BackgroundThe risk of obesity is determined by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Little research to date has investigated the interaction between gene and food intake. The aim of the current study is to explore the potential effect of fat mass and obesity-associated protein gene (FTO) rs9939609 and rs9930506 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on the pattern of food intake in the Emirati population.MethodsAdult healthy Emirati subjects with Body mass index (BMI) of 16–40 kg/m2 were included in the study. Genotyping for FTO rs9939609() and rs9930506() was performed using DNA from saliva samples. Subjects were categorized according to the WHO classification by calculating the BMI to compare different classes. Dietary intake was assessed by a sixty-one-item FFQ that estimated food and beverage intakes over the past year. The daily energy, macronutrient, and micronutrient consumption were computed.ResultsWe included 169 subjects in the final analysis (mean age 30.49± 9.1years, 57.4% females). The mean BMI of the study population was 26.19 kg/m2. Both SNPs were in Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium. The rs9939609 genotype was significantly associated with higher BMI (p = 0.004); the effect was significant in females (p = 0.028), but not in males (p = 0.184). Carbohydrate intake was significantly higher in subjects with a trend of lower fat intake compared to other genotypes. The odds ratio for the was 3.78 in the fourth quartile and 2.67 for the in the second quartile of total carbohydrate intake, considering the first quartile as a reference (95% CI = 1.017–14.1 and 1.03–6.88, respectively). Fat intake was significantly lower in the FTO rs9930506 subjects. The presence of FTO rs9930506 genotype decreased the fat intake in subjects with FTO rs9939609 (p = 0.037).ConclusionsThe results of this study highlight the interaction of the FTO risk alleles on the food intake in Emirati subjects. The FTO rs9939609 subjects had higher carbohydrate and lower fat intake. The latter was accentuated in presence of rs9930506 genotype.

This review provides a description of the various applications and issues of gas hydrate production in gas and oil pipelines, in general, gas hydrate is a clathrate of physical compounds, in which gas molecules are trapped in crystalline cells, formed by hydrogen bonds of water molecules. In the presence of water under various conditions, gas hydrates can be formed from all gases at high and lower pressures. The oil and gas industry have been taking stringent measures for many years to prevent the formation of hydrates which is plug pipelines by use. However, Natural gas hydrate is a non-conventional energy resource available to humans in colder regions, such as ice or sea bottoms. Other positive applications for natural hydrate include sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2), storage, separation and transport of natural gas, the use of hydrate dissociation energy can be used in cooling and cool storage processes. The aims of this paper are to prevent gas hydrate’s formation that occur naturally in the oil natural gas transition pipelines, as well as the positive and negative that is remains from this natural phenomenon.

Objectives Team-based learning (TBL) represents a new and interesting educational strategy. It helps to enhance students' professional competencies and ideally works to prepare them in their pursuit of lifelong learning. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of TBL as an educational strategy on medical students' performance in a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted through a self-designed questionnaire. It was constructed to examine several aspects of TBL, including cognition, social skills, high school educational system, and personal development. A total of 112 students were invited to participate in the study and 100 completed the survey. Individual-readiness assurance test (IRAT) and group-readiness assurance test (GRAT) scores were collected and the data were analysed and compared to the results of the final assessment using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Results A total of 52 students (52%) described TBL as fostering a cooperative learning environment and 64 students (64%) found the materials to be easier to understand when discussed among themselves as a group. Compared to final examination results, there was a significant correlation ( p = 0.0001) between IRAT performance and final exam score. In addition, there was a significant correlation between high school education system and IRAT score, where the best performance was observed among students coming from schools using the British curriculum. Conclusions The overall perception and attitude of students toward the TBL system was positive and promising. Nevertheless, there are some notes and areas of concern that must be re-examined and remedied to improve TBL as an educational tool.

Objectives: Presently, limited data are available on dietary supplements (DSs) and their associated effects on health status although the consumption of DS continues to expand. This study is aimed to explore the possible relationship between DSs consumption and suboptimal health status (SHS) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Methods: This study was a cross-sectional research held among a sample of citizens and residents in the Emirate of Dubai in the UAE using a well-structured, self-administered, anonymous survey. Frequency tables, odds ratios, and confidence intervals were generated during the data analysis using SPSS version 23. Results: A total of 618 participants were enrolled in this study and fully completed the questionnaire. In this study, 317 participants (51.3%) (95% CI: 47.3%-55.3%) reported the use of DS products. A significant association between DS consumption and suboptimal health status was detected ( P < .001). DS consumers had a 1.5-fold increased odds of suboptimal health status when compared with non-DS consumers (95% CI 1.4-1.7). Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest a need to develop policies and programs that will help minimize the risk of possible adverse events that are associated with the utilization of DSs.

Oily wastewater is one of the most dangerous forms of environmental pollution, it is large amount of water that is wasted petrochemical industries, oily waste water contains oil, suspended solids, and dissolved solids. The study investigates the treatment of real oily waste water that was collected from al-Dura refinery (Iraq) /Middle Refineries Company from oil and suspended solid contamination for re-use and environmental consideration using coagulation and flocculation processes. Coagulation /flocculation is a common method used as primary purification processes to oily wastewater treatment due to its usability, performance, and low cost. Coagulation experiments were completed by the Jar Test device. The additives coagulants of ferric sulfate and aluminum sulfate were in a range about (10- 25) ppm, as well as polyelectrolyte- (polyacrylamide) as an additional flocculent in the range (1-4) ppm. The results show that ferric sulfate was more efficient in removing turbidity than Aluminum sulfate under the same conditions, with the best removal of turbidity at dose concentration 20 ppm of Ferric sulfate and a flocculent dose concentration of 3 ppm of polyacrylamide, also with oil content decreasing from 288 ppm to 14.4 ppm and the turbidity removal from 187 to 8.5 NTU.

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Ventilating of multi pane-glazed windows using wasted air of buildings is an effective technique to minimize heat loss through windows and save heating energy in cold regions. In low-scaled occupancy buildings with high WWR ratio, buildings supply a low flow rate of wasted air to windows ventilation systems, resulting in a declination in its thermal performance. Therefore, this study introduces methods of managing the utilisation of wasted air in windows ventilation to optimise the energy saving. Two methods have been implemented experimentally on a small-scaled room. The first method is a time-based division of air pump operation, an air pump ventilates multiple windows, one window at a time repetitively. The second method shares the available wasted air to multiple windows. The experimental results and mathematical heat transfer model have been employed to evaluate thermal performance of the system in different methods. The first method showed a best energy saving with a duty cycle of 50% for the air pump, and on/off operation every 10 s. An energy saving of 42.6% has been realized compared to the traditional double-glazed windows, and the heat transfer coefficient was declined from 3.82 to 2.8 W/m2 K. The second method showed an optimum thermal performance when the available flow rate of wasted air was shared with three double-glazed windows. An energy saving of 83.1% was achieved compared to the traditional double-glazed windows, and the heat transfer coefficient dropped from 3.82 to 2.36 W/m2 K.

With the recent paradigm shift towards student‐centered learning and the growing availability of technology worldwide, the use of interactive technology in anatomy teaching has led to the development of computer‐assisted learning (CAL) methods. Mobile software applications (apps) have found their way to students' table tops and since the apps are continually developing, the fashion by which they influence students' learning needs to be evaluated.The study aims to discover the prevalence of anatomy apps usage on tablets, laptops or mobile devices, among first and second‐year medical students. Additionally, it explores the students' perceptions on which of the features of these anatomy apps they find most beneficial in their anatomy learning. And lastly, the study would inspect whether the use of these apps affects the students' examination scores.A self‐administered questionnaire entailing 47 items was used for gathering data. Grades of the students for the anatomy Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) and written examination were correlated with the use of the anatomy apps.A total of 160 students voluntarily participated in the study. The prevalence of use of anatomy apps on tablets, laptops or mobile devices was 77.5% among the students. A significant difference was found in the prevalence of use of anatomy apps between first‐year (85.4%) and second‐year (67.6%) medical students with p‐value =0.007. The most commonly used apps were “Netter's Anatomy Atlas”, “Gray's Anatomy Student Edition”, “Anatomy TV”, and “Complete Anatomy 2018 ‐ 3D4Medical”. A Likert scale was employed to rank the features of the anatomy apps that the students found to be most beneficial in their anatomy education.More than three‐quarters of the students reported that using the apps increased their motivation to learn anatomy. Approximately 90% of the students mentioned that the use of anatomy apps increased their knowledge and understanding. However, the responses were less positive for some aspects such as the level of details involved in the apps, its property of relating the content to clinical aspects and its flexibility to suit various learning styles. The majority of the students agreed that the apps should be used in conjunction with anatomy specimens in labs rather than the apps being a replacement for them.No statistical difference was observed when the marks of students who used the apps were correlated to those who did not use the apps (p‐values were 0.377 for OSPE and 0.120 for written examination). Also, no significant difference was found among the frequency and duration of use of the apps and the marks of OSPE or written examination.In conclusion, a high prevalence of use of anatomy apps among first and second‐year medical students was reported with the positive experience they had on its effects on anatomy education. The use of these applications to enhance anatomy education as a complementary learning tool should be considered. A multimodal tactic, which includes various anatomy teaching methods and respects the preference of students, seem to be the supreme approach.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.