Research Title: 96 Understanding the meaning attributed by jordanian parents of children with cancer to their illness: a phenomenological study

Author: Maha Mohammed Wahbi Atout, Published Year: 2020

BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care, 10

Faculty: Nursing

Abstract: Background Jordanian culture is a variant of Arab-Islamic culture that comprises two intertwined strands: the interpretation of Islamic religion and vernacular Arab culture. Few studies have been conducted in the Middle East to explain the way culture shapes and reflects parents’ lived experiences and interactions with their children, particularly concerning the meaning and philosophy of disease. Methods The aim of this study was to explore the lived experiences of Jordanian parents of children with cancer. The study investigated the cultural meaning of illness and how it affected parents’ lived experiences of their children’s illness. The study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological approach informed by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and used semi-structured interviews. The study was conducted in one paediatric oncology unit in one Jordanian hospital. Results Twenty-five interviews were collected from 24 mothers and one father. During the interviews, the parents expressed that their spiritual beliefs helped them accept their child’s disease. Showing patience towards the suffering of their children was perceived as an important value the parents tried to stick to despite the deep suffering the children were experiencing. All the parents demonstrated a thankful approach as they perceived that everything that happens to their child is according to destiny. The beliefs the parents held about their child’s illness were perceived to positively affect the way they interacted with them. This was especially so in sensitive situations, such as their reactions to initial diagnoses and receiving bad news. Conclusion The findings of this study will inform the education of health professionals and increase their understanding of the beliefs and practices demonstrated by the study’s participants and their integration into supportive patient plans.

Keywords: Parents; children; cancer; phenomenology, Jordanian

Research Title: Nanomaterials in Nutraceuticals Applications.

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: Diverse strategies are adopted to fight against various diseases and probable health risks. Besides the pharmaceutical approach, diet-based strategies are also deemed apt to avert various disorders. “Nutraceuticals” considered as bioactive components found in natural products. Bioactive components are additional nutritional ingredients that typically present in small quantities of foods that are used in dayto- day life and strongly believed to play a crucial role in the maintenance of our health. The food products used as nutraceuticals can be categorized as dietary fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, polyunsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants and other different types of herbal/natural foods. These nutraceuticals facilitate in combating a number of the major health problems including microbial infections. In recent years, nanotechnology-based formulations like micro- and nanoencapsulation have been a rising interest for nutraceutical, food and pharmaceutical applications. To enhance nutritional quality and stability of the nutraceuticals, one option is to encapsulate the functional ingredients using food-grade or “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) materials that can exhibit controlled-release behavior. These diversity of building blocks and formulation methods led to nanocarriers like nanoemulsion, nanodispersion, nanoparticles, liposomes etc. with diverse physicochemical properties and functional characteristics. Based on the above-mentioned facts, this chapter provides an insight of some of the emerging nanomaterial-based applications being commercialized in nutraceuticals. A glimpse on various research work undertaken for the nanomaterials in the field of nutraceuticals is also discussed in this chapter.

Keywords: Nanomaterials · Nutraceuticals · Nanoformulations · Physicochemical parameters

Research Title: Nanomedicines in cancer management: diagnosis, therapy and nanodrug delivery.

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: Cancer is one of the most controversial diseases known for humanity and emerged as a global health problem all the time. The drug discovery scientists and clinicians have attempted to cure cancer since centuries. Conventional cancer treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy have many limitations including low specificity, lack of stability, rapid drug clearance, biodegradation and limited targeting besides number of side effects associated with these treatments on the actual patients. Nanomedicine has evolved over the past few years and became a breakthrough technology for the diagnosis and the treatment of several cancer types. Specifically, the drug is being carried out through carriers called nanoparticles in which the properties of these carriers are very important for the successful treatment of deadly diseases like cancer. In this chapter, we describe the application of nanotechnology and nanomedicines in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Further,we discuss the targeted-nanodrug delivery to cancer cells in a broad context. Moreover, we provide a glimpse on marketed nanomedicines available for the management of cancer.

Keywords: Nanodrug delivery · Nanomedicine · Brain cancer · Breast cancer · Lung cancer · Nanoparticles

Research Title: The importance of nano-materials characterization techniques

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: The potential application of nanotechnology in the medical field ranges from nanomaterials and biological devices, to nanoelectronics biosensors, can be extended to molecular nanotechnology like biological machines. Nanomaterial characterization is a keystone for the development and adoption of nanomaterials for certain applications. The unique and novel physico-chemical properties of nanomaterial gave rise to a number of characterization techniques. Therefore, nanoparticles are characterized to study various physical and chemical features such as composition, structure size, morphology, surface area, optical properties, surface composition, oxidation state, and electrochemistry. The characterization of nanomaterials should not be limited to a single technique, because usually multiple measurements are needed to capture all pertinent nanomaterial characteristics. Hence, in this chapter, details of different characterization techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Xray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), and zeta potential (ZP) are discussed.

Keywords: Nanomaterials · X-ray diffraction · Transmission electron microscopy · Dynamic light scattering · Zeta potential · Scanning electron microscopy

Research Title: Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel carbazole hybrids as promising antimicrobial agents

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Chemistry and Biodiversity,

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: Two series of carbazole analogs of 8‐methoxy‐ N ‐substituted‐9 H ‐carbazole‐3‐carboxamides (series‐1) and carbazolyl substituted rhodanines (series‐2) were synthesized through facile synthetic routes. All the final compounds from these two series were evaluated for their preliminary in vitro antifungal and antibacterial activity against four fungal ( Candida albicans , Cryptococcus neoformans , Cryptococcus tropicalis and Aspergillus niger ) and four bacterial ( Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus subtilis , Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ) strains, respectively. Among the tested compounds, 6d , 6e and 6f (series‐1) displayed promising antifungal and antibacterial activity, especially against C. neoformans and S. aureus. In addition, compound 6f displayed notable antimicrobial activity (MIC: 6.25 µg/mL) against clinical isolates of C. albicans and C. neoformans (MIC: 12.5 µg/mL). From the second series, 15f , 15g , 15i and 16f exhibited significant antifungal and antibacterial activity, especially against C. neoformans and S. aureus . The most active compound 15i displayed a prominent antimicrobial activity against C. neoformans (MIC: 3.125 µg/mL) and S. aureus (MIC: 1.56 µg/mL), respectively.

Keywords: Carbazole Antifungal Antibacterial Clinical isolate of S. aureus

Research Title: Green biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles using Croton sparsiflorus leaves extract and evaluation of UV protection, antibacterial and anticancer applications

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Applied Organometallic Chemistry, 34

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: Our study reports greener synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) tethered to the extract of Croton sparsiflorus and in vitro evaluation of UV‐protection, antibacterial and anticancer activities. Sophisticated instrumental analytical techniques such as UV–vis spectrophotometer, FT‐IR, XRD, FE‐SEM, and TEM were employed for the existence and confirmation of the nanoparticles. FT‐IR and HPLC analysis were executed in the identification of the plausible functional groups implicated in the reduction of gold ions to AuNPs. UV protection property and antibacterial action of AuNPs‐coated cotton fabric were also presented. Moreover, in vitro anticancer evaluation against HepG2 cell line was conducted by MTT assay for Croton sparsiflorus extract derived AuNPs in different concentrations (50 to 150 μg/ml). Thus, the results of this work revealed that greener synthesized AuNPs exhibited good therapeutic applications as UV‐protection, antibacterial and anticancer agents.

Keywords: antibacterial anticancer Croton sparsiflorus gold nanoparticles UV‐protection

Research Title: Herbal medication for the management of diabetes mellitus

Author: Balakumar Chandrasekarn, Published Year: 2020

Current Traditional Medicine,

Faculty: Pharmacy

Abstract: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder of the endocrine system affecting people worldwide. It is a serious disorder that needs life time control which is mainly treated by numerous chemical agents. But most of these chemical agents are associated with various unpleasant adverse effects, as a result of which there is a growing interest towards the alternative medicines which are found to be comparatively safer causing less adverse effects. As there are many plant’s extracts which are evident to provide hypoglycemic effect, intensive investigations are under progress to explore their advantageous effects on diabetic patients. This article discusses some of these important plants that are either being used for the treatment or under investigation for future drug development.

Keywords: Alternative therapy, Herbal medication, Diabetes mellitus., Diabetes, alternative medicines, endocrine system

Research Title: قراءة في مسودات تصريح بلفور: 12تموز 1917- 2 تشرين الثاني 1917م.

Author: Amjad Ahmad Alzoubi, Published Year: 2020

مجلة العلوم الانسانية-جامعة الشارقة ,

Faculty: Arts

Abstract: تعدّ السياسة الاستعمارية البريطانية مدرسة ميكافيلية لاتزال متجذرة في العقلية الأنجلوسكسونية؛ وظفت فيها كافة الأساليب والأدوات في إطار التنافس الاستعماري والحرب الكونية الأولى، حيث قدمت بريطانيا في سبيل مصالحها وخدمة لمجهودها الحربي وعودا متناقضة لكافة الدول والأطراف: الروس،والفرنسيين والايطاليين والعرب والصهاينة. فقد صدر تصريح بلفور ضمن هذا المنحى وليس بعيدا عنه؛ فقد التقت فكرة التوظيف للحركة الصهيونية بجذورها المعادية للسامية مع طموحات الحركة الناشئة حديثا. وكلاهما بالنتيجة سعى لنفس الهدف؛ ليكون هدف الراغبين بالتخلص من اليهود والمعادين لليهود المحرك الأساسي لإصدار تصريح بلفور لإقامة وطن قومي لليهود في فلسطين. تسلط الدراسة الضوء على الجهود التي بذلتها بريطانيا لتحقيق الانتصار في الحرب الكونية الأولى من خلال التركيز على كسب الحركة الصهيونية إلى جانبها لخدمة مصالحها الاستعمارية في المشرق العربي. حيث استخدمت الدراسة المنهج التاريخي التحليلي بالاعتماد على المصادر الأولية في رصد وتحليل الاحداث وارتباطاتها لإثبات فرضيتها. وخلصت الدراسة إلى أن تصريح بلفور لم يكن له أي قيمة تذكر الا بعد تضمينه في صك الانتداب البريطاني على فلسطين 1922م، ليصبح جزء من القانون الدولي. فلا زال تصريح بلفور يلقي بظلال الجدل والشكوك ويحتاج إلى مزيد من البحث والتحري في جوانبه الأخرى.

Keywords: الاستعمار، تصريح بلفور، الصهيونية، معاداة السامية.

Research Title: On the Parallel Processing for Wireless Sensors Converged Network

Author: Qadri Jamal Al-Hamarsheh, Published Year: 2020

IEEE SSD'20, 17th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices, Tunis

Faculty: Engineering and Technology

Abstract: This paper studies the capability of multi-parallel processing to be accommodated in machine-to-machine communications. A testbed convergence between the wireless sensor network and the wireless mobile network is performed. It deals with enhancing wireless mobile network performance. This testbed is divided into three stages; combating the peak-to-average power ratio problem, observing a real data making use of an actual wireless sensors, and proposing a multi-parallel processing communications. The mentioned testbed above is done in a realistic academic environment, where selected signals from those sensors are evaluated. Thus, a design improvement is detailed in terms of the peak-to-average power ratio and the efficient use of the limited resources. In particular, the scope focuses on the mitigation of the nonlinear distortion and its effect on bit error rate. The validation process is attained based on performing an extensive simulation. It is observing some certain performance parameters such as the sensor life time, and the consumed energy. From the testbed simulation results, the proposed work shows promising results comparing to the conventional wireless sensor network. The delay reduction reaches around 85%, while the peak to average power ratio values has improved by 42.3%.

Keywords: OFDM, WSN, UWB, Wavelets, and Power Management.

Research Title: Enhancing the Performance of OFDM Systems-Based PAPR Reduction

Author: Qadri Jamal Al-Hamarsheh, Published Year: 2019

Accepted to be published in the Advances on Systems, Signals and Devices, (Issues on Communication, Signal Processing & Information Technologies), --

Faculty: Engineering and Technology

Abstract: in this work a comparison has been made among dierent pro- posed algorithms in order to improve the performance of a power consump- tion wireless network. They are used to combat one of the Orthogonal Fre- quency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique drawbacks, which are con- sidered as a key technique in enhancing the new era of wireless systems' quality of service (QoS). Therefore, three dierent propositions have been investigated and covered by this work and classied as; linear coding based, wavelet transformation based, PWM based. Furthermore, a MATLAB pro- gram has been run to check their performance and covers two dierent crite- ria; the curves of CCDF and the SER curves. This is in order to reduce the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) eect.

Keywords: OFDM, PAPR, wavelet, linear coding, PWM.