Letter to the editor: Methodological problems in the article comparing lung function profiles and aerobic capacity of adult cigarette and hookah smokers after 12 weeks intermittent training

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Is There NO Treatment For Severe Sepsis?

Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response syndrome in the presence of suspected or proven infection, and it may progress to or encompass organ failure (severe sepsis) and hypotension (septic shock). Clinicians possess an arsenal of supportive measures to combat severe sepsis and septic shock, and some success, albeit controversial, has been achieved by using low doses of corticosteroids or recombinant human activated protein C. However, a truly effective mediator-directed specific treatment has not been developed yet. Treatment with low doses of corticosteroids or with recombinant human activated protein C remains controversial and its success very limited. Attempts to treat shock by blocking LPS, TNF or IL-1 were unsuccessful, as were attempts to use interferon-gamma or granulocyte colony stimulating factor. Inhibiting nitric oxide synthases held promise but met with considerable difficulties. Scavenging excess nitric oxide or targeting molecules downstream of inducible nitric oxide synthase, such as soluble guanylate cyclase or potassium channels, might offer other alternatives

The Arab world's contribution to solid waste literature: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Environmental and health-related effects of solid waste material are considered worldwide problems. The aim of this study was to assess the volume and impact of Arab scientific output published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) on solid waste. METHODS: We included all the documents within the SCI whose topic was solid waste from all previous years up to 31 December 2012. In this bibliometric analysis we sought to evaluate research that originated from Arab countries in the field of solid waste, as well as its relative growth rate, collaborative measures, productivity at the institutional level, and the most prolific journals. RESULTS: A total of 382 (2.35 % of the overall global research output in the field of solid waste) documents were retrieved from the Arab countries. The annual number of documents published in the past three decades (1982–2012) indicated that research productivity demonstrated a noticeable rise during the last decade. The highest number of articles associated with solid waste was that of Egypt (22.8 %), followed by Tunisia (19.6), and Jordan (13.4 %). the total number of citations over the analysed years at the date of data collection was 4,097, with an average of 10.7 citations per document. The h-index of the citing articles was 31. Environmental science was the most researched topic, represented by 175 (45.8 %) articles. Waste Management was the top active journal. The study recognized 139 (36.4 %) documents from collaborations with 25 non-Arab countries. Arab authors mainly collaborated with countries in Europe (22.5 %), especially France, followed by countries in the Americas (9.4 %), especially the USA. The most productive institution was the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, with 6.3 % of total publications. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the expected increase in solid waste production from Arab world, research activity about solid waste is still low. Governments must invest more in solid waste research to avoid future unexpected problems. Finally, since solid waste is a multidisciplinary science, research teams in engineering, health, toxicology, environment, geology and others must be formulated to produce research in solid waste from different scientific aspects

Welded Joints Behaviour in Service with Special Reference to Pressure Equipment

Quality and structural integrity of welded pressure equipment are defined by The Pressure Equipment Directive (97/23/EC). The problem is complex, due to welded joint imperfections, matching effect, heterogeneity of microstructure and material properties. Equipment can be fit for service with defects unacceptable by codes, what should be proved by fracture mechanics approach, especially for cracks in the heat-affected-zone

Editorial: Libyan Journal of Medicine among top journals in African and Arab countries

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