Cultural Content in Moroccan EFL Textbooks and Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Development

This study aims at investigating the intercultural adequacy of the cultural content of a Moroccan EFL textbook in developing students’ Cultural Intelligence (CQ). The activities of the textbook were analyzed using the model of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) to identify the adequacy of the intercultural activities in helping students develop their CQ, to detect, assimilate, reason, and act on cultural cues appropriately in situations characterized by cultural diversity. The scale of the same model, the CQ scale, was used to elicit the perspectives of 112 high school teachers regarding the intercultural adequacy of the cultural content in the textbook to compare the results of the two instruments. The results of the analysis of the textbook’s content revealed that the Cognitive CQ is the most present factor of CQ in the textbook activities, but the activities present are not sufficient to develop the students' Cognitive CQ nor the other three CQ factors as illustrated by the CQ model. The elicited perspectives of teachers support the findings of the textbook’s content analysis and suggestions for improvement are enlisted

Low-Leakage ESD Power Supply Clamps in General Purpose 65 nm CMOS Technology

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a well-known contributor that reduces the reliability and yield of the integrated circuits (ICs). As ICs become more complex, they are increasingly susceptible to such failures due to the scaling of physical dimensions of devices and interconnect on a chip [1]. These failures are caused by excessive electric field and/or excessive current densities and result in the dielectric breakdown, electromigration of metal lines and contacts. ESD can affect the IC in its different life stages, from wafer fabrication process to failure in the field. Furthermore, ESD events can damage the integrated circuit permanently (hard failure), or cause a latent damage (soft failure) [2]. ESD protection circuits consisting of I/O protection and ESD power supply clamps are routinely used in ICs to protect them against ESD damage. The main objective of the ESD protection circuit is to provide a low-resistive discharge path between any two pins of the chip to harmlessly discharge ESD energy without damaging the sensitive circuits. The main target of this thesis is to design ESD power supply clamps that have the lowest possible leakage current without degrading the ESD protection ability in general purpose TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology. ESD clamps should have a very low-leakage current and should be stable and immune to the power supply noise under the normal operating conditions of the circuit core. Also, the ESD clamps must be able to handle high currents under an ESD event. All designs published in the general purpose 65 nm CMOS technology have used the SCR as the clamping element since the SCR has a higher current carrying capability compared to an MOS transistor of the same area [3]. The ESD power supply clamp should provide a low-resistive path in both directions to be able to deal with both PSD and NDS zapping modes. The SCR based design does not provide the best ESD protection for the NDS zapping mode (positive ESD stress at VSS with grounded VDD node) since it has two parasitic resistances (RNwell and RPsub) and one parasitic diode (the collector to base junction diode of the PNP transistor) in the path from the VSS to VDD. Furthermore, SCR-based designs are not suitable for application that exposed to hot switching or ionizing radiation [2]. In GP process, the gate oxide thickness of core transistors is reduced compared with LP process counterpart to achieve higher performance designs for high-frequency applications using 1 V core transistors and 2.5 V I/O option. The thinner gate oxide layer results in higher leakage current due to gate tunneling [4]. Therefore, using large thin oxide MOS transistors as clamping elements will result in a huge leakage. In this thesis, four power supply ESD clamps are proposed in which thick oxide MOS transistors are used as the main clamping element. Therefore, the low-leakage current feature is achieved without significantly degrading the ESD performance. In addition, the parasitic diode of the MOS transistors provides the protection against NSD-mode. In this thesis, two different ESD power supply clamp architectures are proposed: standalone ESD power supply clamps and hybrid ESD power supply clamps. Two standalone clamps are proposed: a transient PMOS based ESD clamp with thyristor delay element (PTC), and a static diode triggered power supply (DTC). The standalone clamps were designed to protect the circuit core against ±125 V CDM stress by limiting the voltage between the two power rails to less than the oxide breakdown voltage of the core transistors, BVOXESD = 5 V. The large area of this architecture was the price for maintaining the low-leakage current and an adequate ESD protection. The hybrid clamp architecture was proposed to provide a higher ESD protection, against ±300 V CDM stress, while reducing the layout area and maintaining the low-leakage feature. In the hybrid clamp structure, two clamps are connected in parallel between the two power supply rails, a static clamp, and a transient clamp. The static clamp triggers first and starts to sink the ESD energy and then an RC network triggers the primary transient clamp to sink most of the ESD stress. Two hybrid designs were proposed: PMOS ESD power supply clamp with thyristor delay element and diodes (PTDC), and NMOS ESD power supply clamp with level shifter delay element and diode (NLDC). Simulation results show that the proposed clamps are capable of protecting the circuit core against ±1.5 kV HBM and at least against ±125 V CDM stresses. The measurement results show that all of the proposed clamps are immune against false triggering, and transient induced latch-up. Furthermore, all four designs have responded favorably to the 4 V ESD-like pulse voltage under both chip powered and not powered conditions and after the stress ends the designs turned off. Finally, TLP measurement results show that all four proposed designs meet the minimum design requirement of the ESD protection circuit in the 65 nm CMOS technology (i.e. HBM protection level of ±1.5 kV )

ANEMIA IN PREGNANT WOMEN OF EASTERN SUDAN

 It has been estimated that over half of all women in the world experience anemia during pregnancy with 95% occurring among women in the developing counteries1. Many risk factors for anemia were identified in pregnancy 2. In a community-based study we have recently reported that around 26% of the women of Eastern Sudan were anaemic, as well as we have shown that anaemia is one of the risk factors for deep venous thrombosis in the Sudanese pregnant women 3,4. However no proper published data exist for anaemia, its epidemiology and the risk factors during pregnancy in Sudan.   We performed a prospective study to estimate the incidence, timing and the risk factors for anemia during pregnancy in a population of Sudanese women in Eastern Sudan. Pregnant women attended antenatal care clinic at New Halfa Teaching Hospital were approached for participation in the study during September- November 2003. After a verbal consent a fixed questionnaire containing sociodemographic characters, obstetrical history as well as the known risk factors for anemia was filled (history of abortion, lack of iron supplementation, oral contraceptive pills (OCP) use and pica). All patients were examined clinically to detect signs of anemia–if present. Spleen was palpated and the gestational age was confirmed by Ultrasound in cases of discrepancy. Hemoglobin was estimated by colorimeter (WPA, U.K) and blood films for malaria were prepared using Geimsa stain. A well-trained technician who was blinded about the women’s data did the laboratory investigations. Data was entered in microcomputer using SPSS for windows the students, t-test, compared the mean ± SD of the age, gestational age, and hemoglobin. Relative risk was calculated for the possible factors. P < 0.05 was considered significant. &nbsp

Anti-U1RNP-70kD-positive case of neonatal lupus presenting with seizure and incomplete heart block: a case report and literature review

Neonatal lupus erythematosus (NLE) is an autoimmune disease caused by the transplacental passage of anti-Ro/SS-A and anti-La/SS-B. This can be less commonly seen with U1-ribonucleoprotein (U1RNP). Our patient is a 7-day-old male, who first presented with seizures. In addition, during an electroencephalogram, he was found to have an irregular heart rhythm. Looking further into the history, we found that the mother was aware that she had systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, she had not been followed up with a rheumatologist. The workup for NLE found a negative anti-Ro/SS-A and anti-La/SS-B, with a positive U1RNP-70kD. U1RNP-70kD is a diagnostic test for mixed connective tissue disease in adults, but no research has been done on its significance in NLE. Despite having SLE, the infant’s mother did not receive surveillance during her pregnancy, as the current guidelines are tailored for mothers with anti-Ro/SS-A and anti-La/SS-B. As a result, this calls for the extension of these guidelines to include the U1RNP-70kD antibody. In this case, the 70kD subtype of U1RNP was positive, which may have had a role to play in this unusual presentation. However, further research is needed to improve the care of mothers and babies with U1RNP-70kD

Type I Diabetes-Associated Tolerogenic Properties of Interleukin-2

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) results from insulin-producing beta cells destruction by diabetogenic T lymphocytes in humans and nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice. The breakdown of tolerance has been associated with a defect in the number and the function of naturally occurring regulatory T cells (nTreg) that are the master player in peripheral tolerance. Gene knockout experiments in mouse models have shown a nonredundant activity of IL-2 related to its critical role in inducing nTreg and controlling peripheral T cell tolerance. Whereas strong evidence has suggested that IL-2 is critically required for nTreg-mediated T1D control, several fundamental questions remain to be addressed. In this paper, we highlight the recent findings and controversies regarding the tolerogenic properties of IL-2 mediated through nTreg. We further discuss a potential link between the immunomodulatory role of interleukin-2 and the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes

Suppression of axionic charge density wave and onset of superconductivity in the chiral Weyl semimetal Ta₂Se₈I

A Weyl semimetal with strong electron-phonon interaction can show axionic coupling in its insulator state at low temperatures, owing to the formation of a charge density wave (CDW). Such a CDW emerges in the linear-chain-compound Weyl semimetal Ta2Se8I below 263 K, resulting in the appearance of the dynamical condensed-matter axion quasiparticle. In this paper, we demonstrate that the interchain coupling in Ta2Se8I can be varied to suppress the CDW formation with pressure, while retaining the Weyl semimetal phase at high temperatures. Above 17 GPa, the Weyl semimetal phase does not survive, and we induce superconductivity, due to the amorphization of the iodine sublattice. Structurally, the quasi-one-dimensional Ta-Se chains remain intact and provide a channel for superconductivity. We highlight that our results show a near-complete suppression of the gap induced by the axionic charge density wave at pressures inaccessible to previous studies. Including this CDW phase, our experiments and theoretical predictions and analysis reveal the complete phase diagram of Ta2Se8I and its relationship to the nearby superconducting state. The results demonstrate Ta2Se8I to be a distinctively versatile platform for exploring correlated topological states. © 2021 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society

Magnetic-field-induced FM-AFM metamagnetic transition and strong negative magnetoresistance in Mn1/4_{1/4}NbS2_2 under pressure

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC) stand out with their high chemical stability and the possibility to incorporate a wide range of magnetic species between the layers. The behavior of conduction electrons in such materials intercalated by 3d-elements is closely related to their magnetic properties and can be sensitively controlled by external magnetic fields. Here, we study the magnetotransport properties of NbS$_2$ intercalated with Mn, Mn$_{1/4}$NbS$_2$, demonstrating a complex behavior of the magnetoresistance and of the ordinary and anomalous Hall resistivities. Application of pressure as tuning parameter leads to the drastic changes of the magnetotransport properties of Mn$_{1/4}$NbS$_2$ exhibiting large negative magnetoresistance up to $65 \%$ at 7.1 GPa. First-principles electronic structure calculations indicates pressure-induced transition from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic state. Theoretical calculations accounting for the finite temperature magnetic properties of Mn$_{1/4}$NbS$_2$ suggest a field-induced metamagnetic ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic transition as an origin of the large negative magentoresistance. These results inspire the development of materials for spintronic applications based on intercalated TMDC with a well controllable metamagnetic transition

The definite integrals of 2- refined neutrosophic functions and its properties

This article aims to study the definite integrals of 2- refined neutrosophic functions and its properties. The definite integrals of 2- refined neutrosophic functions are defined in this study, and a set of theories are presented, including the Fundamental theorem of 2-refined neutrosophic integral calculus, the mean-value theorem of 2- refined neutrosophic integral calculus with its two parts, in addition to the properties of the definite integrals of 2- refined neutrosophic functions. Also, we used the n-Refined AH-Isometry [11]