Relationships of Chemical Elements and their Environmental Impacts in Groundwater, Soil, and Fodder Plants in Arid Land

Ali Hamdan,Hassan Khozyem,Eman Elbadry 대한자원환경지질학회 2021 자원환경지질 Vol.54 No.3

The relationship of both heavy metals and major elements in soil, plants, and groundwater was studied in a hyper-arid area and depends completely on the groundwater to cover its all needs. The study reviles that 27.3% of the studied groundwater was strongly acidic and has very low pH values (<pH 5.5). The groundwater has a serious corrosion effect on the metallic infrastructure, a negative effect on the plant growth rate, and an increase in soil degradation and acidity. The distribution of both heavy metals (Cd, Ni, Fe, Mn, Pb, and Zn) and major elements (Ca, Mg, Na, and K) in groundwater, soil, and Alfalfa plants are identical. The high concentration of elements in groundwater impacted both plants and soil. In general, not all the studied groundwater is suitable for irrigation or day-life uses; therefore, a pre-use treatment is necessary for most of the studied sites.

Assessment of the risk factors associated with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Sudan: a case-control study

Adel Hussein Elduma,Mohammad Ali Mansournia,Abbas Rahimi Foroushani,Hamdan Mustafa Hamdan Ali,Asrar M A,Salam Elegail,Asma Elsony,Kourosh Holakouie-Naieni 한국역학회 2019 Epidemiology and Health Vol.41 No.-

OBJECTIVES: The emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a major challenge for the global control of tuberculosis (TB). The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors associated with MDR-TB in Sudan. METHODS: This case-control study was conducted from May 2017 to February 2019. Patients newly diagnosed with MDR-TB were selected as cases, and controls were selected from TB patients who responded to first-line anti-TB drugs. A questionnaire was designed and used to collect data from study participants. Logistic regression was used to evaluate associations between risk factors and MDR-TB infection. The best multivariate model was selected based on the likelihood ratio test. RESULTS: A total of 430 cases and 860 controls were selected for this study. A history of previous TB treatment (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 54.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 30.48 to 98.69) was strongly associated with MDR-TB infection. We identified interruption of TB treatment (aOR, 7.62; 95% CI, 3.16 to 18.34), contact with MDR-TB patients (aOR, 5.40; 95% CI, 2.69 to 10.74), lower body weight (aOR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.91), and water pipe smoking (aOR, 3.23; 95% CI, 1.73 to 6.04) as factors associated with MDR-TB infection. CONCLUSIONS: Previous TB treatment and interruption of TB treatment were found to be the main predictors of MDR-TB. Additionally, this study found that contact with MDR-TB patients and water pipe smoking were associated with MDR-TB infection in Sudan. More efforts are required to decrease the rate of treatment interruption, to strengthen patients’ adherence to treatment, and to reduce contact with MDR-TB patients.

A Novel Neural Network Ternary Arithmetic Logic Unit

Ali Haidar,M. Jad Hamdan,M. Backer Rashid,Hassan Hamieh,Ahmad Issa,Abdallah Kassem 대한전자공학회 2008 ITC-CSCC :International Technical Conference on Ci Vol.2008 No.7

in this paper we introduce a new set of ternary neural networks to realize a novel Ternary Arithmetic Logic Unit (TALU). All the neurons take advantage of the Logic Oriented neural network mathematical tools and parallelism concepts allowing fast and simple systematic analysis. The simulation results, done using MATLAB Simulink, demonstrate the feasibility, functionality and the correctness of the neural networks designed.

Association Between the Prevalence of Schistosomiasis in Elementary School Students and Their Parental Occupation in Sudan

김연,차승만,김영진,Hamdan Mustafa Hamdan Ali,Mousab Siddig Elhag,Hassan Ahmed Hassan Ahmed Ismail,이건훈,홍성태 대한기생충학ㆍ열대의학회 2022 The Korean Journal of Parasitology Vol.60 No.1

Global efforts to identify groups at high risk for schistosomiasis have mainly concentrated on identifying their geographical distribution. Investigations on the socioeconomic characteristics of high-risk groups are relatively scarce. This study aimed to explore the associations between schistosomiasis among students and their parents’ occupations. A nationwide cross-sectional survey was conducted targeting 105,167 students in 1,772 primary schools across Sudan in 2017. From these students, 100,726 urine and 96,634 stool samples were collected to test for Schistosoma haematobium and S. mansoni infection. A multi-level mixed effect analysis was used with age and sex as fixed factors, and school as a random factor. The odd ratios (ORs) of practicing open defecation among farmers’ children were almost 5 times higher than their counterparts whose parents were government officials (OR=4.97, 95% confidence intervals (CIs): 4.57-5.42, P<0.001). The ORs of contacting water bodies for watering livestock among farmers’ children were more than 4 times higher than those of children whose parents were government officials (OR=4.59, 95% CIs: 4.02-5.24, P<0.001). This study shows that schistosomiasis represents a disease of poverty and that farmers’ children constituted a high-risk group.

Activity of Pralsetinib Versus Selpercatinib in Patients with RET Fusionpositive Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)

( Faiza Ahmed ),( Israr Khan ),( Nazma Hanif ),( Alaa Hamdan ),( Mohammad Ali Zaidi ),( Zeynep Yukselen ),( Umer Salman ),( Sakshi Mishra ),( Jack Michel ),( Muhammad Haris Khan ),( Andre Thompson ),( 대한결핵 및 호흡기학회 2021 대한결핵 및 호흡기학회 추계학술대회 초록집 Vol.129 No.-

Background Pralsetinib and selpercatinib are anticancer drugs targeting RET fusions (oncogenic drivers) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The US FDA approved both drugs in 2020 for the treatment of RET-fusion positive NSCLC. Methods We assessed the efficacy & safety of pralsetinib versus selpercatinib in RET fusion-positive NSCLC in two clinical trials: phase1/2 ARROW trial (n=354) and phase 1/2 LIBRETTO-001 trial (n=144). Results In patients who had previously received platinum-based therapy (n=105), Drilon et al., 2020 showed an overall response rate (ORR) of 64% (95% CI, 54-73) and a median duration of response (mDOR) of 17.5 months (95% CI, 12.0-NE) with selpercatinib in phase 1/2 LIBRETTO-001 trial. Furthermore, a complete response (CR) of 2%, partial response (PR) of 62%, stable disease (SD) of 29%, and median progression-free survival (mPFS) of 16.5 months ( 95% CI, 13.7 - NE) were reported. Treatment naive patients (n=39) demonstrated an ORR of 85% (95% CI, 70-94) and PR of 85%. The responses were determined by the independent review committee. Lee et al., 2019 (n=111) demonstrated a rapid lowering of RET circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in 81% of NSCLC patients with pralsetinib therapy. A phase 1/2 ARROW trial (n= 116) exhibited a median follow-up of 8.8 months in patients who received pralsetinib 400 mg daily. Additionally, ORR was 65%, CR 6%, disease control rate 93 (95% CI, 87 - 97), and resulted in overall tumor size reduction in 96% of patients. Refer to (Table 1) for further details. Conclusion Pralsetinib and Selpercatinib have shown promising anti-tumor activity and an acceptable safety profile in RET fusion-positive NSCLC. However, we cannot draw a firm conclusion regarding which one is better due to insufficient data. Clinical trials, including AcceleRET, are still ongoing, and data is pending. Further comparative studies are needed to derive meaningful survival outcomes.

Determinants of students’ outcome: a full-fledged structural equation modelling approach

Mohammed Borhandden Musah,Hairuddin Bin Mohd Ali,Shafeeq Hussain Vazhathodi Al-Hudawi,Lokman Mohd Tahir,Khadijah Binti Daud,Abdul Rahim Hamdan 서울대학교 교육연구소 2015 Asia Pacific Education Review Vol.16 No.4

The vibrant demand for academic excellence in the twenty-first century has brought diverse determinants of students’ outcome into play. However, few studies have validated the instruments and examined the mediating effect between exogenous and endogenous variables of the student outcome model. This study, therefore, investigates the psychometric properties of four scales: two modified subscales of SERVQUAL: quality of teaching and learning and quality of classroom, qualified instructional leader and student outcome. It also investigates student outcome determinants and the role of teaching and learning and classroom quality in mediating the relationship between qualified instructional leaders and student outcomes. The study adopts a full-fledged structural equation modelling approach and analyses data collected through a total of 450 questionnaires distributed among undergraduates of a public university in Malaysia. The findings demonstrate that student outcomes and qualified instructional leader instruments comprise three dimensions, whereas teaching and learning and classroom quality instruments comprise a single dimension each and support the composite reliability, convergence and discriminant validity of the scales. The results indicate that determinants of student outcome predict learning student outcomes. The results also demonstrate that teaching and learning quality strongly and positively mediates the relationship between qualified instructional leaders and student outcomes, whereas classroom quality positively but weakly mediates the relationship. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were also addressed.

Energy-efficient anchor activation protocol for non-cooperative localization of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

Khalil Ruhul Amin,Saeed Nasir,Almutiry Muhannad,Alenezi Ali Hamdan 한국통신학회 2023 ICT Express Vol.9 No.5

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) necessitates low-latency and ultra-reliable communication to support various applications. Besides, the data generated in IIoT must be geo-tagged to take location-aware timely actions. Therefore, this paper proposes an accurate and energy-efficient localization scheme for localizing the devices in IIoT. We introduce a novel anchor activation protocol for the non-cooperative localization of IIoT devices. The proposed method is sequential, distributed, and error adaptive, that first performs distributed scheduling followed by adaptive selection. This distributed localization scheme is well-suited for IIoT due to the non-cooperative nature of the devices; however, at the same time, it is more challenging because no centralized node can disseminate the anchors’ network information. Therefore, the anchors rely only on the local information from other anchors in their vicinity. The distributed approach can significantly benefit such networks because the centralized node can be a system’s bottleneck. Besides the distributed nature, the decision process of anchor selection for localization considers the transmission energy of the anchors to make it energy efficient. Our results show the effectiveness of the proposed method both in terms of localization accuracy and energy efficiency.