Publications by authors named "Ismail Z"

Background And Aim: subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) causes Johne's disease (paratuberculosis), which is a chronic wasting disease. No previous study has been found to investigate the coinfection of gastrointestinal parasites with paratuberculosis. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between paratuberculosis and gastrointestinal parasitism in naturally infected local Awassi (AS) and imported Tsurcana (TS) sheep.

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Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is an important zoonotic pathogen. The aim of this paper is to report one polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-positive case of MERS-CoV in a 27-year-old man who was involved in a nationwide longitudinal surveillance study of certain zoonotic diseases in Jordan including MERS-CoV. Whole-blood and nasal swab samples were collected from the man and five camels in the vicinity of his living area.

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The recent resurgence of mpox highlights the urgent need for rethinking vaccination strategies globally, underscored by the painful memories of past public health crises where delayed responses and inequitable vaccine distribution exacerbated the spread of infectious diseases. The inaugural APIC-ADVA Asia Pacific Summit on Infectious Diseases and Immunization, themed "Vaccination for All: Access, Confidence and Equity (ACE)", was held in Singapore from 31 October to 1 November 2023 in an attempt to present best practices and hard-won insights from battling COVID-19 and other pandemics in the Asia-Pacific region. This summit was co-convened by the Asia-Pacific Immunization Coalition (APIC) and Asia Dengue Voice and Action (ADVA).

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Objective: Patients with schizophrenia value improved life engagement, a term that describes positive health aspects across emotional, physical, social, and cognitive domains. This analysis of clinical trial data aimed to investigate the effect of brexpiprazole on patient life engagement in schizophrenia over the short and long term.

Methods: Data were pooled from three 6-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials (ClinicalTrials.

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Introduction: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with greater risk and earlier onset of dementia. This study investigated whether later-life changes in subjective cognition and behavior - potential markers of AD - could be observed in cognitively unimpaired older persons with a history of suspected mild TBI (smTBI) earlier in life and whether changes in cognition and behavior mediated the link between smTBI and daily function.

Methods: Data for 1392 participants from the Canadian Platform for Research Online to Investigate Health, Quality of Life, Cognition, Behaviour, Function, and Caregiving in Aging (CAN-PROTECT) were analyzed.

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Article Synopsis
  • Research identifies Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) as a significant indicator of future dementia risk in cognitively healthy individuals, distinguishing it from other neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS).
  • The study used data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center to compare three groups: those with MBI, those with NPS not classified as MBI, and those with no NPS, finding that MBI participants exhibited a much higher risk of developing dementia.
  • Among individuals with MBI, there was a notable trend toward Alzheimer's disease, specifically highlighting a greater dementia incidence in those experiencing subjective cognitive decline compared to those without NPS.
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In 2019 the National Department of Health (NDoH) conducted a national immunisation coverage survey of caregivers of children aged 24-35 months in all 52 districts of South Africa, and reported a national fully immunised under one year-old coverage of 83.9 %, and 76.8 % coverage for all vaccines scheduled up to 18 months of age.

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  • - Facility management is crucial for maintaining the safety and health of employees in modern offices, addressing issues like facility damage and ventilation problems.
  • - A research study developed a comprehensive safety and health practices model based on surveys from government offices in Putrajaya, Malaysia, using advanced data analysis techniques.
  • - The resulting model provides a systematic approach for facility management organizations to assess and enhance workplace safety, significantly promoting employee well-being.
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  • - Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) convert organic waste into energy using a biofilm as a catalyst, making the choice of anode material crucial for bacterial growth and electrical conductivity.
  • - The study explores the novel use of Chia seeds nanopowder (CSNP) combined with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to enhance graphite anodes in MFCs that process hospital wastewater.
  • - Results show that the anode modified with CSNP/MWCNTs produced significantly higher power output (2202.73 mW/m) and improved organic content removal efficiency (86.1%) compared to MWCNTs alone (1271.57 mW/m and 82.9% efficiency
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Background: Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) has been associated with global brain atrophy, but the regional neural correlates of MBI symptoms are less clear, particularly among community-dwelling older individuals without dementia.

Objective: Our objective was to examine the associations of MBI domains with gray matter (GM) volumes in a large population-based sample of older adults without dementia.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study of 1445 community-dwelling older adults in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study who underwent detailed neurocognitive assessment and brain magnetic resonance imaging in 2011-2013.

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Nanocellulose, obtained from natural cellulose, has attracted considerable interest for its distinctive properties and wide-ranging potential applications. Studies suggest that nanocellulose improves the thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties of conventional cellulose. This review investigates the production, properties, approach, and application of nanocellulose from various sources in agriculture.

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Capecitabine is an oral pro-drug of 5-flourouracil used in treatment of different cancers. It has cardiotoxicity incidence of 3-35%, which can be significant enough to cause myocardial infarction. To evaluate the efficacy of glyceryl trinitrate in reducing cardiac events when given concomitantly with capecitabine for at least 3 months in various tumors.

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Background: Improved patient life engagement is a meaningful treatment goal in schizophrenia that cannot be satisfactorily measured using existing tools. This research aimed to determine whether certain items from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) can assess patient life engagement in schizophrenia.

Methods: Three approaches were used to identify PANSS items that reflect patient life engagement: (1) a panel discussion with expert psychiatrists (n = 4); (2) interviews with patients with schizophrenia (n = 20); and (3) a principal component analysis to explore clustering of items (n = 954 from three randomized controlled trials).

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Context: Glioblastoma (GBM), well known as grade 4 tumors due to its progressive malignant features such as vascular proliferation and necrosis, is the most aggressive form of primary brain tumor found in adults. Mutations and amplifications in the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) contribute to almost 25% of GBM tumors. And thus, VEGFR has been declared the primary target in glioblastoma therapeutic strategies.

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Despite its endemic status in the Middle East, key knowledge gaps persist regarding the prevalence, transmission rate, and geographical distribution of both human and livestock brucellosis in Jordan. This study aimed to investigate the seroprevalence of human and livestock brucellosis as well as the incidence of brucellosis in humans in Jordan. A total of 500 human participants (202 exposed and 296 unexposed to livestock) were enrolled in the study.

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 Agitation, a common dementia symptom often arising from untreated pain, lacks comprehensive research on its connection with opioids prescribed for long-term pain. This study investigated the relationship between opioid use and agitation in dementia patients. Participants ( = 188) were categorized into opioid, acetaminophen PRN, or no-pain medication groups.

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Article Synopsis
  • Changes in the brain from Alzheimer's and other age-related diseases can cause problems with thinking and behavior, even before serious symptoms appear.
  • The study looked at how a person's cognitive reserve (a mix of education and experiences) relates to mild behavioral issues.
  • Results showed that people with a higher cognitive reserve had better brain test scores and fewer behavior problems, which suggests that keeping mentally active might help both thinking and behavior as we get older.
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  • Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is identified as a warning sign for dementia in older adults, affecting their quality of life (QoL) through various neuropsychiatric symptoms.
  • The study involved over 1,100 individuals aged 50 and older, analyzing how severity of MBI symptoms correlates with QoL using specific measurement tools.
  • Results showed that higher MBI symptom scores significantly correlated with poorer QoL, regardless of sex, highlighting the need to address MBI in healthcare for older adults.
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In Alzheimer's disease (AD), neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) correlate with tau deposition in the brain. Here, we investigated the association of PET-based Braak stages with NPS and assessed whether they predict annual changes in NPS. We evaluated 231 individuals in the aging and AD continuum.

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The contribution of heavy metals in surface soils by the influences of agro-machinery factories is a significant growing concern. Heavy metals were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry technique to assess human and ecological risks. The concentrations of Fe, Cd, Cr, Cu, As, Pb, Mn, Ni, and Zn in soil ranged from 18,274-22,652, 2.

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Introduction: Updated guidelines for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and acute decompensation have improved outcomes, but ongoing efforts are focused on uncovering new evidence and developing novel therapies. This review examines the limitations of current treatments and the potential impact of emerging therapies.

Areas Covered: A literature search focused on studies investigating drugs for HFrEF.

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Purpose: Distributed learning is widely used to comply with data-sharing regulations and access diverse datasets for training machine learning (ML) models. The traveling model (TM) is a distributed learning approach that sequentially trains with data from one center at a time, which is especially advantageous when dealing with limited local datasets. However, a critical concern emerges when centers utilize different scanners for data acquisition, which could potentially lead models to exploit these differences as shortcuts.

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  • This study examined how the characteristics of study partners (SPs)—including age, sex, and relationship to the participant—affect the reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in individuals across different cognitive states: cognitively normal, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia.
  • The research utilized data from a large cohort, analyzing 26,748 cross-sectional and 12,794 longitudinal cases from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center to determine trends and associations.
  • Findings revealed that younger, female, and spousal SPs reported NPS more often, indicating that SP characteristics may play a significant role in assessing mild behavioral impairment (MBI) and predicting dementia risk, highlighting the importance of considering these factors for accurate evaluations and treatment planning
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  • Maize is the third most cultivated cereal crop globally, and in Bangladesh, it ranks second in production after rice, commonly used for human food and animal feed.
  • A study in the Ganges delta floodplain analyzed the concentration of eight heavy metals in soil and maize, revealing higher accumulations of metals like Zn, Cu, and Mn and significant uptake by maize roots.
  • The findings indicate a potential risk from heavy metals in maize grain consumption, with non-cancer health risks identified for both adults and children, attributed largely to pollution from a nearby coal-burning power plant.
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  • Physical inactivity during mid-life increases the risk of dementia, while mild behavioral impairment (MBI) may indicate early neurodegenerative changes.
  • The study analyzed data from CAN-PROTECT to examine how different types of physical activity (like cardiovascular exercise and physical labor) relate to MBI severity, finding a significant link.
  • Specifically, higher cardiovascular activity was associated with lower MBI severity (8.42% decrease per standard deviation increase), whereas increased physical labor led to higher MBI severity (5.64% increase), indicating the potential for cardiovascular exercise to mitigate dementia risk markers in older adults.
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