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A recent academic paradigm shift in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) introduced US-style medical education to meet the nation’s growing need for medical practitioners. This newly established Doctor of Medicine (MD) program at Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU) left gaps in student preparedness. To address this problem, KU simultaneously developed a post-bachelor’s premedical program, commonly known as a pre-medicine post-baccalaureate (PMPB) program, that prepared students for entry into the UAE’s first MD program. The authors adapted US-style post-baccalaureate approaches to create KU’s PMPB program that gave students unique opportunities to take coursework that filled gaps in previous knowledge and prepare for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) exam. The 1-year bridging program harnessed academic strengths from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) post-baccalaureate premedical programs network and Kaplan, Inc. Overall, 19 (12 Emirati and 7 international) students achieved admissible MCAT scores (group’s minimum score = 485, average score = 492, and maximum score = 509) and gained research experiences that supported their entry into KU’s medical school. The PMPB program supplied two-thirds of the medical schools’ fall 2019 inaugural class, increased local awareness and interest in medicine and created a novel platform to help students pursue a career in medicine in the UAE.

Composites based on melamine formaldehyde resins filled with exfoliated graphite or so called nanographite have been prepared to achieve electrical conductivity and improve mechanical strength and thermal stability. The nanographite was synthesized by thermal treatment of oxidized graphite and the incorporation into the melamine matrix was accomplished during the melamine formaldehyde reaction. A homogenous dispersion of the filler in the matrix and the forming of a connecting network based on graphite sheets were proved by SEM images. The graphite filler was able to increase the flexural strength of molded testing specimens compared to unfilled resins and electrical conductivity was achieved starting at 2 wt% nanographite.

The amount of plastic waste is on the rise each year. It is associated with green house gas emissions and hazardous potential if left untreated at the landfill. Plastic is formed from the polymerization of ethane, essentially fossil fuel based, and with chemical energy content equivalent to diesel fuel, i.e. 43 MJ/kg. Thereby, plastics are excellent candidates/feedstock for energy recovery. This work explores the recycling of cross-linked polyethylene waste-plastic that is generated at a considerable amount from the cable industry. It undertakes thermal analysis of the plastic as the first step using the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to observe its thermal conversion and meting temperature. It also undertakes the re-compounding of the waste plastic by infusion the cross-linked polyethylene waste into mini-compounder at different waste-to-virgin polyethylene weight ratio, i. e. 5%, 10%, and 15%. Assessment of the mechanical properties of the compounded product, i.e. recycled mixture, is conducted on standard uniaxial samples using thermo scientific mini extruder, the HAAKE MiniJet II injection molding, and Instron tensile machine. At as high as 15 wt% recyclate to virgin mixture, an increase of 17% in young modulus, 37.2% in yield stress, 22.4% in ultimate stress, and a decrease of 3.3% in the melting point were obtained compared to the virgin/baseline polyethylene. From the resulted stress strain relation Morz bilinear plastic material model constants obtained (Et), that showed 25.6% increase, allowing better investigation of the true stress/strain behavior through FEM numerically simulation.

The use of supercritical difluoromethane (scHFC 32) as a solvent is demonstrated for the polymerisation of methyl methacrylate. It is shown that appreciably higher molecular weight polymer can be obtained using scHFC 32 than scCO 2 , which is due to the higher solubility of the polymer in the more polar fluid. The solubility of various polymer standards is characterised at two pressures in scHFC 32 and is shown to be appreciable up to a molecular weight of 11 000 g mol 21 whereas in scCO 2 the polymer of this mass is shown to be almost totally insoluble.