security.
Prevalence of Impaired fasting glucose in Qatari women between aged of 18 to 40 years old from the Qatari Bio Bank
Authors: Dakroury Youssra , Elshewehy Abeer , Dargham Soha , Kilpatrick Eric , Ahmed Lina , Atkin Stephen
Published: June 2019

Background Impaired fasting glucose (IFG), prediabetes, has a conversion to diabetes of 10% yearly, contributing to the prevalence of diabetes of 16.7% in Qatar. This high prevalence of diabetes will translate into serious vascular complications with considerable individual early mortality.Methods The Qatar Biobank is an ambitious national project that is collecting the demographic and biological data on an unselected Qatari population that currently has data from 1100 women aged 18-84 years. Data extraction of all women between the aged 18 to 40 years (inclusive) was undertaken by the Qatar Bio bank that identified 750 women in total. The number of women with and without impaired fasting glucose (IFG: plasma glucose 5.5-6.9 mmol/l; ADA diagnostic criteria) was determined and their demographic details compared. Bio statistical analysis was undertaken using SPSS. Results The prevalence of IFG was found to be 8.3% (62/750 women). Patients with IFG had a higher cardiovascular risk profile with a higher waist hip ratio (P < 0.01), lower HDL cholesterol (p < 0.01), higher insulin levels (( < 0.01), higher pulse wave velocity (a marker of arterial stiffness, p < 0.01), higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p < 0.01 and p < 0.03, respectively). C reactive protein, a marker of inflammation was also elevated (p < 0.04).Conclusion Whilst this is a small cohort, 8.3% of women had a ADA diagnosis of IFG with an adverse cardiovascular risk parameter profile. This study highlights that there is a need for early screening for IFG and intervention for the prevention of diabetes in young Qatari women below the age of 40. Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar Biobank for their support and assistance.
Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Qatari women aged between 18 to 40 from Qatar Biobank
Authors: Elshewehy Abeer , Dargham Soha
Published: June 2019

Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Qatari women aged between 18 to 40 from Qatar Biobank. 1Abeer Elshewehy, 1Soha Dargham, 2Eric Kilpatrick, 1Lina Ahmed, 1Youssra Dakroury, 1Stephen L Atkin 1Weill Cornell Medicine- Qatar, 2 Sidra Medical and Research Center Background: The Qatar STEPwise surveillance reported that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes amongst Qatar nationals was 16.7% in 2012. This high prevalence of diabetes will translate into significant morbidity and mortality through diabetes complications. Methods: Qatar Biobank extracted data from all women between 18 to 40 years (inclusive), 749 women in total. Women with (Group A: HbA1c ≥  6.5%; n = 12/708; 1.7%) and without (Group B; HbA1c ≤  5.6%; 608/708; 85.9%) type 2 diabetes were identified and their demographic details compared. Prediabetes was found in 88/708 women (HbA1c 5.6-6.4%; 11.7%). Biostatistical analysis was undertaken using SPSS. Results: Group A (HbA1c ≥  6.5%) had worse Framingham Risk Score (2%) than Group B (HbA1c ≤  5.6 %) ( <  1%). All results are reported as mean value Group A versus Group B. Conclusion: In this small young cohort, 1.7% of women had a WHO diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and 11.7% with prediabtes. Diabetes is perceived to be a disease of the middle aged and older individuals, but this study shows that there is a need for early screening and intervention for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in young Qatari women below the age of 40. Limitation of the study: Small number of participants and that latent type 1 diabetes could not be excluded that may have affected the overall prevalence, though this was expected to have a minimal impact. Acknowledgments: We are grateful to the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar Biobank for their support and assistance, and for Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Biomathematics Research Core at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar
Combined metformin and insulin treatment reverses metabolically impaired omental adipogenesis and accumulation of 4hydroxynonenal in obese diabetic patients
Authors: Almuraikhy Shamma Abdulla , Elrayess Mohamed , Kafienah Wael
Published: June 2019

OBJECTIVE: Obesity-associated impaired fat accumulation in the visceral adipose tissue can lead to ectopic fat deposition and increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study investigated whether impaired adipogenesis of omental (OM) adipose tissues and elevated 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) accumulation contribute to this process, and if combined metformin and insulin treatment in T2DM patients could rescue this phenotype. METHODS: OM adipose tissues were obtained from forty clinically well characterized obese individuals during weight reduction surgery. Levels of 4-HNE protein adducts, adipocyte size and number of macrophages were determined within these tissues by immunohistochemistry. Adipogenic capacity and gene expression profiles were assessed in preadipocytes derived from these tissues in relation to insulin resistance and in response to 4-HNE, metformin or combined metformin and insulin treatment. RESULTS: Preadipocytes isolated from insulin resistant (IR) and T2DM individuals exhibited lower adipogenesis, marked by upregulation of anti-adipogenic genes, compared to preadipocytes derived from insulin sensitive (IS) individuals. Impaired adipogenesis was also associated with increased 4-HNE levels, smaller adipocytes and greater macrophage presence in the adipose tissues. Within the T2DM group, preadipocytes from combined metformin and insulin treated subset showed better in vitro adipogenesis compared to metformin alone, which was associated with less presence of macrophages and 4-HNE in the adipose tissues. Treatment of preadipocytes in vitro with 4-HNE reduced their adipogenesis and increased proliferation, even in the presence of metformin, which was partially rescued by the presence of insulin. CONCLUSION: This study reveals involvement of 4-HNE in the impaired OM adipogenesis-associated with insulin resistance and T2DM and provides a proof of concept that this impairment can be reversed by the synergistic action of insulin and metformin. Further studies are needed to evaluate involvement of 4-HNE in metabolically impaired abdominal adipogenesis and to confirm benefits of combined metformin-insulin therapy in T2DM patients.
Prioritizing Access to the National Diabetes Center NDC Services Based on Clinical Need
Authors: Puddao Raissa Jacinto , Darwish Sara , Al-Malaheem Mariam , Zirie Mahmoud
Published: June 2019

NDC is one of the busiest services at Hamad General Hospital (HGH) with 450-1000 new referrals monthly and an average waiting time of 84 days for an initial appointment. Triage guidelines from several government institutions in Canada, UK, and Australia stated that the patients with urgent conditions should be assessed within 2 weeks. Delaying urgent cases management poses a great patient safety risk that may endanger patient health and can lead to increased healthcare cost. In December 2016, a multidisciplinary team (physician, nurses, administration, and quality staff) was formed to pilot an urgent clinic service. The team standardized triaging criteria, calculated waste, and improved the process from triaging until the first appointment at NDC. Goal: To provide timely diagnosis and management for newly-referred patients to NDC who are considered urgent after physician's triage. Team Aim: To improve the percentage of referred patients with urgent cases who attended their initial consultation visit at the Diabetes-Endocrine Urgent Clinic within 2 weeks from physician's triage to 60% by May 2017. Methods: An urgent clinic exclusively for indicated urgent new referrals was piloted last December 2016. Fishbone diagram and process map were created. For testing changes, the Model for Improvement or Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) was utilized. Several trials were done to identify the cases to be considered urgent during triage, manpower, clinic scheduling, appointment booking process, feedback gathering, and data collection. Results:For the past 9 months, there were 769 patients triaged to the urgent clinic. Around 65% of them were seen within 2 weeks, 12% no-show, and 23% were unable to attend due to various causes. We were able to surpass our goal for several months starting from January 2017 with the exemption in June 2017 when the clinic was closed for 10 days due to the Eid holidays.
Management of Chronic Diabetic Foot Ulcers at Primary Care Level in Qatar :An Alternative Paradigm in Wound Healing
Authors: Mohamed Hashim
Published: June 2019

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Chronic Diabetic footulcers (CDFU) are associated with increased morbidity, mortality especially indeveloping countries. This cohort study assess the efficacy (CDFU)management at primary care & identifypredictive criteria of failure. METHODS: We conducted a 5-year retrospective cohort study withprospective long-term follow-up of all patients with (CDFU) who presented to Umgwalinah Health Centre, Doha, Qatar. Average follow-up was 1 year. Failure of healing of (CDFU) was themain outcome measure.Independent predictor variables were selected by logisticregression analysis. RESULTS: A total of 126 patients with diabetes were managed forvarious foot lesions as follows. Five patients (4%) of 126 underwent immediate amputation. Primary care led approach was successful for 91(92.86%) of 98 neuropathic ulcers, 3(30%) of 10 neuro-ischemic ulcer, 2(66%) of 3 Charcot foot ulceration, 4(100%) of 4 patients with second degree burns & 6(100%) of 6 traumatic foot ulceration or (P<.001,chi2 for trend).Independent factors predictive of failure to heal were presence of osteomyelitis(odds ratio [OR] = 1.6, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-1.3), increased Hemoglobin A1C level (OR = 1.002; 95% CI, 1.2-1.3), severe peripheral vascular disease(OR = 1.0, 95% CI,1.0-1.03),prior hospitalization for(CDFU) (OR = 1.4; 95%CI, 1.2-1.6) & gangrenous lesion(OR = 1.7; 95% CI,1.3-2.1). No side effects were reported and there was a high level of satisfaction (patients and staff). CONCLUSIONS: Primary care based management of (CDFU) is efficacious, safeand acceptable. These findings may lead to a substantial reduction in the costof (CDFU) in the third world. Future comparative studies utilizing randomized controlled trials must be conducted in order to accurately assess the efficacy of primary care in managing (CDFU).
Antidiabetic and Toxicological studies of ethylacetate and nhexane fractions of Gymnema sylvestre
Authors: Hamzah Rabiat Unekwu
Published: June 2019

Gymnema sylvestre is a medicinal plant that is used in the folkloric treatment of diabetes mellitus and the management of its complications. This study was aimed at evaluation of antidiabetic and toxicological effects of ethylacetate and n-hexane fractions of Gymnema sylvestre whole plant. Diabetes was induced in Swiss albino rats by single intraperitoneal administration of 110 mg/kg bodyweight of alloxan monohydrate. Rats in their respective groups were orally administered 100, 300 and 600 mg/kg bodyweight of ethylacetate and n-hexane fractions of the plant daily while the standard drug group received 100 mg/kg bodyweight of metformin. The treatment lasted for fourteen days and on the fifteenth day, animals were anaesthetized and euthanized. Blood samples were collected by carotid puncture for biochemical analysis. In the subchronic toxicological aspect of the study, rats in their respective groups were administered 100, 300, 600 mg/kg bodyweight of the extracts daily for twenty one days and the experiment was terminated on the twenty second day. All the extracts were able to reduce the blood glucose of diabetic rats with 300 mg/kg bodyweight of ethylacetate fraction having higher reduction at 82%. All diabetic rats showed decrease in bodyweight when compared with normoglycemic group. There was significant (p<0.05) reduction in the total cholesterol, triacylglycerol, low density lipoprotein and a concomitant increase in the values of high density lipoprotein in all treated groups when compared with diabetic untreated (negative control). The activity of serum liver enzymes (?- glutamine transpeptidase, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase) and bilirubin significantly decreased (p<0.05) compared with the diabetic untreated group. Levels of total protein in the treated groups did not differ from the normoglycemic group, while there was a reduction in the concentration of albumin of ethylacetate fraction in a dose dependent manner. All treated groups gave urea and creatinine values that showed no significance differences (p>0.05) with the normoglycemic group. The electrolytes showed significant differences (p<0.05) in all treated groups when compared with the normoglycemic group. There was significant difference (p<0.05) in all the biochemical parameters carried out on the subchronic toxicity test with rats administered ethylacetate and n-hexane fractions of G. sylvestre. The hematological parameters (red blood cell, mean cell volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume, hemoglobin) showed no significant difference but a non significant difference in the white blood cell of rats administered with the extract. Therefore, extracts of G. sylvestre might be useful for management of diabetes mellitus and other abnormalities associated with this metabolic disorder
Screening for diabetic retinopathy with a deep learning network: Evaluation of retinal images from the Qatar Biobank
Authors: De Boever Patrick , Elen Bart , Standaert Arnout , Malik Rayaz A
Published: June 2019

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of impaired vision and blindness in working age adults. Regular eye screening is advised to prevent progression to blindness. However, screening programs are labor- and capital-intensive and suffer from limited access to trained professionals. Artificial intelligence has been employed to develop algorithms for automated classification of retinal images. We developed an ensemble model of two deep convolutional neural networks to score DR in fundus images. The model was trained using tens of thousands images from a public database and allows the determination of DR stage, as well as referable DR. The model was validated on 1748 fundus images from the Messidor-2 database. All 190 patients with referable DR were successfully detected by our deep learning (DL) model (sensitivity 100%, 95%CI 98.1%-100%). The model labelled 444 of the 684 diabetes patients without referable DR accordingly (specificity 65.0%, 95%CI 61.2%-68.5%). The DL model was further evaluated on retinal images from the Qatar Biobank. Images from 740 individuals enrolled in the Qatar Biobank were received. Image quality was poor in 72 individuals leaving 668 individuals with manually graded images which were independently analyzed using the DL model. The model scored the DR class with an accuracy of 0.88 and a precision of 0.95. Forty-two individuals (6.3%) have some form of DR and referable DR was identified in twenty-six individuals. The model for referable DR had an accuracy of 0.90 and a precision of 0.97. In conclusion, our DL model has been successfully tested on fundus images from the Qatar Biobank. The Automated Retinal Image Analysis System (ARIAS) is promising in relation to supporting medical professionals to undertake cost-effective screening, especially in the context of large population screening programs.
Stress Granules as a possible regulator of pluripotent stem cell self renewal and differentaition
Authors: Emara Mohamed M , Palangi Freshteh , Samuel Samson M. , Thompson I. Richard , Triggle Chris R.
Published: June 2019

In cells subjected to environmental stresses, such as oxidative stress and heat shock (HS), dynamic ribonucleoprotein aggregates, known as Stress Granules (SGs)), are formed as a part of the cell response program. Different types of stresses control pluripotent stem cell (PSCs) ability to self renew and differentiate, indicating the possible role of SGs in regulating stem cell fate. In this study we compared the effects of oxidative (sodium arsenite (SA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)) and thermal (Heat Shock) stresses on SG formation in human induced (hi) PSCs. Our aim was to examine whether these granules paly a role in regulating PSC self-renewal and differentiation. Our data showed that not all stressors induce SG formation in hiPSCs. Increasing SA concentartions, progressively increase the number of cells showing SGs, however, iPSCs treated with H2O2 exhibited no SG formation even with higher concentrations or longer periods of incubation. On the other hand, no granules were observed in cells kept at 37oC or exposed to mild HS (40oC) treatment, whereas at higher temperatures of 42oC, 100% of the cells formed SGs. Molecular analyses of the granules formed in iPSCs in response to stress conditions showed that they (i) contain the well-known SGs proteins markers (G3BP, TIAR, eIF4E, eIF4A, eIF3B, eIF4G, and PABP), (ii) are present in the cytoplasm in a physical attachment to processing bodies (PBs), and (iii) are disassembled after the removal of the stress. This data confirm that these iPSCs granules are per se SGs. In addition, the formation of SGs was associated with the stimulation of eIF2α phosphorylation in hiPSCs after SA and HS, but not H2O2, which confirm the stimulation of the stress response program. To test whether pluripotent marker proteins are recruited to SGs, we perform an initial screening for several pluripotent markers and confirmed that LIN28A and L1TD1 were SG markers and identified DPPA5 as a novel pluripotent marker that was weakly recruited to SGs. Altogether, our data introduce new aspects of how hiPSCs respond to adverse environmental conditions and identify SGs as a possible regulator of pluripotent stem cell self renewal and differentiation.
UAVbased flying IoT Gateway for Delay Tolerant Data Transfer
Authors: Menouar Hamid , Abuzrara Ahmed , Alsahan Nour
Published: June 2019

Many statistics show the number of connected devices (Internet of Things; IoT) worldwide to grow drastically in the next few years, to exceed 30 billion just by 2020. All these devices need to be connected to the internet, to establish tow ways communication with the backend applications. The list of applications and services that can be enabled by using IoT can be endless, covering different areas such as smart cities, smart home, connected vehicles, intelligent transport systems, agriculture, air and weather monitoring, industry 4.0, etc. One of the fundamental requirements of an IoT device is to be connected and reachable at any time. But when we look at the different applications that run on top of IoT, many of them do not require a continuous connection to the internet. For example, the air monitoring IoT devices, normally they sense and report data only once every 15 to 60 minutes. Such devices would not require a continuous connection to the Internet, but only every 15 to 60 minutes. For such devices and use-cases, we propose to use a flying IoT gateway, that can come next to the sensor every e.g. 15 minutes, to take the data that has been collected by the sensor and carry it to the backend. In this contribution we present a prototype of a solution that uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aka drones, to provide a delay tolerant data routing solution for IoT devices. In this solution, a drone flies over a set of deployed IoT devices, to retrieve the collected and stored data and then deliver it to the backed. Such a solution can be suitable for sensing devices that do not require a real-time communication, like traffic speed cams. Indeed, the speed cams can collect data and store it locally, until a drone comes to carry and transfer it to the backend.This solution helps does not only reduce the overall cost by eliminating the cost of the Internet connectivity at each IoT device, but it also reduce the security vulnerability as the devices are physically not connected to the internet all the time, nor directly.This work has been been conducted under the R&D project NPRP9-257-1-056 which is funded and supported by QNRF.
Wearable V2X solution for Children and Vulnerable Road Users Safety on the Road
Authors: Menouar Hamid , Alsahan Nour , Brahim Mouhamed Ben
Published: June 2019

According to Energy Technology Perspectives 2014, there are approximately 900 million light duty vehicles (not counting two- and three-wheelers) today, and that number will be doubled by 2050 to reach 2 billion. Such a considerable increase will bring-in further challenges for road safety and traffic efficiency. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young adults in the United States, with an annual death toll of 33,000 and over 2.3 million people injured. Those figures are representative of the challenge not only in the US but also in other regions including Qatar and the golf region. Vehicle to Vehicle and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2X) communication technology, which is heading our roads in few years, is seen as a great solution to reduce number of accidents on the road, and it is considered as an enabler of next generation of road safety and Intelligent Transport System (ITS). V2X communication is not limited to vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure, it is also meant to be used for vehicle-to-bicycle and even vehicle-to-pedestrian communication. Indeed, by enabling real-time and fast communication between vehicles and vulnerable road users such as bicycles and road users, we may make the road much safer for those vulnerable road users. This is one of the use cases we would like to enable and test in the Qatar V2X Field Operational Field (Qatar V2X FOT) which is supported and funded by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF). Enabling vulnerable road-users such as bicycles and pedestrians with V2X capabilities has many challenges. The main challenge is the energy consumption, as V2X operates in 5.9GHz radio band, which consumes relatively high energy. Therefore, to operate V2X on those vulnerable users, especially the pedestrian, the user needs to hold a battery which requires to be regularly recharged. We came out with a solution to this problem, which reduces the energy consumption of the V2X device to a level it can operate a small battery suitable to be a wearable device. This poster will expose the challenges when using V2X on vulnerable road users, especially pedestrians, and it will present solution and the related prototype that is developed and tested within the NPRP project. The solution and prototype presented in this poster are the outcomes of the research project NPRP 8-2459-1-482 which is supported and funded by QNRF.
Evaluation of Hardware Accelerators for Lattice Boltzmann based Aneurysm Blood Flow Measurement
Authors: Eslami Mohammad , Zhai Xiaojun , Eid El-Sayed Asmaa , Jassim Al-Shibani Almaha , Nasser Al-Nassr Asma , Amira Abbes , Bensaali Faycal , Prasad Dakua Sarada , Abi Nahed Julien , Coveney Peter
Published: June 2019

Clipping is a potential treatment for ruptured/unruptured brain aneurysm patients. In order to determine the profitable treatment and also clip's location, surgeons need to have the measurements such as velocity and blood pressure in and around the aneurysm.Typically, simulating the blood fluid and finding the corresponding measurements require heavy computation resources. The Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is the conventional way to simulate the fluid dynamics and HemeLB is an open-source computational suite for 3D fluid dynamics simulations of blood flow in the vasculature of the human body. In this work, we aim to evaluate the hardware acceleration of LB and HemeLB on reconfigurable system on chip (SoC) and high performance computing (HPC) machine using RAAD platform.
QEvents: RealTime Recommendation of Neighboring Events
Authors: Hussein Heba , Abbar Sofiane , Arulalan Monishaa
Published: June 2019

Technology always seeks to improve the little details in our lives for a faster and a more efficient life-pace. One of these little problems we face in our daily lives is finding relevant events. For example you visit a place like Katara with your kids and you spend your time in vain looking for a fun event, and after you leave the venue a friend of yours tells you about this interesting “Henna and face painting workshop organized in building 25.”. To solve this problem we propose QEvents. QEvents is a platform that provides users with real-time recommendations about events happening around their location and that best match their preferences. QEvents renders the events in a map-centric dashboard to allow easy browsing and user-friendly interactions. QEvents continuously listens to online channels that broadcast information about events taking place in Qatar, including specialized websites (e.g. eventsdoha.com), social media (e.g. Twitter), and news (e.g. dohanews.com). The main challenge QEvents strives to solve is how to extract important features such as title, location, and time from free text describing the events. We will show in this paper how one could leverage existing technologies such as Topic modeling, Named Entity Recognition, and advanced text parsing to transform a plain event listing website into a dynamic and alive service capable of recognizing events’ location, title, category, as well as starting and ending time, and nicely rendering them in a map-centric visualization allowing a more natural exploration.
Qatar Meteorology Department Security Enhancement Recommendations
Authors: Al-Hamad Eiman Abdulla
Published: June 2019

The Internet has become part of almost every organizational culture where security threats increase with the increase use of the Internet. Therefore, security practice has become increasingly important for almost every organization where is the same case of the Qatar Meteorology Department (QMD) in the state of Qatar. The aim of this research is to evaluate the current security level of the QMD by examining the current security practices that present in the organization and the security awareness level among the organization employees. After that, provide the organization with security policy and awareness program recommendations to enhance the organization security practice. Furthermore, the importance of this research is its contribution to enhance the organization security level. In order to achieve the research objectives, a mixture of different methodologies has been used to collect the fundamental data includes: survey questionnaires, interviews, and field observation. For the data collection process to success, a number of strategies have been used in each method to ensure achieving the most benefits of each the used method. These methods satisfied in collecting the essential primary data. Furthermore, a number of literatures were reviewed in order to understand the research subject further. Based on the collected data, a number of analysis methods have been used to draw a conclusion of the organizational security level where the findings illustrate the needs for security policies and awareness programs in order to enhance the organization security level. Thus, a number of security policies and awareness program recommendations have been established. The research findings and the provided recommendations can support the organization to enhance its security level as much as possible since no system is completely secure. Furthermore, this research presents valuable information about the organization current security level and provides recommendations to enhance this security level.
Analyze Unstructured Data Patterns for Conceptual Representation
Authors: Aqle Aboubakr , Al-Thani Dena , Jaoua Ali
Published: June 2019

Online news media provides aggregated news and stories from different sources all over the world and up-to-date news coverage. The main goal of this study is to find a solution that is considered as a homogeneous source for the news and to represent the news in a new conceptual framework. Furthermore, the user can easily and quickly find different updated news in a fast way through the designed interface. The Mobile App implementation is based on modeling the multi-level conceptual analysis frame. Discovering main concepts of any domain is captured from the hidden unstructured data that are analyzed by the proposed solution. Concepts are discovered through analyzing data patterns to be structured into a tree-based interface for easy navigation for the end user. Our final experiment results show that analyzing the news before displaying to the end-user and restructuring the final output in a conceptual multilevel structure produces a new display frame for the end user to find the related information of interest.
Inhomogeneous Underwater Visible Light Communications: Performance Evaluation
Authors: Anous Noha Hassan , Abdallah Mohamed , Qaraqe Khalid
Published: June 2019

In this work, an underwater visible light communications (VLC) vertical link performance is evaluated. Underwater environment is known of its inhomogeneous nature versus depth. A mathematical model for the received power (Pr) is derived and bit error rates (BER) are computed under different underwater conditions. A numerical example is given for illustration of the deduced model. Our results suggest that an optimum transmitter-receiver separation exists, where BER is minimum at a certain transmission orientation.
Framework of experiential learning to enhance student engineering skill
Authors: Ghemri Fadi , Fadi Houssem , Bouras Abdelaziz
Published: June 2019

In this research work, we propose a framework of experiential learning to enhance student work skills and experience. This research main to contribute to the development and expansion of local industry, through the conduct of long-term fundamental research that contributes to the science base and understanding needs of national economy through industrial by providing an adapted method, enhance the teaching contents and pedagogical organization to be more accurate and adapted to the competency requirements of local employers.
Virtual Reality Glove for Falconry
Authors: Al-Hathal Turkea
Published: June 2019

Falconry hunting is an Arabic traditional sport and has great significance in Qatari society, as it is a major part of their culture. Falconry is about hunting small birds or animals, by using different types of falcons. The falconry in virtual reality (VR) can preserve Qatari culture by making the sport easy to access for all stream of people. The main idea behind this project is to educate and experience real time falconry to the people living in Qatar and the visitors for 2022 football world cup. The proposed design in our project could also help the professional falconers to use and learn the VR technology that can make them a better handler. Moreover, The rapid development in technologies related to Virtual Reality has made imitation of real world in real time equally possible. The VR environment is possible to be integrated with software mediums such as Unity3D, but to realize the real time feel, weight, pressure, movement, and vibration of any kind in the VR is hard and still under process. There are also various new technologies in this field such as haptics, but these technologies are expensive and there is no definite hardware that actually mimics movement of the falcon when it stands on the hand The main hardware design is a glove that can be detected virtually and can detect movement of different types of falcon on the player's hand. The designs proposed in our project will have extensive real time feel of the falcon on the user's hand using various available hardware components, which are cheap and easy to maintain. The design of our gloves paves way to further enhancement of movement realization in VR for other form of sports, medicine etc., The major requirements for the game of falconry where obtained from Qatari Society of Al-Gannas with whom we have collaboration for this project.