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Abstract Background Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a fatal autosomal recessive disorder for which several treatment options, including a gene therapy, have become available. SMA incidence has not been well-characterized in most Arab countries where rates of consanguinity are high. Understanding SMA disease epidemiology has important implications for screening, prevention, and treatment in those populations. Methods We perform SMA diagnostic testing in a clinical multi-national patient cohort (N = 171) referred for hypotonia and/or muscle weakness. In addition, we carry out genetic newborn screening for SMA on 1502 healthy Emirati newborns to estimate the carrier frequency and incidence of the disease in the United Arab Emirates. Results Patients referred for SMA genetic testing are mostly Arabs (82%) representing 18 countries. The overall diagnostic yield is 33.9%, which is higher (>50%) for certain nationalities. Most patients (71%) has two SMN2 copies and earlier disease onset. For the first time, we estimate SMA carrier frequency (1.3%) and incidence of the disease (1 in 7122 live births) in the United Arab Emirates. Using birth and marriage rates in two Arab populations (United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), as well as disease incidence in both countries, we show that, besides preventing new cases, premarital genetic screening could potentially result in around $8 to $324 million annual cost savings, respectively, relative to postnatal treatment. Conclusions The SMA carrier frequency and incidence we document suggests high potential benefit for universal implementation of premarital genomic screening for a wide range of recessive disorders in Arab populations.

Abstract The hyperarid mangrove in the Middle East is characterised by the absence of rivers or freshwater inputs and is one of the most extreme settings of this ecosystem on Earth. Endemic to Qatar’s hyperarid mangroves, a Palaemon shrimp is uniquely confined to a sole mangrove site in the Arabian Gulf. Within these mangrove channels, we unveiled brine groundwater sources exceeding 70 ppt salinity, contrasting the local marine standard of 42 ppt. Concurrently, a mysid species typically linked to salt pans and groundwater coexists. Stable isotopic analysis implied the existence of a predator–prey dynamic between this mysid species and the studied shrimp. Then, investigating the endemic shrimp’s adaptation to extreme salinity, we conducted osmolarity experiments and phylogenetic studies. Our findings demonstrate that this shrimp transitions from hypo- to hyper-osmoregulation, tolerating salinities from 18 to 68 ppt—an unprecedented osmoregulatory capacity among caridean shrimps. This speciation pattern likely arises from the species osmolarity adaptation, as suggested for other Palaemon congeners. Phylogenetic analysis of the studied Palaemon, along with the mangrove’s geological history, suggests a profound evolutionary interplay between the ecosystem and the shrimp since the Eocene. This study proposes the hyperarid mangrove enclave as an Athalassic mangrove oasis—a distinctive, isolated ecosystem within the desert landscape.

This study demonstrated the impact of formic acid (FAc), a common reactive impurity in pharmaceutical excipients, on the stability of mirabegron (MB). The investigation of MB‐excipient compatibility tests revealed the formation of a new degradation product, FAc‐DP, at 0.2% after 7 days of isothermal stress at 55°C. FAc‐DP was synthesized and characterized as N‐formyl MB using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC‐MS) and both 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syrian adolescent refugees are one of the largest forced displaced populations in the world. Displaced adolescents experience significant stressors on their mental health, including high poverty and severely limited access to mental health services. Studies show that game-based learning interventions offer the potential for increasing access to mental health supports. We employed a mixed-method pilot and feasibility study to explore how the Happy Helping Hand (HH) game app contributed to improved well-being and emotional problem-solving skills in displaced Syrian adolescents in Lebanon. A 5-week, 10-session digital learning HH psychosocial program was administered by teachers. Adolescent and teacher focus groups were used to assess how emotional problem-solving skills were applied in-depth. A single group pre-post design measured well-being using the World Health Organization's Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Thematic analysis was used for qualitative analysis. Descriptive and bivariate t-tests were used for quantitative analyses. Qualitatively, adolescents´ demonstrated increased emotional problem-solving skills and well-being, and attributed the changes to the usefulness of the app. Quantitative findings show well-being significantly increased at post-test compared to pretest. The study supports the use of e-health and role-playing games for Syrian adolescents. Future research should examine an up-scaled implementation of the app with displaced adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports analysis of data from a household survey concerning water conservation behaviour in Kuwait. Econometric models were used for nine conservation measures, The models were estimated for nationals and expatriates. The results revealed that households made efforts to conserve water by changing habits/practices. The results failed to support the theory of planned behaviour as water conservation campaign had no effect on households' water conservation. Awareness about environment and water conservation did not result in pro-conservation behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the realm of cybersecurity, the incessant evolution of network attacks necessitates advanced and robust intrusion detection systems (IDS). The major issues with these systems are numerous: false positive/negative alarms, delayed response and detection time, size of processed data, adaptability to future threats, scalability of the system, difficulty in detecting distributed attacks, and downtime (fault tolerance). We propose a system that introduces a distributed framework aimed at enhancing network security by effectively identifying subtle deviations from normal network behavior. This is achieved through transfer learning based on artificial neural networks, and support vector machine (SVM), capitalizing on their complementary strengths in recognizing complex patterns and addressing high-dimensional datasets. To validate the efficacy of the proposed approach, the NSL-KDD dataset is utilized within a distributed IDS architecture. It consists of several intrusion detection nodes representing subnetworks. A node consists of two agents that work collaboratively. A way is proposed to avoid interference between analysis agents: the network agents manager monitors the functioning of the nodes and displays the results of each vulnerability-detecting node in each subnet separately. Such communication between agents should reduce FPAS (false positive alarms) significantly. The Detection engine extracts relevant features of network attacks to solve the problem of SVM in processing huge sizes of data and detect adaptive future threats to detect famous distributed denial of services (DDOS) attacks in real-time. The system is highly scalable by increasing the number of intrusion detection system nodes if necessary. Central processing is avoided to circumvent a system failure situation, where processing and decision-making take place at the detection node level within each subnet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea turtles are vulnerable to climate change since their reproductive output is influenced by incubating temperatures, with warmer temperatures causing lower hatching success and increased feminization of embryos. Their ability to cope with projected increases in ambient temperatures will depend on their capacity to adapt to shifts in climatic regimes. Here, we assessed the extent to which phenological shifts could mitigate impacts from increases in ambient temperatures (from 1.5 to 3°C in air temperatures and from 1.4 to 2.3°C in sea surface temperatures by 2100 at our sites) on four species of sea turtles, under a "middle of the road" scenario (SSP2‐4.5). Sand temperatures at sea turtle nesting sites are projected to increase from 0.58 to 4.17°C by 2100 and expected shifts in nesting of 26–43 days earlier will not be sufficient to maintain current incubation temperatures at 7 (29%) of our sites, hatching success rates at 10 (42%) of our sites, with current trends in hatchling sex ratio being able to be maintained at half of the sites. We also calculated the phenological shifts that would be required (both backward for an earlier shift in nesting and forward for a later shift) to keep up with present‐day incubation temperatures, hatching success rates, and sex ratios. The required shifts backward in nesting for incubation temperatures ranged from −20 to −191 days, whereas the required shifts forward ranged from +54 to +180 days. However, for half of the sites, no matter the shift the median incubation temperature will always be warmer than the 75th percentile of current ranges. Given that phenological shifts will not be able to ameliorate predicted changes in temperature, hatching success and sex ratio at most sites, turtles may need to use other adaptive responses and/or there is the need to enhance sea turtle resilience to climate warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]