Somalia has recently come out of a two decade long civil war and is currently in a post-war and rebuilding phase. The national health system, largely crippled during years of conflict, is faced with a significant maternal mortality ratio and the debilitating effects of a high fertility rate. To combat these issues, the new Somali government is working toward creating a strong national health system that addresses some of these key indicators. With a lack of human resources in healthcare and the need for better reproductive health services, the need to invest in educating a new generation of health service professionals is evident. To address this gap in education, many educational institutions with health science faculties have opened in the last decade but the quality and accuracy of their curricula has yet to be examined. My thesis addresses this gap in knowledge. Through a multi-methods study that included reviewing curricula and curricular materials, conducting key informant interviews, and facilitating focus group discussions, I was able to learn about the quality and comprehensiveness of reproductive health topics in health service professionals‟ education and training. Religion, culture, logistical issues, and lack of oversight shape the way reproductive health is taught to health students. This study provides an important foundation to help inform key stakeholders working to improve the Somali health system.

Disordered communication between cortical neurons and glia underlies many of the characteristics of Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common monogenic form of intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Despite extensive research, no effective treatments exist to comprehensively mitigate ASD- or FXS-related cognitive and motor disabilities, sensory hyperresponsivity, seizures, and other excitation-related symptoms. Glial-glial and glial-neuronal communication can be facilitated by purinergic signalling pathways, which utilize ATP, UTP, and their metabolites to influence both short-term and longer-term activation. The overall objective of this thesis work was to establish whether purinergic signalling is dysregulated within cortical astrocytes derived from the Fmr1 KO mouse model of FXS, and furthermore, to determine whether astrocyte purinergic dysregulations contribute to aberrant Fmr1 KO neuronal-glial interactions. Collectively, these studies provide the first reported evidence that P2Y receptor-driven purinergic signalling is elevated in Fmr1 KO cortical astrocytes, and suggest that this impacts the formation and activity of neuronal circuitry in a manner consistent with FXS symptomatology. Fmr1 KO cortical astrocyte dysregulations included elevated expression of P2Y2 and P2Y6 purinergic receptors, increased intracellular calcium release following P2Y activation, aberrant levels of intracellular purinergic signalling molecules, and increased ectonucleotidase glycosylation. UTP treatment promoted excess Fmr1 KO astrocyte expression and secretion of the synaptogenic protein TSP-1 to potentially influence neuronal connectivity, as well as increased phosphorylation of transcription factor STAT3 to likely drive cortical immune responses. Both exogenous UTP and the presence of Fmr1 KO astrocyte secretions promoted neurite outgrowth, while Fmr1 KO astrocyte-neuron co-cultures demonstrated elevated neuronal burst frequency that was normalized through chronic and selective P2Y2 antagonism. Together, these findings indicate novel and significant astrocyte P2Y-mediated purinergic upregulations within the Fmr1 KO mouse cortex, and suggest that astrocyte purinergic signalling should be further investigated in the search for innovative FXS treatments. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have become a serious health concern in recent years due to rapidly rising rates of diagnosis. Despite extensive research, there are still no effective treatments for these disorders of brain development. It is therefore important that we study the cellular events contributing to ASDs in order to design new therapeutic strategies. The most common inherited form of ASD is Fragile X syndrome (FXS), which is characterized by cognitive and motor disabilities, sensory hyperresponsivity, attention deficits, hyperactivity, and seizures. Using the Fmr1 knockout (KO) mouse model of FXS, recent research has shown that many of these symptoms are related to disordered communication between brain cells within the cerebral cortex; specifically, between neurons and the helper-like cells known as astrocytes. One form of cellular signalling that supports this communication is known as the purinergic signalling pathway. Collectively, this thesis work is the first to show that purinergic signalling is increased in Fmr1 KO mouse cortical astrocytes and that it impacts FXS neuronal connections. Specifically, Fmr1 KO cortical astrocytes demonstrated increased communication using purinergic signalling, due to greater expression of P2Y2 and P2Y6 purinergic receptors and altered levels of the molecules that stimulate these receptors. Activation of Fmr1 KO astrocyte P2Y receptors promoted expression of the neuronal connection-forming protein TSP-1 and stimulated additional astrocyte signalling pathways. As a result of these changes, when Fmr1 KO neurons were grown in the presence of Fmr1 KO astrocytes, they grew longer extensions and demonstrated greater activity than wildtype controls, in a manner consistent with the excitation-related symptoms of FXS. Selectively targeting P2Y2-driven purinergic pathways with drug treatments corrected this activity, thereby revealing a potential new therapeutic approach for FXS. Understanding excess astrocyte P2Y-driven purinergic communication within the brain may therefore provide a foundation for the future development of new FXS treatments.

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The regulation of neural precursor cells (NPCs), which encompass neural progenitor and neural stem cells (NSCs), is fundamental for proper brain development and function. These cells are regulated by orchestrated signalling within their local environment. Aberrant aspects of cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, or integration have been linked to various neurological diseases including Fragile X syndrome (FXS)—a disorder characterized by intellectual and social changes due to the silencing of the gene encoding FMRP. The biology of hippocampal NPCs in FXS during early postnatal development has not been studied, despite high FMRP expression levels in the hippocampus at the end of the first postnatal week. In this thesis, the Fmr1-knockout (KO) mouse model was used to study hippocampal cell biology during early postnatal development. A tissue culture assay, used to study the effect of astrocyte-secreted factors on the proliferation of NSCs, indicated that astrocyte secreted factors from Fmr1-KO brains enhanced the proliferation of wild type, but not Fmr1-KO NSCs (Chapter 3). Next, the proliferation and cell cycle profiles of NPCs in vitro and in vivo studied with immunocytochemistry, Western blotting, and flow cytometry revealed decreased proliferation of NPCs in the Fmr1-KO hippocampus (Chapter 4). Finally, cells isolated from the P7 dentate gyrus and characterized by flow cytometry, showed a reduced proportion of NSCs and an increased proportion of neuroblasts—neuronal committed progenitors—in Fmr1-KO mice. Together, these results indicate that hippocampal NPCs show aberrant proliferation and neurogenesis during early postnatal development. This could indicate stem-cell depletion, increased quiescence, or a developmental delay in relation to lack of FMRP and uncovers a new role for FMRP in the early postnatal hippocampus. In turn, elucidating the mechanisms that underlie FXS will aid in the development of targeted treatments. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Fragile X syndrome is the leading inherited cause of intellectual impairment and autism spectrum disorder. The syndrome is caused by a defect in one gene. This gene has been suggested to play a role in regulating the birth of new brain cells termed neural precursor cells. The importance of neural precursor cells stems from their ability to generate neurons and glia, the main cells in the brain. In this thesis, I focus on studying neural precursor cells from the hippocampus, a brain region important for learning and memory. A mouse model was used to compare neural precursor cells from healthy and Fragile X mice during early postnatal development. I found that neural precursor cells do not divide as much as they should in the Fragile X mouse hippocampus. The results help to determine the causes for learning and memory deficits in Fragile X and potentially open avenues for intervention.

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No / This paper examines and evaluates a new robust and fragile watermarking scheme for colour images captured by mobile phone cameras. The authentication has been checked by using the fragile watermarking, while the copyright protection has been examined by using the robust one. The mobile phone number, including the international code, is a unique number across the whole world and it is used as a robust watermark. The number is embedded in the frequency domain using the discrete wavelet transform. On the other hand, hash codes are used as fragile watermarks and inserted in the spatial domain of the RGB image. The scheme is blind and the extraction process of the watermarks (Robust and Fragile) does not require the original image. The fragile watermark can detect any tampering in the image while the robust watermark is strong enough to survive against several attacks. The watermarking algorithm causes minimal distortion to the images. The proposed algorithm has been successfully tested, evaluated and compared with other algorithms.

no / While the general argument that it is easier and more cost-effective to prevent conflicts before the outbreak of violence has considerable attraction, a rigorous approach to estimating the cost and benefits of this policy is still lacking. The objective of this study is to contribute to the development of such an approach. The project involves six case studies, three retrospective (the Western Balkans, Afghanistan, and Rwanda) and three prospective (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and southern Sudan). Its main conclusion is that targeted programmes of conflict prevention are (or would have been) significantly cheaper than cure.