Arabic Handwriting Synthesis

Training and testing data for optical character recognition are cumbersome to obtain. If large amounts of data can be produced from small amounts, much time and effort can be saved. This paper presents an approach to synthesize Arabic handwriting. We segment word images into labeled characters and then use these in synthesizing arbitrary words. The synthesized text should look natural; hence, we define some criteria to decide on what is acceptable as natural-looking. The text that is synthesized by using the natural-looking constrain is compared to text that is synthesized without using the natural-looking constrain for evaluation

CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF JORDANIAN PROPOLIS AND NIGELLA SATIVA SEED OIL AGAINST CLINICALLY ISOLATED MICROORGANISMS

Objective: Increasing use of medicinal plants in the treatment of infectious diseases are due to the development of multi-antibiotics resistant microorganisms, and had alerted our interest in the examination of some natural products. This study was carried out to investigate the antimicrobial activity of Jordanian propolis, black seed oil (Nigella sativa) extract, alone or in combination against clinically isolated microorganisms (bacteria and fungi).Methods: Jordanian propolis samples were collected. Aqueous and alcoholic extractions were done; black seed oil was extracted from Nigella sativa seeds. Seven clinical isolated microorganisms namely: Micrococcus luteus, Bacillus pumilus, Bordetella bronchisptica, Enterococcus fecalis, Bacillus subtilis, and Staphylococcus aureus, and one yeast strain namely Candida albicans were used. The antimicrobial activity was investigated by agar diffusion technique and microplate dilution to determine the MIC.Results: The results indicated that the alcoholic propolis extract showed higher antimicrobial activity than the aqueous propolis extract. The antimicrobial activity of black seed oil was significantly higher than that of the propolis. Mixing propolis with black seed oil showed synergism effects against some microorganisms as Enterococcus fecalis (24±1.1), Bordetella bronchisptica (20±0.9) and Candida albicans (40±2.3), and additive with others as Bacillus subtilis (28±1.8).Conclusion: Black seed oil and propolis might be used as a potential source of safe and effective natural antimicrobial in pharmaceutical and food industries

OXIDANTS AND ANTIOXIDANTS AS RISK FACTORS IN YOUNG ARABIAN MALE PATIENTS WITH ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

Objective: This study aim to investigate the levels of oxidative stress, antioxidants besides uric acid, C-reactive protein (CRP), lipid profile and cardiac biomarker enzymes in young men admitted to the hospital for the first time with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), to investigate any Relationship between them.Methods: 135 young men age Ë‚ 40 y old, admitted to the cardiology unit with suspected MI and 130 age and sex matched healthy controls were included in this study. Blood samples were collected from the patients and the control group. The blood samples were collected from the patients on the day of admission and on the day of discharge.Results: The levels of xanthine oxidase (XO), malondialdehyde (MDA), CRP, uric acid, total cholesterol (TC), total triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), apoprotein-B 100 (Apo B), and cardiac biomarker enzymes were significantly high, whereas catalase, vitamin C, high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C) and apoprotein-A1 (Apo A1) were significantly low on the day of admission (Time A) and slightly higher on the day of discharge (Time B), but both were still lower than the controls. There was a decrease in XO and MDA activity and an increase in catalase activity and vitamin C level.Conclusion: These results may indicate possible relationships between these parameters and AMI.Keywords: Acute myocardial infarction, Xanthine oxidase, Malondialdehyde, Antioxidants, Lipid profil

Carbon Nanoparticles-Decorated Carbon Nanotubes

© 2020, The Author(s). Multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were decorated by activated carbon nanoparticles of resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels. Carbon nanospheres and MWCNTs were mixed by equal mass ratios for different durations. The products were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, nanoscanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. The results indicated that a significant decoration with carbon nanoparticles occurred onto the MWCNTs.This publication was made possible by the NPRP award (NPRP 08-014-2-003) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. Technical support from the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Central Laboratories Unit (CLU) and Gas Processing Centre (GPC) at Qatar University is also acknowledged. The publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library

Influence of chitosan addition on resorcinol-formaldehyde xerogel structure

Gels are usually not environment-friendly due to their difficult biodegradability. Therefore, the addition of chitosan, even in small amounts, will make such gels biodegradable and thus can be useful in many applications that require environment-friendly materials. The addition of small quantities of chitosan to the reacting solution resorcinol-formaldehyde xerogel was investigated. Different hybrid resorcinol-formaldehyde-chitosan xerogels were characterized by dierent techniques, including Raman spectra, FTIR, XRD, TGA, SEM, surface area and porosity analyzer, and CHNS/O microanalyzer. It was seen that the addition of chitosan, even in a minor quantity, has a significant influence on the structural features of the resulting xerogels. The lattice order and crystallinity, chemical functions, thermal stability, morphology, elemental ratio, pore structure, and appearance were changed by adding chitosan into the xerogel structure. - 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This publication was made possible by the NPRP award (NPRP 08-014-2-003) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). Statements made herein are the sole responsibility of the authors. Technical support from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Central Laboratory Unit (CLU) and Gas Processing Centre (GPC) at Qatar University is also acknowledged. Further, the publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library.Scopu

Recognition of off-line printed Arabic text using Hidden Markov Models.

yesThis paper describes a technique for automatic recognition of off-line printed Arabic text using Hidden Markov Models. In this work different sizes of overlapping and non-overlapping hierarchical windows are used to generate 16 features from each vertical sliding strip. Eight different Arabic fonts were used for testing (viz. Arial, Tahoma, Akhbar, Thuluth, Naskh, Simplified Arabic, Andalus, and Traditional Arabic). It was experimentally proven that different fonts have their highest recognition rates at different numbers of states (5 or 7) and codebook sizes (128 or 256). Arabic text is cursive, and each character may have up to four different shapes based on its location in a word. This research work considered each shape as a different class, resulting in a total of 126 classes (compared to 28 Arabic letters). The achieved average recognition rates were between 98.08% and 99.89% for the eight experimental fonts. The main contributions of this work are the novel hierarchical sliding window technique using only 16 features for each sliding window, considering each shape of Arabic characters as a separate class, bypassing the need for segmenting Arabic text, and its applicability to other languages

Biochar production from waste rubber-wood-sawdust and its potential use in C sequestration: chemical and physical characterization

Biochars have received increasing attention because of their potential environmental applications such as soil amending and atmospheric C sequestration. In this study, biochar was produced from waste rubber-wood-sawdust. The produced biochars were characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) gas porosimetry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Pyrolysis temperature was shown to have a strong influence on both thermal and chemical characteristic of biochar samples. The experimental data shows that the biochar samples can absorb around 5% water by mass (hydrophilic) at lower temperatures (650 °C), biochar samples were thermally stable and became hydrophobic due to the presence of aromatic compounds. Carbon content (over 85%) increased with increasing temperature, and showed an inverse effect to the elemental ratios of H/C and O/C. The very low H/C and O/C ratios obtained for the biochar indicated that carbon in this material is predominantly unsaturated. BET results showed that the sawdust derived biochars have surface areas between 10 and 200 m2 g−1 and FTIR indicated an aromatic functional group about 866 cm−1 in most of the samples. The rate of CO2 adsorption on sawdust derived biochar generally increased with increasing temperature from 450 to 650 °C but then decreased with increase in the production temperature. Derived biochar represents a potential alternative adsorbent for C sequestration

ACETYLENIC DIMERIZATION UNDER BASIC CONDITIONS

Objective: The lack of information concerning the pharmacological activity of amino acetylenic amide derivatives in which the cyclic amine is aziridine or azetidine promoted our interest to synthesize N-[4-(1-azeridinyl)-2-butynyl] pyrrolide-1,3-dione 4, N-[4-(1-azetidinyl)-2-butynyl] pyrrolidine-1,3-dione 5 and N-[4-(1-pyrrolidnyl)-2-butynyl]pyrrolide-1,3-dione 6.Methods: Melting points, IR, 1H-NMR 13CNMRspectra were measured.Results: Dimerization of 2-(prop-2-yn-1-yl) pyrrolidine-1,3-dione was generated rather than Mannich product, while using pyrrolidine as base in Mannich reaction generated the expected Mannich product. Rationalization for the mechanism of dimerization and Mannich adduct are discussed.Conclusion: Mannich reaction may afford the dimerization product of the acetylenic compounds rather than Mannich adduct.Â

Building a Tensegrity-Based Computational Model to Understand Endothelial Alignment Under Flow

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Endothelial cells form the lining of the walls of blood vessels and are continuously subjected to mechanical stimuli from the blood flow. Microtubule-organizing center (MTOC), also known as centrosome is a structure found in eukaryotic cells close to the nucleus. MTOC relocates relative to the nucleus when endothelial cells are exposed to shear stress which determines their polarization, thus it plays a critical role in cell migration and wound healing. The nuclear lamina, a mesh-like network that lies underneath the nuclear membrane, is composed of lamins, type V intermediate filament proteins. Mutations in LMNA gene that encodes A-type lamins cause the production of a mutant form of lamin A called progerin and leads to a rare premature aging disease known as Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS). The goal of this study is to investigate how fluid flow affects the cytoskeleton of endothelial cells. This thesis consists of two main sections; computational mechanical modeling and laboratory experimental work. The mechanical model was implemented using Ansys Workbench software as a tensegrity-based cellular model in order to simulate the state of an endothelial cell under the effects of induced shear stress from the blood fluid flow. This tensegrity-based cellular model - composed of a plasma membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, microtubules, and actin filaments - aims to understand the effects of the fluid flow on the mechanics of the cytoskeleton. In addition, the laboratory experiments conducted in this study examined the MTOC-nuclear orientation of endothelial cells under shear stress with the presence of wound healing. Wild-type lamin A and progerin-expressing BAECs were studied under static and sheared conditions. Moreover, a custom MATLAB code was utilized to measure the MTOC-nuclear orientation angle and classification. Results demonstrate that shear stress leads to different responses of the MTOC orientation between the wild-type and progerin-expressing cells around the vertical wound edge. Future directions for this study involve additional experimental work together with the improved simulation results to confirm the MTOC orientation relative to the nucleus under shear stress