Population Density, Developmental Period and Fecundity of Anopheles Mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) in the Gezira State, Sudan

In the Gezira State, insecticides were used for many years for controlling mosquitoes and other agricultural pests. The objective of this work was to study the population density, the developmental periods the reproductive periods and the fecundity of Anopheles mosquitoes in the Gezira State, Sudan. The study was conducted in three sites; Elmanagel, Elhosh and Wad Medani.Ten of one-day old or less of the cultured adult males and females of A. pharoensis wewe transferred separately to cage. The female pre-oviposition period, daily number of eggs deposited, the oviposition period, the post oviposition period, the adult longevity and the average number of eggs per female were recorded. The results revealed that, the number of A.arabiensis larvae collected from  the three sites was higher than that of A. pharoensis and A. funestus during the two seasons (2009 and 2010). The number of A. funestus adults collected at Wad Medani site during the two seasons was lowest than that collected from El Managel and El Hosh. The incubation period of the eggs, was relatively similar in all Anopheles species, as same as the larval period. The pupal period was relatively longer in A. funestus (2.4 days) and A. pharoensis (2.2 days) than in A.arabiensis (2 days). Adult A. pharoensis lived relatively longer (21 days) than A arabiensis and A. funestus (20 days). The total life cycle was relatively longer (32 days) in A. pharoensis than in A. arabiensis and A. funestus (30 days for each). Females of all species of Anopheles mosquito oviposited after one day from their emergence from the pupae and took also one day before they oviposit again. The oviposition period was significantly longer in A. arabiensis (3.3 days) than in A. pharoensis (2.5 days) and A. funestus (1.8 days). The oviposition rate was significantly higher in A. arabiensis (191) than in  A. pharoensis (150) and A. funestus (79). The fecundity of A. arabiensis (624 eggs/female) was significantly greater than that of A. pharoensis (391 eggs/female) and A. funestus (141 eggs/female). Such study should be run periodically for all sites in the Gezira State and neighboring States. &nbsp

Establishment and parasitism efficiency of Trichogramma principium (Sugonyaev et Sorokina) on Helicoverpa armigera (Hb.) infesting cotton in Sudan

      This study was conducted at the Gezira Research Station (GRS) farm during 2010/11 season to verify establishment and parasitism efficiency of Trichogramma principium (Sugonyaev et Sorokina) (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) in eggs of Helicoverpa armigera (Hb.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) infesting the Sudanese cotton cultivars "Barac 67B", "Hamid", "Burhan" and "Abdin". Trichogramma was acquired from the Rearing Unit, Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC), at preimaginal (prepupal) stage, in eggs of the rice moth Corcyra cephalonica (Stainton) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Depending on numbers of H. armigera eggs / 100 plants, one release was done on each of Barac and Hamid and two on each of Abdin and Burhan. The release rate was 24,000 parasitoids /fed, at 7x7m distance between release points and 14-day intervals. Evaluation was done between treated plots with Trichogramma versus untreated. Observations consisted of the percentage of emerged parasitoids, percentage of parasitism and the numbers of the African bollworm larvae /100 plants. At the first release, the percentage of emerged parasitoids ranged between 71% in Barac and 86.4% in Hamid; the cultivars` average ranged between 60.5% and 94.8% and the overall average was 79.2%. The percentage of parasitized H. armigera eggs ranged between 22.2% and 60%. At the second release, the percentage of emerged adults ranged between 73.2% in Burhan and 82.1% in Abdin; the cultivars average ranged between 46.6 and 96.7% and the overall average was 77.7%. The percentage of parasitized H. armigera eggs ranged between 22.2% and 77.7%. The high level of parasitoid emergence declared a good viability of the released material, tolerance of the parasitoid to the local weather conditions and acceptance of the crop. The levels of parasitism reported were quite acceptable for this introductory release and first occurrence of the parasitoid in this new cotton agroecosysytem. A positive signal of migration from treated to untreated plots was observed through parasitized H. armigera eggs detected in the latter plots. The numbers of H. armigera larvae were negligible in both treatments. Accordingly, for proving potential capacity of establishment and parasitism efficiency against H. armigera, T. principium is strongly recommended for use on Sudanese cotton cultivars.   المقدرة على الاستيطان والكفاءة التطفلية ل  Trichogramma principium (Sugonyaev et Sorokina)  ضد Helicoverpa armigera (Hb.)   على القطن في السودان      أجريت هذه الدراسة بمزرعة محطة بحوث الجزيرة في موسم 2010-2011 للتثبت من المقدرة على  الاستيطان و الكفاءة التطفلية ل  Trichogramma principium (Sugonyaev et Sorokina) (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) على بيض دودة اللوز الأفريقية Helicoverpa armigera (Hb.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) على أصناف الأقطان السودانية "باراك B 67"، "حامد"، "برهان"، و"عابدين". تم الحصول على طفيل التريخوجراما من وحدة الإكثار بهيئة البحوث الزراعية في طور ماقبل التشرنق بداخل بيض فراشة الأرز  Corcyra cephalonica (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) . اعتمادا على عدد بيض دودة اللوز / 100 نبات، فلقد أجريت إطلاقه واحدة على كل من الصنفين باراك و حامد و اطلاقتان على كل من الصنفين عابدين و برهان بمعدل 24000 طفيل للفدان و على مسافات 7x7م بين نقاط الإطلاق و بفاصل 14 يوما بين الإطلاقات. تمت المقارنة بين الحقل المعامل بالتريخوجراما و الغير معامل. اشتمل التقييم على تحديد النسبة المئوية لبزوغ الأطوار المكتملة من الطفيل، النسبة المئوية للتطفل و عدد اليرقات في ال 100 نبات. عند الإطلاقة الأولى،  تراوحت النسبة المئوية لبزوغ الأطوار المكتملة بين 71% كما في باراك و 86.4% كما في حامد، و المتوسط  للأصناف بين 60.5% و 94.8% و المتوسط العام لهم 79.2 % و تراوحت النسبة المئوية للتطفل بين 60% و 22.2%. عند الإطلاقة الثانية،  تراوحت النسبة المئوية لبزوغ الأطوار المكتملة بين 73.2%% كما في برهان و 82.1% كما في عابدين، و المتوسط للأصناف بين 46.6%  و 96.7% و المتوسط العام لهم 77.7% ، و تراوحت النسبة المئوية للتطفل بين 77.7% و 22.2%. يدل هذا المستوى العالي من بزوغ الأطوار المكتملة على الحيوية الجيدة للطفيل المطلق، تحمله للظروف الجويه وتقبله للمحصول العائل.  تعتبر المستويات المتحصل عليها من التطفل مناسبة لهذا الإطلاق الإستهلالى و تواجد الطفيل لأول مرة على  هذا الوسط البيئي الزراعي الجديد للقطن بالسودان. هنالك مؤشرات لبداية هجرة الطفيل من المساحات المعامله لغير المعاملة تمثل في تواجد بيض متطفل علية في الأخيرة. كان عدد يرقات ديدان اللوز قليلا في المعاملتين. و عليه، و لقابليته على الاستيطان و كفاءته التطفلية المقبولة على ديدان اللوز الأفريقية فان ال T. Principium موصى باستعماله بشدة على أصناف الأقطان السودانية.      &nbsp

A Review of Ground Target Detection and Classification Techniques in Forward Scattering Radars

This paper presents a review of target detection and classification in forward scattering radar (FSR) which is a special state of bistatic radars, designed to detect and track moving targets in the narrow region along the transmitter-receiver base line. FSR has advantages and incredible features over other types of radar configurations. All previous studies proved that FSR can be used as an alternative system for ground target detection and classification. The radar and FSR fundamentals were addressed and classification algorithms and techniques were debated. On the other hand, the current and future applications and the limitations of FSR were discussed

The prevalence of blinding trachoma in northern states of Sudan.

BACKGROUND: Despite historical evidence of blinding trachoma, there have been no widespread contemporary surveys of trachoma prevalence in the northern states of Sudan. We aimed to conduct district-level surveys in this vast region in order to map the extent of the problem and estimate the need for trachoma control interventions to eliminate blinding trachoma. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Separate, population based cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 88 localities (districts) in 12 northern states of Sudan between 2006 and 2010. Two-stage cluster random sampling with probability proportional to size was used to select the sample. Trachoma grading was done using the WHO simplified grading system. Key prevalence indicators were trachomatous inflammation-follicular (TF) in children aged 1-9 years and trachomatous trichiasis (TT) in adults aged 15 years and above. The sample comprised 1,260 clusters from which 25,624 households were surveyed. A total of 106,697 participants (81.6% response rate) were examined for trachoma signs. TF prevalence was above 10% in three districts and between 5% and 9% in 11 districts. TT prevalence among adults was above 1% in 20 districts (which included the three districts with TF prevalence >10%). The overall number of people with TT in the population was estimated to be 31,072 (lower and upper bounds = 26,125-36,955). CONCLUSION: Trachoma mapping is complete in the northern states of Sudan except for the Darfur States. The survey findings will facilitate programme planning and inform deployment of resources for elimination of trachoma from the northern states of Sudan by 2015, in accordance with the Sudan Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) objectives

Mobility management enhancement in smart cities using software defined networks

Achieving sustainability in cities relies on effective mobility management (MM) that serves current and future generations. It involves establishing an inclusive transportation system to address many issues, like traffic congestion, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond environmental concerns, robust mobility management has social and economic advantages, fostering improved access to vital services like healthcare, education, and employment. Softwaredefined networking (SDN) presents a viable solution for enhancing MM within networks. Unlike traditional setups, SDN merges MM through a programmable control plane, streamlining network configurations and enabling features like handover, load balancing, and quality of service (QoS). The utilization of SDN technology extends to various facets of sustainable city networks, encompassing areas like network security, performance optimization, big data processing, energy efficiency, emergency management, carbon emissions reduction, intelligent services, and MM in vehicular networks. Despite the advantages of SDN-based mobility management, it’s crucial to acknowledge the challenges and limitations posed by traditional MM methods that SDN aims to overcome. The paper explores SDN’s potential in sustainable cities, focusing on how it can transform mobile device management, support various networking technologies, and evaluate the impact of SDN methods on existing MM systems, considering factors like scalability and compatibility. The paper asserts that SDN-based MM has substantial potential for promoting sustainable urban development. By centralizing control, adapting to changing conditions, and optimizing resource allocation, SDN can contribute to reduced energy consumption, lower carbon emissions, and more efficient urban mobility. It emphasizes the importance of addressing potential drawbacks to ensure successful implementation in sustainable cities

Phytochemical, antimicrobial and cytotoxicity screening of ethanol extract of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne grown in Jazan Region of Saudi Arabia

Purpose: To explore the phytoconstituents of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne as well as its biological effects. Methods: Determination of phytoconstituents of ethanol extract of the plant was performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. Antibacterial screening was conducted against the isolates of Gram-positive and Gram-negative microbes while the anti-carcinogenic properties of the ethanol extract on cancerous cells were investigated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) cytotoxicity assay against breast MCF7, ovary cancer A2780 and colon cancer HT29 cells, respectively, in addition to normal MRC5 fibroblast cells. Results: GC-MS analysis identified 15 different phytochemicals in the ethanol extract. The extract exerted significant antimicrobial activity with the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) in the range 1.56 - 6.25 and 3.12 – 12.5 mg/L, respectively, against all test bacterial strains. Cytotoxic activity, obtained by MTT assay, was 28.81 ± 0.99, 12.50 ± 2.50, 23.90 ± 0.74 and 50.58 ± 3.24 μg/mL, against the three cancer cell lines and normal fibroblast, respectively. MTT cytotoxicity results was further confirmed by clonogenic survival assay on MCF7 cells. Conclusion: This study highlights the potential interesting ethnopharmacological applications of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne to treat drug-resistant pathogens as standardized extract. Keywords: Acacia ehrenbergiana, Phytochemistry, Antimicrobial, Cytotoxicit

Conserved Quantities in Noncommutative Principal Chiral Model with Wess-Zumino Term

We construct noncommutative extension of U(N) principal chiral model with Wess-Zumino term and obtain an infinite set of local and non-local conserved quantities for the model using iterative procedure of Brezin {\it et.al} \cite{BIZZ}. We also present the equivalent description as Lax formalism of the model. We expand the fields perturbatively and derive zeroth- and first-order equations of motion, zero-curvature condition, iteration method, Lax formalism, local and non-local conserved quantities.Comment: 14 Page

May Measurement Month 2017: an analysis of blood pressure screening in Sudan-Northern Africa and Middle East

Elevated blood pressure (BP) is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10 million deaths each year. Sudan has the second highest prevalence of hypertension in North Africa. One in four people with a non-communicable disease has hypertension. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative, aimed at raising awareness of high BP to act as a temporary solution to the lack of screening programs worldwide. The MMM screening survey provided an opportunity to correlate between unique risk factors and BP levels among Sudanese population. Such an approach allows for directing efforts towards setting the appropriate preventive measures as opposed to disease treatment. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 was carried out in May 2017. Blood pressure measurement, the definition of hypertension and statistical analysis followed the standard MMM protocol. The study was conducted at 100 sites distributed in four states: Khartoum, Gezira, Blue Nile, and Kassala. Overall, a total of 44 413 participants were enrolled in the survey. After imputation, 7332 out of 44 118 participants with an available mean of the second and third readings had hypertension (16.6%). A total of 6956 (15.9%) participants were found to have hypertension of the 43 742 who were not receiving treatment. Among participants who were on treatment, 155 out of 374 (41.3%) had uncontrolled BP. After adjusting for age and sex, systolic and diastolic BP's were significantly higher in those receiving antihypertensive treatment, with a previous history of stroke and with elevated body mass index. Systolic BP was significantly higher in people with diabetes and with previous myocardial infarction. Smoking was associated with increased diastolic BP and decreased systolic BP. Alcohol intake as well as BP measurement on left vs. right arm had no association with BP reading. The MMM17 was the largest BP screening campaign ever held in the country. A considerable percentage of detected hypertensives were not on treatment with a significant proportion of uncontrolled hypertension among those on treatment. These results suggest that opportunistic screening can identify significant numbers with raised BP

Optimization procedure for intelligent Internet of Things applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is basically the concept and terminology of vehicular communications for Vehicles are becoming increasingly available in the literature. Applications for these are efficient traffic management, driving safety, and information services, which offer new service functionalities to extend efficiency for the network. In IoV, the vehicles carry advanced components such as actuators, sensors, and controllers to provide vehicle control functions and intelligent decision-making. The connectivity among vehicles is through intercommunication between devices, intelligent systems in the environment, and sensors [3]. There are three elements for a network model of IoV: client, connection, and cloud. The optimization technique finds the optimal result for sophisticated challenges by diminishing or exploiting objective functions that stand on one or more decision parameters that achieve the objective function value. This paper proposes a GA-based energy optimization procedure and assesses the performance over existing optimization techniques for intelligent IoT applications

A Novel RSSI Prediction Using Imperialist Competition Algorithm (ICA), Radial Basis Function (RBF) and Firefly Algorithm (FFA) in Wireless Networks

This study aims to design a vertical handover prediction method to minimize unnecessary handovers for a mobile node (MN) during the vertical handover process. This relies on a novel method for the prediction of a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) referred to as IRBF-FFA, which is designed by utilizing the imperialist competition algorithm (ICA) to train the radial basis function (RBF), and by hybridizing with the firefly algorithm (FFA) to predict the optimal solution. The prediction accuracy of the proposed IRBF–FFA model was validated by comparing it to support vector machines (SVMs) and multilayer perceptron (MLP) models. In order to assess the model’s performance, we measured the coefficient of determination (R2), correlation coefficient (r), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The achieved results indicate that the IRBF–FFA model provides more precise predictions compared to different ANNs, namely, support vector machines (SVMs) and multilayer perceptron (MLP). The performance of the proposed model is analyzed through simulated and real-time RSSI measurements. The results also suggest that the IRBF–FFA model can be applied as an efficient technique for the accurate prediction of vertical handover