Towards Understanding Egyptian Arabic Dialogues

Labelling of user's utterances to understanding his attends which called Dialogue Act (DA) classification, it is considered the key player for dialogue language understanding layer in automatic dialogue systems. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach to user's utterances labeling for Egyptian spontaneous dialogues and Instant Messages using Machine Learning (ML) approach without relying on any special lexicons, cues, or rules. Due to the lack of Egyptian dialect dialogue corpus, the system evaluated by multi-genre corpus includes 4725 utterances for three domains, which are collected and annotated manually from Egyptian call-centers. The system achieves F1 scores of 70. 36% overall domains.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1505.0308

Same Story, Different Narratives: The Influence of Refugee Concerned Organizations on Egyptian Media

It has been documented in the literature that media usually portrays refugees negatively, which affects how the public reacts to them. Consequently, organizations catering to refugees, referred to in this thesis as Refugee Concerned Organizations (RCOs), try to influence the media aiming to influence the public. So, they produce prepacked information and employ different communication tools. Using the agenda building theory, this research investigated the influence of communication tools used by RCOs on Egyptian media focusing on Facebook and news websites. Qualitative content analysis was conducted for 615 Facebook posts and 111 News reports and supplemented by semi-structured interviews with Communication Professionals from four RCOs. The findings suggest that the RCOs general representation of refugees in Egypt is positive and that they cover refugees’ stories frequently. However, they tend to focus more on showcasing their work and assistance to refugees. Regarding the media, the findings indicate that reporting on refugee issues is more extensive during emergencies and that the focus is usually on refugees’ numbers and the Egyptian government’s efforts. The main two sources of information for the media are the Egyptian government and the UNHCR. Moreover, the findings showed that the issues covered by the media were not always the same issues highlighted by RCOs. However, the substantive and affective attributes used by both showed more similarities. As such, it can be argued that the communication tools of RCOs had a minimal influence on the first level of agenda building but an influence on the second level was observed

In Vitro Assessment of Antioxidant, Anticancer and Antimicrobial Activity of Wheat Sprouts Extracts

Cancer is a major public health problem. Researches show that tens of millions of people around the world suffer from cancer, and almost all ultimately die from it. Cancer is often thought of as an untreatable and painful disease. Although the development of cancer increases with age, people may develop cancer due to lifestyle, genetic mutations, or cell damage. Nevertheless, environmental effects may act as factors that lead to the development of cancer. Treatment of cancer is still being studied. The only choice for treating cancer patients nowadays is anticancer drugs and chemotherapy. The side effects may damage the whole body since anticancer drugs affect not only cancer cells, but also normal healthy cells. As a result, this leads to immunosuppression of the body. The inhibition of the immune system allows bacteria to infect the body, so the patients require antibiotics which are the first defense line against bacterial infections. Cancer patient will suffer more with the side effects of antibiotics along with anticancer drugs and chemotherapy. Accordingly, researches are trying to find alternative treatments that are less toxic than chemicals, like natural plants. Researches began using plant extracts which have always been rich sources for many compounds that are useful for producing drugs. In this study, specific plant sprouts will be used, which are wheat sprouts. This is because they have many nutrients that improve metabolism, keep normal blood sugar levels, and eliminate toxins by neutralizing them. After planting the wheat seeds, the sprouts will be dried in shade, and the anticancer and antimicrobial extracts will be obtained. Specific techniques will be used in order to examine the biological activity of these antioxidants, including the anticancer and the antimicrobial agents. Agar diffusion method will be used for evaluating the width of the inhibition zone. Later, the minimal inhibitory concentration of the antimicrobial extracts will be determined. In addition, the anticancer extracts will be experimentally used on different cancer cell lines, and by counting the floating cells, the number of dead cells will be compared with that of live cells. Afterwards, according to the results, wheat sprouts will be evaluated and tested if they can be used as antimicrobial and anticancer agents or not, by using different concentrations

Environmental Value Orientations and its Relation to Pro- Environmental Behavior among Petra University Students in Jordan

This study aimed at identifying environmental value orientations held by the students of Petra Private University– Jordan, identifying the reported level of pro- environmental behavior that is expected from them, and finding the relationship between environmental values and the students' pro-environmental behavior. The study sample consists of (296) male and female students enrolled at Petra Private University. Two questionnaires have been used in this study; the first questionnaire consists of (25) items to assess the environmental value orientations in three dimensions: ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, and environmental apathy. The second questionnaire consists of (31) items to measure the pro-environmental behavior expected from the students. The study results indicated that students hold several environmental values in all three dimensions at various degrees. Moreover, the students’ values lean more toward ecocentrism and less toward anthropocentrism, whereas the least students’ values lean toward environmental apathy. The results also show that significant and positive correlation exists between ecocentrism and the reported level of pro-environmental behavior. Keywords: pro-environmental behavior, environmental value orientations, ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, environmental apathy

DNA Sequencing

The sequencing of the Human Reference Genome, with Human Genome Project announced ten years ago, provided a roadmap that is the foundation for modern biomedical research. Reference Genome represents digital database founded by scientists which contains representative examples of species genomes. The need for sequencing has never been greater than it is today. Sequencing has found its applications within diverse research sectors including comparative genomics and evolution, forensics, epidemiology, and applied medicine for diagnostics and therapeutics. Arguably, the strongest rationale for ongoing sequencing is the question for identification and interpretation of human sequence variation as it relates to health and disease. The paper gives review of current DNA sequencing algorithms and techniques as well as next-generation of DNA sequencing. Since the DNA sequencing field is changing rapidly the information in this paper represent a snapshot of this particular moment

Dilemma of HCV Infection in Renal Transplant Recipients

Hepatitis C virus, which usually starts during dialysis therapy, is currently the main cause of chronic liver disease in such population. The majority of patients acquired the disease through intravenous drug use or blood transfusion, with some risk factors identified. In this review we are dealing with the effect of renal transplantation on HCV infection and HCV-related complications after renal transplantation. Moreover, we are discussing the therapeutic options of HCV infection before and after renal transplantation, the best immunosuppressive protocol and lastly graft and patient survival in patients who underwent pretransplant management vs. those who were transplanted without treatment